Oct 7, 2026 · 52 min · 12 segments
🎙️ Join us for “Live with Sondra” with Molly Piveral, Chief Connector at Simply Molly. We’re diving into why treating Business Development and Sales as the same thing is costing you long-term…
Sondra ShannonHost
Which kind of leads me to our conversation today about business development and sales, and how you're saying they're not interchangeable, right? That's, that's, that's the conversation we're having, but a lot of leaders believe they are, and I'm curious, you know, what is that tipping point? Like, when does one become de- business development and one become sales as a function? Or if, as a similar function, if they're the same function.
... combined and relatable, like intertwined, but they are two separate functions and there's no real, you know...
I, I'm starting to work on where there could be some education around what business development is.
There, you know, you, you could learn about sales and selling hard and fast and being persuasive.
But business development, like, if we think about the functions of what that looks like, it's, it's broader than sales, right? It's deeper than sales.
It makes you think like the customer or put yourself in the space of the customer.
So if I measure the two against each other, one of the things I think about is sales is about closing the deal.
Business development is about creating the opportunities for fu- future growth, right? Sales is maybe short to mid-term lived from a revenue standpoint, where business development is about creating those long-term fi- financial goals that are sustainable over years.
Um, you focus on the qualified prospects in business development to get to that closing the deal, where in business development you're looking at creating the new markets, right? So sales are maybe measured by a quota, where business development is more about the long-term partnerships, the lead sources, um, a strong po- pipeline, your strategic partnerships.
It's like in ingredients of a cake, flour and sugar do not do the same thing.
But what I see is people s- you know, say, "Go get the next gig." Well, hol- hold on a second.
Which kind of leads me to our conversation today about business development and sales, and how you're saying they're not interchangeable, right? That's, that's, that's the conversation we're having, but a lot of leaders believe they are, and I'm curious, you know, what is that tipping point? Like, when does one become de- business development and one become sales as a function? Or if, as a similar function, if they're the same function.
... combined and relatable, like intertwined, but they are two separate functions and there's no real, you know...
I, I'm starting to work on where there could be some education around what business development is.
There, you know, you, you could learn about sales and selling hard and fast and being persuasive.
But business development, like, if we think about the functions of what that looks like, it's, it's broader than sales, right? It's deeper than sales.
It makes you think like the customer or put yourself in the space of the customer.
So if I measure the two against each other, one of the things I think about is sales is about closing the deal.
Business development is about creating the opportunities for fu- future growth, right? Sales is maybe short to mid-term lived from a revenue standpoint, where business development is about creating those long-term fi- financial goals that are sustainable over years.
Um, you focus on the qualified prospects in business development to get to that closing the deal, where in business development you're looking at creating the new markets, right? So sales are maybe measured by a quota, where business development is more about the long-term partnerships, the lead sources, um, a strong po- pipeline, your strategic partnerships.
It's like in ingredients of a cake, flour and sugar do not do the same thing.
But what I see is people s- you know, say, "Go get the next gig." Well, hol- hold on a second.
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