Since I recently went back to consulting, and am marketing myself as a business development professional, I recognized that it was time to explain what my view of biz dev actually is and finally put it in writing.
Business Development is not sales nor is it marketing. It plays in the same sandbox, and has a strong connection to those areas, but business development focuses mainly on identifying, securing, cultivating and maintaining relationships that matter to strategic partnerships and/or the sales pipeline.
Business developers are rarely commission-based employees. They’re compensated for a high skill level and an innate ability to make things happen and get things done. They have usually progressed from sales or marketing and are able to create opportunities out of ideas that they’ve either generated themselves or perhaps found lying around being ignored. There is often a commission component to a business developers comp package, but it tends to serve as a motivational incentive or tool for success measurement.