How a Business Development Agency can Help You Meet Your Funding Goals
You want to focus on developing innovative medical technology, but funding your research can often feel like a vicious cycle: you need money to demonstrate proof of concept, but you need proof of concept to secure funding and grants. How do you secure the funding you need, hit project milestones, and report those achievements to investors and grantmakers to keep your project growing?
A business development agency can offer the all-around support you need to meet your funding goals.
Looking for a business development agency: what to consider
The best first step is to develop a criteria for an agency that can support your research without adding extra layers of complication.
Here are some important factors to consider when seeking the support of a business development agency:
Expertise with custom reports
When you hit landmarks in your projects’ development, you need robust project reports to demonstrate progress. But while reporting on project goals and achievements can help secure funding opportunities, developing reports shouldn’t be your main focus. A business development agency can help you build the custom reports you need to make your project shine so you don’t have to take on yet another task to launch or keep your project going.
Setting up custom reports usually involves:
- Helping your organization get set up on a platform with custom reporting tools.
- Syncing all of your data on one platform to make sure no crucial data is left out.
- Conducting any additional technical implementations needed so that your custom reports stay up-to-date and accurate in real time.
Comprehensive services
If you’re seeking help with building reports, you’ll likely need other services to complement these efforts. Look for a business development agency that is full-service, meaning it provides a comprehensive range of services related to business growth. This can include:
- Helping your team use customer relationship management (CRM) software - CRM software can be used to visualize reports, manage your donor contacts, set campaign goals, track team progress, and create deal pipelines for your grants and funding opportunities.
- Marketing and sales automation - automating marketing and sales processes will cut down on you and your teams’ manual tasks and help you run funding campaigns more efficiently. Finding a business development agency with experience working on a variety of automation platforms can be a valuable asset to your project.
- Web design and development - some business development agencies have a team of designers and developers for your website needs. The benefit of hiring a business development agency for your website needs is that they can make sure all of your website data is functioning well alongside your other softwares and apps, such as your CRM or marketing automation platform.
Confirm that services are in-house
If you’re anticipating the need for a variety of services, make sure they are provided from an agency’s in-house team rather than outsourced to other entities. When working with sensitive data, outsourcing can put your organization’s security at risk and jeopardize communication, project timelines, and continuity with deliverable handoffs.
Understands FDA approval challenges
If you truly want to spend more time focusing on your project and less time scrambling for funding, you need an agency that knows the ins and outs of your industry. Waiting for FDA clearance can stall research and cause challenging delays in funding. Finding an agency who is willing to work with you to help address this pain point will set your project up for more success.
Experience in your industry
In addition to familiarity with FDA clearance, your business development agency should understand the way that your funding cycles, grant proposals, and project structure run.
Further, a business development agency with experience in bioscience and healthcare will be more aware of regulatory compliance standards and security precautions specific to the industry.
Sensitive data management
If you plan on using HIPAA-protected or otherwise sensitive data in your reports, ensure that your business development agency is equipped to handle this. Your business development agency should demonstrate firm security standards within their own organization, and be equipped to uphold your organizations’ data privacy requirements.
You should also confirm that any reporting platforms and business software they plan on using during the course of their service meet your compliance needs.
Looking for guidance with your next steps?
Finding a trusted agency should help your team reach your grant or project goals, not add to your workload. We’re here to help you through the process.
