Look inside for the best new hires

Small and midsize government services companies needto grow, be acquired or be gone. Building a businessdevelopment organization is a significant challenge buta crucial component of success.Most organizations rely on organicgrowth for a significant portion of theirrevenue. Our experience indicates thatidentifying the most capable individualsto build your business development team? and consequently advance revenuegrowth ? is both an art and a science.Many companiesview business developmentas a part-timerole, executed in tandemwith program orcapture managementresponsibilities.Individuals in theseroles have talents thatmake them good candidates for businessdevelopment. They bring leadership andmanagement skills; technical expertise;and client, program and funding knowledge.They understand basic goal-settingand have usually acquired the ability toplan and execute a plan.What you're looking for are differentiatorsthat separate the star workers.These include people skills, a grasp ofbasic psychology, and the ability to askquestions and gather intelligence.An information getter is better thanan information giver. This is a learnedskill, so providing educational and professionaldevelopment can help elevatethe thinking of almost anyone challengedwith a revenue growth role.In an organization, everyone who is incontact with a client is in a businessdevelopment role, whether they believeit or not. They should always be attentiveto any intelligence, feedback, concernsand areas that could increase revenue.It's amazing the information that's availablein an organization once the clientviews you as part of the team. Often, theintelligence that embedded contractorsgather surpasses the information thebusiness development team gathers duringroutine visits to theclient.Staffing the businessdevelopment organizationwith the right professionalsis a majorchallenge for most companies.There are specificskills to consider, a corporateculture to fit, and,to make your searchmore complex, possibly adistinct security clearancerequirement.When hiring fromoutside the company,one of the most vexingproblems we've discoveredis that even seasonedbusiness developmentmanagers occasionallyhave difficulty distinguishingfact from fiction when evaluating potentialhires. It's often more tempting totake a candidate at face value than toattempt to get beyond the BS factor.Without a sourcing process that includesthe skills to look for and questions toask, you're at the mercy of a candidatewho talks the talk but can't walk thewalk. So how do you ensure that theright people are on board? Take a lookwithin your organization for businessdevelopment talent.Some of the most successful businessdevelopment professionals have neverpreviously held a business developmenttitle. They arrive in their positions fromin the ranks of program managers, divisionmanagers and other personnelresponsible for assuring that your clients'challenges and problems are resolved.They are the individuals who have regularcontact with customers andare consistently successful inidentifying issues and positioningthemselves with influencers.As such, they mightalready be serving unofficiallyin a business development roleby growing add-on businessfor your organization.The key to sourcing businessdevelopment talent,wherever it may originate, isto seek individuals who areproblem-solvers and people-oriented,have business thinking,and are externallyfocused. Believe it or not,extroverted engineers andother outgoing technical professionalsmake great businessdevelopment people. They are information getters ratherthan information givers.