Business Development Manager- Services

Role purpose and portfolio

New business and account planning

• Owns acquisition of new logos within assigned markets, segments, and accounts and works toward revenue targets.
• Develops account-specific approaches and maintains qualified prospect and opportunity pipelines.
• Identifies decision-makers, influencers, buying centers, entry points, and potential client needs.
• Conducts comprehensive account research on business priorities, services, footprint, customers, growth, localization needs, suppliers, procurement, stakeholders, and pain points.
• Builds account plans, stakeholder maps, and actionable penetration and go-to-market strategies.
• Qualifies opportunities using a structured approach such as MEDDPICC or equivalent.

Prospecting, selling, and closing

• Conducts outbound prospecting through meetings, calls, email, LinkedIn, networking, events, referrals, and industry connections.
• Generates meetings and pipeline independently and with Marketing, channel partners, and the partner ecosystem.
• Positions relevant language services, secondments, or Content Lab solutions to client needs.
• Develops proposals and presentations, leads commercial discussions and negotiations, and owns deals through closure.
• Leverages partnerships to reach new markets and accounts and expands initial engagements into broader service offerings.
• Responds to and wins structured bids and RFPs, particularly government-driven bids, while developing repeatable pipeline.
• Develops quantified ROI and business cases for prospective clients.

CRM, collaboration, and market engagement

• Maintains CRM records and reports pipeline value, forecasts, conversion rates, activities, and expected closures.
• Follows up on opportunities, analyzes pipeline performance, improves conversion, and tracks win-back efforts on lapsed or lost accounts.
• Works with production, marketing, and other teams to shape deliverable commitments and customized solutions.
• Ensures a smooth transition from closed opportunity to implementation and account ownership.
• Attends conferences, exhibitions, and industry events to prospect and build client and partner relationships.
• Conducts regular in-person meetings with local-market clients and stakeholders.

Experience and qualifications

• At least 8 years of business development, new-business sales, or hunter-role experience.
• A demonstrated record of acquiring new clients, closing B2B deals, managing target accounts, and building pipeline from zero.
• Understanding of language and translation services and challenges in relevant market sectors.
• Agency experience, particularly in language services, localization, media, creative, marketing, content, or related B2B services, is highly preferred.
• Multi-product or portfolio-selling experience in agency, staffing, language-service, or professional-services environments is advantageous; consulting experience is a plus.
• Excellent prospecting, networking, negotiation, closing, account research, and business intelligence skills.
• Able to manage mixed-cycle and bid-driven selling, understand client needs, and translate them into relevant solutions.
• Strong commercial acumen, communication, presentation, influencing, and ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Proficient in spoken and written English and in MS Office Project, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint, and SharePoint.
• Willing to travel approximately 25–50% to the UAE, typically one to two business trips per month depending on requirements.

Competencies

• Behavioral competencies include adaptability, problem solving, initiative, teamwork, and working under pressure.
• Technical competencies include deal management, negotiation, customer relationship management, proposal writing, presentation, CRM and sales tools, bid/RFP management, and ROI/business case development.