Do you think it's harder to be a Business Development Manager at a small company compared to working for a known brand?

My response to a LinkedIn question asked about Business Development in a SME as compared to a Name Brand.

Here are my 2 cents having hands on experience working in SME’s and Name brands.
SME’s Advantages:
· Target Accounts: You are spoilt for choice. Normally, you can run free and work on any account you choose as there may not be too many Clients and too many other people working on them. Mostly you won’t be hampered by some other BD guy working on the same account from the same company. In SME’s communication is seamless and you’ll know who is doing what.
· Relationship: It’ll be easier to forge relationships and rapport in a SME as the number of people you need to know are lesser and mostly there will be 1 or 2 POC’s for each division or specialization.
· Multiple Roles: Most people may not find this as an advantage; however for me this is what drives me. Right from Lead Generation, Pre-Sales ( RFI / RFP responses), Collateral Building, Cold Calling, Meeting with prospects to closing the deal, you can actively participate as it’ll be your account and not many people will be there to muddle with it.
· Learning: Since you’ll be donning multiple hats, you’ll learn a lot in a SME. People will not shy away from educating you as they know your success is their success. You’ll learn firsthand from the experts than through an online portal.
· Energy: In most SME’s the energy and enthusiasm levels are higher as compared to bigger organizations. This is because you are the BIG FISH in a small pond.
· Faster TAT: You’ll see faster turnaround in a SME as compared to a Name brand. People will be eager to help you as they know you due to the relationship you would have forged with them, as the number of employees are less. You won’t have to interact with 20 different people to get one document.
· Focused Approach: Most SME’s would have done some things good and would have in house expertise to do everything. Due to which you’ll have to have a focused approach.
· Minimal Communication Gap: In most SME’s there is minimal or nil communication gap as you’ll get to know what’s happening within the organization either officially or through the grapevine pretty quickly.
· Change: Easier for you to bring about change within the organization. You can implement new strategies and process’s that best suit the company.
· Better Perks and Rewards: If you perform you’ll be one of the best resources if not the best therefore the company will try to do everything in its power to keep you happy. This will also provide you with a bargaining chip to get things done for you’re personally and professionally.
SME’s Disadvantages:
· Story: You may not have a story to tell to your prospects as a smaller company may not have done too many different things. Either the company would have done 1 thing in 10 different clients or they would have done 10 different things with a couple of clients. No specific industry expertise may be there.
· Lost Opportunities: Since a SME may not have a diverse portfolio of clients / projects executed, you’ll tend to lose a lot of opportunities. You shouldn’t feel disheartened due to this, you just need to focus on what you do best and sell that to clients. (This is kind of contradicting with the Focused Approach; however this limits the number of opportunities you can go after).
· Lack of Support functions: In SME’s you’ll find there may not be enough support functions that will be able to enable you to do your job better. This in turn will help you learn new things and also at the same time eat away your time to do the job you were hired to do.
· Financial Constraints: At times there might be financial constraints that will hamper your efforts. For eg: You may not be able to travel to meet a client or attend a conference due to budget restrictions.
· Scale: You’ll lose business because your company cannot scale up in terms of recruiting new talent and also retaining the current employees.
Name Brand Advantages: ( Most disadvantages of SME’s can be taken as an advantage here)
· BRAND: Since the company is well known you’ll be able to leverage that to your advantage.
· Easier to sell: Easier to sell the company due to the companies branding efforts most prospects might know about you.
· Options / Value Propositions: You’ll have lots of services that you can sell or propose to prospects as the company would have a wide gamut of experience. Industry specific expertise will be a major advantage when it comes to selling services to prospects.
· Best practices: A name brand will invest in best practices that you can learn and utilize to further your career.
· Learning Tools: In name brands there will be resources like online training portal etc that will help you garner theoretical knowledge.
· Scale / support functions / Lack of financial constraints: These will be the advantages that you can attribute to working with a name brand.
Name Brand Disadvantages:
· Policies: Too many policies that you’ll need to overcome to get things done. There will be set processes for getting things like Telephones, Laptops, Special equipment etc. Lots of approvals to get and process to follow.
· Matrix Organization: Most Brand companies have a Matrix sales structure which will restrict you to follow up or work with any account you choose. You’ll have a limited pool of accounts from which you will need to bring business.
· Communication Gap: Quite difficult for you to get to know about something the company has done in some specific industry that you are not involved. Unless and until there is a process in which information is shared, mostly you will not be abreast of things that happen in one part of the company.
· Small Fish: You’ll be a small fish in a big ocean. Unless and until you are able to stand out or ensure that peers and your bosses are aware of whom you are and what you have done, it’ll be very difficult for you to bring about change within the organization. There are chances you might get lost in the crowd if you are not able distinguish yourself.