Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP
New Business Development Manager
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We're on the hunt for an experienced BD specialist to join our New BD team as a manager.
With a new firmwide growth strategy launched, and our marketing & BD strategy signed off by the Board, this is a great time to join the business.
What's the team and role about?
The New Business Development team works alongside partners to identify and pursue opportunities through the sales cycle, to win new work from existing clients and new business prospects.
The New BD Manager will manage a handful of BD pipelines, working closely with Sector Leaders, Business Group Heads, and Client Partners to identify, prioritise, and pursue commercial opportunities. This will involve targeting both existing clients and new business prospects to win new work and expand the size of our client base.
The New BD Manager is a commercial link between the stakeholder groups above, and M&BD colleagues in the Marketing and Knowledge for Growth team Knowledge. They will ensure that market and client insight is translated into focused BD activity, that partners are supported and coached to pursue opportunities, and that our marketing activity is effectively activated against priority audiences and pipelines.
What will you actually be doing?
Working alongside colleagues in the New Business Development team and across the wider Marketing & BD Group, you will:
- Support the Head of Business Development to champion a sales-driven culture that helps us win profitable, high-quality work from existing clients and new business prospects, expand the size of our client base, and cross-sell new services.
- Embed a pipeline management approach to tracking and pursuing opportunities through the different stages of the sales cycle with rigour and discipline, from identification through to close.
- Coach and support Client Partners on sales efforts with target clients and prospects, joining client meetings where appropriate and ensuring the right follow-up happens on opportunities.
- Establish Dynamics as a trusted tool for sharing information about opportunities and tracking progress, and integrating with Introhive to improve data quality in the CRM.
- Collaborate with Client Partners and client service teams to attend meetings with clients and prospects where appropriate, and attend relevant conferences, events, and networking opportunities.
- Work with Sector Leaders to identify major commercial opportunities, feeding client and market insight into our marketing plans to help prioritise the right audiences, develop new service propositions, and plan campaigns.
- Prioritise BD activity against agreed Sector and Business Group plans, ensuring that resources are focused on the clients, prospects, targets, and opportunities with the strongest commercial potential.
- Identify the sales collateral and assets needed to support our BD activities and pursuits, and work with the Marketing Planning & Campaigns and Brand & Communications teams to develop relevant, high-quality materials.
- Work with the Marketing Planning & Campaigns team to activate our agreed marketing activity against priority clients, prospects, and targets, ensuring that the right partners are engaged and that opportunities generated by campaigns are followed up and progressed.
- Support the Bids & Tenders team on pitches to clients and prospects in their pipelines, sharing relevant relationship, opportunity, and market intelligence, and proactively planning for future tenders, panel reviews, and strategic pursuits.
- Work closely with the Account Management team to identify clients for annual independent partner reviews and ensure that learning from client listening is used to improve BD activity, account planning, and CRM, and that specific client feedback is acted on.
- Work alongside the Bids & Tenders and Account Management teams to support transition and onboarding for newly won priority clients, helping to establish strong relationships and the foundations for an excellent client experience.
- Build strong relationships with colleagues in Womble Bond Dickinson US and across the Lex Mundi network to identify and progress cross-border opportunities and bring the firm's full international capabilities to relevant clients and prospects.
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Why should you be excited about the role?
- We're committed to growth and see BD as central to delivering that, so you'll be part of a team that has leadership backing.
- We've defined the markets we're targeting and our positioning, so you'll be clear about the clients and prospects in our BD pipeline and the opportunities we want to pursue.
- You'll spend lots of time in and amongst a group of partners who are hungry and all focused on the same part of the market, so there'll be lots of energy, conversations, and knowledge sharing between everyone.
- Working alongside the New BD team will be our Marketing Planning & Campaigns team. While you manage the BD pipeline, they'll manage the marketing plan, and you'll form a tight team working alongside the sector / market leaders.
- We're doing a lot more with our colleagues in the US, so there'll definitely be opportunities to collaborate on cross-border projects and international growth plans.
Who's this role right for?
To be successful in this role you'll need as a minimum:
- Experience of managing and progressing business development opportunities through the full sales cycle, including pipeline tracking, opportunity qualification, and conversion activity.
- Experience of business development within a B2B or professional services environment, with a track record of supporting revenue growth and client acquisition.
- Experience of partnering with senior stakeholders, providing guidance, coaching, and support on business development strategy and client engagement activities.
- Strong communication skills, with experience of building relationships and influencing stakeholders at varying levels of seniority across an organisation.
- Experience of developing market knowledge through research, competitor analysis, and client engagement, with the ability to identify trends, risks, and growth opportunities.
- Experience of representing a business externally through networking, client meetings, industry events, and relationship-building activities.
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What makes it great to work here?
We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. Our culture gives us much more of a human feel, emphasising that we're more than just suits!
As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing, and we're very happy to talk flexible working.
Through our DEI initiatives, we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Group, led by our Board Sponsor, which works with our colleague networks (we currently have firm-supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, neurodiversity, families, and women's career development, and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities, and sexual orientations.
We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long-term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right-hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.
We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team, and is not used for data monitoring.
We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.
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