Succeed Early in Your First BD Role
How to convert government experience into early wins in tech business development
You arrive on your first day only to find that no one takes notes. They expect you to sell to everyone, particularly to the government sector you just departed from, while also mastering cutting-edge concepts on the spot.
Welcome to the tech world.
How can I thrive here? This seems impossible. I’m destined to fail. I should have chosen a security position.
But don’t worry, aspiring former federal employee. If it were simple, everyone would be successful. And you are not just anyone.
Clarify the Revenue Picture Immediately
Every BD hire is a bet on growth. Your job is to validate that bet quickly. Identify which contracts generate recurring revenue, which ones are up for renewal, and where new interest is coming from. If that data isn’t handed to you, ask for it directly. You cannot prioritize your time without knowing where money is coming from and where it could come from next.
Gain internal clarity before engaging in external discussions. Determine which sectors are expected to expand. Confirm the company’s staffing and budget allocations for those sectors. If growth depends on securing one or two major contracts, pinpoint this early to help you focus efforts and recognize areas you cannot overlook.
Check the expectations for the role. If no key performance indicators exist, build your own draft version based on meetings scheduled, deals influenced and revenue achieved. Share it with leadership. This shows initiative and forces alignment. Every early BD win starts with clear direction.
Build Proof Over Activity
Volume doesn’t matter if you can’t show results. Prove you understand your buyer by mapping how decisions are made. Identify who controls the budget, who handles technical validation and who slows things down. Track how that changes across business units. Then, get your notes into a repeatable format.
Use meeting reports to document insights that matter. Keep a log of every useful detail: what someone needs, how they frame the problem, what they’ve tried before. Connect that information to your product’s differentiators. Do not rely on Slack or your memory. Documenting this work builds leverage and makes you harder to replace.
If engineers or product leads support your sales cycles, respect their time. Don’t send them into meetings cold. Prepare detailed notes about what the prospect wants, what’s unclear and where you need technical backup. This makes cross-functional selling more effective and shows you can operate with discipline.
Prioritize Qualified Demands
Not every meeting deserves a follow-up. Sort conversations based on business value. If you can’t confirm budget authority or urgency within the first exchange, push for clarity or close it out. This does not mean being aggressive. It means managing your time like a quota carrier. In most companies, only a few deals will matter in a given quarter. Focus there.
Avoid early international outreach unless you’ve confirmed deal size. Foreign opportunities can sound promising, but often waste time. Prioritize qualified U.S. demand where your firm already has traction. If no traction exists, your job is to build it, one clear conversation at a time.
Make it easy for your manager to trust you. Keep your pipeline clean. Surface blockers early. Be direct about where help is needed. When you do this, you become a strategic asset rather than another person to manage.
That’s the real unlock in early BD success.
The hardest part of transitioning into tech is not learning the tools or adjusting to speed. It’s earning trust without a familiar blueprint.
For a structured approach to making this transition—including templates, coaching, and access to a private peer network—join Be More, Earn More. Don’t you deserve to land roles at Amazon, Anduril, Google and Palantir too?
