How to Read Your Business Development Capability Score
Your score shows how strongly each of the six business development capabilities is currently supporting buyer momentum. Use this guide to understand what each score means, where buyers may be getting stuck, and what to work on first.
How to Read Your Score
- 0 / 100 — Not yet in place
- 33 / 100 — Needs attention
- 67 / 100 — Mostly working
- 100 / 100 — Strong
Your Six Business Development Capabilities
Strengthen Your Lowest-Scoring Capability
Start with the article connected to one of your lowest scores. Each guide explores what buyers need from you and the decisions involved in strengthening that capability.
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Relevance →
Authority Lane
Give the right buyers a clear reason to see your expertise as relevant to their situation.
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Understanding →
Core Narrative
Help buyers understand your point of view, see their problem differently, and remember why your approach matters.
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Confidence →
Trust Signals
Show buyers why they can trust your judgment—not just recognize your credentials.
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Engagement →
Useful Next Step
Give interested buyers an easy, worthwhile way to engage and make progress.
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Conversation →
High-Trust Conversation
Help buyers think through their situation and move toward a decision with greater confidence.
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Carry-Forward Value →
Portable Authority
Make your thinking easy for buyers to remember, share, and use when you are no longer in the room.
As you read, ask: What is missing in our approach, and what would we need to change? Bring those questions into the Mapping Guide and Action Plan below.
When You’re Ready to Put Your Results to Work
Bookmark this page. Once you understand your scores, use these free tools to identify what is already in place, what is missing, and which capability to strengthen first.
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Authority Gap Ladder™ Mapping Guide
Map what buyers currently see and identify where momentum may be breaking down. Download and save the PDF to your desktop to fill it in.
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Watch the Mapping Guide Video
See how to work through the Mapping Guide and use your results.
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Modern Business Developer™ Action Plan
Choose the capability to strengthen and turn it into a focused next step.
When You Need Help Deciding What to Work on First
If you’ve worked through as much of the Mapping Guide and Action Plan as you can, you can bring what you’ve completed to a free 30-minute Capability Mapping Session.
Together, we’ll use your results to:
- Confirm the capability most worth strengthening
- Pressure-test your working diagnosis
- Clarify the improvement to focus on
- Define a focused experiment to run with real buyers
Bring your Business Development Capability Score and whatever you’ve completed in the Mapping Guide and Action Plan.
How clearly buyers can recognize their own problem, pressure, or decision in your message.
01 — RELEVANCE
What This Score Means:
A lower Relevance score does not necessarily mean your expertise is weak. It often means the connection between what you know and what the buyer currently cares about is not obvious enough.
You may be describing your services accurately, but buyers still have to work too hard to answer a more important question: “Why does this matter to me right now?”
Why This Matters:
Buyers rarely begin by looking for your expertise. They begin with a situation — a problem has become expensive, a priority has changed, a risk has increased, or a decision now has to be made.
The clearer the connection between that situation and your expertise, the easier it is for the right buyer to recognize that you may be relevant. This is the role of your Authority Lane: the specific buyer problem, trigger, or situation through which you want to enter the market.
Start Here:
Identify the specific buyer problem, trigger, or situation you most want your expertise associated with. Then make that situation the starting point for your message — not your services.
What to Work On:
If Relevance is one of your lower-scoring capabilities, focus on tightening the connection between your expertise and the buyer situation you want to be known for.
1. Lead with the buyer’s reality.
Start with what is happening in the buyer’s world rather than with your firm, methodology, credentials, or services.
2. Name the pressure they are facing.
Identify the trigger, risk, frustration, change, or business pressure that makes the issue important now.
3. Clarify the cost of leaving it unresolved.
Help buyers understand what continues to happen if the problem is ignored or the decision is delayed.
4. Narrow the situation you want to own.
Trying to be relevant to every possible buyer usually makes your message less relevant to the buyers you most want to reach.
5. Connect your expertise to the decision.
Make it easy for the buyer to see not only what you do, but when your expertise becomes useful and why it should matter to them.
Related Modern Business Developer™ Capability: Authority Lane
Your Authority Lane defines the specific buyer problem, trigger, or situation through which you want your expertise to become visible and relevant.
How quickly buyers can grasp what you do, why it matters, and how you see the problem.
02 — UNDERSTANDING
What This Score Means:
A lower Understanding score often means your value becomes clear only after a detailed conversation.
Buyers may understand individual services or capabilities, but still struggle to explain your overall point of view or why your approach matters. They may be asking: “What do they actually believe about this problem, and why should I see it differently?”
Why This Matters:
Buyers cannot value expertise they do not understand. If your message is broad, complicated, or filled with internal language, they may never reach the point where they can appreciate what makes your expertise different.
A strong Core Narrative gives buyers a simple way to understand your view of the problem: what is really happening, what buyers commonly misunderstand, and what needs to change.
Start Here:
Write down three things: the problem you believe matters, what buyers commonly misunderstand about it, and what needs to change. If those three ideas are not clear, your Core Narrative probably is not clear yet.
What to Work On:
If Understanding is one of your lower-scoring capabilities, focus on making your point of view easier for buyers to grasp, remember, and repeat.
1. Clarify the problem.
Be specific about the buyer problem or situation you believe deserves attention. Avoid describing it so broadly that almost any buyer could fit.
2. Identify what buyers may be misunderstanding.
Surface the assumptions, habits, or conventional thinking that may be preventing buyers from seeing the problem clearly.
3. Make your point of view explicit.
Do not make buyers infer what you believe. State clearly how you see the problem and why your perspective matters.
4. Explain what needs to change.
Give buyers a clear sense of the shift in thinking, approach, or action you believe will produce a better result.
5. Make the narrative easy to repeat.
Your Core Narrative should be simple enough that a buyer can understand it quickly and explain the central idea to someone else without you being in the room.
Related Modern Business Developer™ Capability: Core Narrative
Your Core Narrative explains what you believe is true about the buyer’s problem, what they may be missing, and what needs to change.
How much credible evidence buyers can see before they speak with you.
03 — CONFIDENCE
What This Score Means:
A lower Confidence score does not necessarily mean buyers doubt your expertise. It may mean your proof is too vague, too generic, too hard to find, or not closely enough connected to the buyer situation they care about.
Buyers may understand what you are saying but still be asking: “What gives me enough reason to believe this will work for someone like me?”
Why This Matters:
Buyers rarely act on claims alone. They look for evidence that reduces uncertainty — examples, outcomes, client stories, visible judgment, third-party validation, and proof that your expertise applies to their situation.
Strong Trust Signals make that evidence easier to see and easier to believe. They help buyers move from “This sounds interesting” to “I have enough confidence to keep going.”
Start Here:
Identify the strongest piece of proof you already have for the buyer situation you want to own. Then ask whether a potential buyer can find it, understand it, and connect it to their own decision without needing you to explain it.
What to Work On:
If Confidence is one of your lower-scoring capabilities, focus on making your proof more visible, specific, credible, and relevant to the buyer’s decision.
1. Make your proof more specific.
Replace vague claims with concrete examples, outcomes, evidence, and details that make your expertise easier to believe.
2. Connect proof to outcomes buyers care about.
Do not show evidence simply because it is impressive. Show evidence that reduces uncertainty around the results, risks, or decisions that matter to the buyer.
3. Match the proof to the buyer’s situation.
Buyers place more weight on evidence that feels relevant to their own context. Where possible, use examples that mirror the type of problem, organization, or decision they are facing.
4. Make your strongest trust signals easy to find.
Do not hide your best evidence deep inside proposals or late-stage sales conversations. Put useful proof where buyers can encounter it earlier.
5. Add validation beyond your own claims.
Client examples, testimonials, recognizable outcomes, third-party references, frameworks, and visible expertise can all strengthen buyer confidence when used appropriately.
Related Modern Business Developer™ Capability: Trust Signals
Trust Signals are the proof, judgment, examples, and validation buyers use to decide whether your claims are credible enough to keep moving.
How easy it is for interested buyers to take a useful next step before a sales conversation.
04 — ENGAGEMENT
What This Score Means:
A lower Engagement score often means buyers may see value in what you do, but the path forward is not obvious enough.
The next step may feel too big, too vague, too promotional, or too much like the beginning of a sales process. Buyers may be wondering: “Is there a useful way to learn more without committing to a sales conversation yet?”
Why This Matters:
Interest does not automatically create action. Buyers often need a smaller, safer step that helps them understand their situation, learn something useful, or experience your thinking before they are ready for a meeting.
A strong Useful Next Step reduces that friction. It gives the buyer a reason to engage now while creating enough value and momentum to make a future conversation feel like a natural next move rather than a sales ask.
Start Here:
Look at the first action you currently ask an interested buyer to take. If the main option is “book a call,” ask whether you could give them a smaller, genuinely useful way to engage first.
What to Work On:
If Engagement is one of your lower-scoring capabilities, focus on creating a next step that is useful enough to be worth taking and easy enough to say yes to.
1. Create a useful, low-friction next step.
Give buyers something they can do before a sales conversation, such as an assessment, diagnostic, guide, workshop, briefing, or other practical resource.
2. Make the value obvious.
Buyers should immediately understand what they will learn, clarify, or accomplish by taking the next step.
3. Lower the perceived commitment.
Avoid making the next step feel like a disguised sales call. The buyer should feel they can gain value without being pushed into a buying decision.
4. Connect the next step to the buyer’s current situation.
The strongest next steps help buyers make sense of a problem, gap, risk, or decision they already care about.
5. Design the next step to create momentum.
A useful next step should naturally lead to greater clarity, stronger confidence, or a better-prepared conversation — not simply collect a lead.
Related Modern Business Developer™ Capability: Useful Next Step
A Useful Next Step gives buyers a practical, low-friction reason to engage before they are ready to commit to a sales conversation.
How prepared the right buyers are when they reach a business development conversation.
05 — CONVERSATION
What This Score Means:
A lower Conversation score often means buyers are reaching discussions without enough context, confidence, or preparation.
You may be spending too much of the meeting explaining what you do, establishing credibility, or trying to create interest that should have been built earlier. The better question is: “Are the right buyers arriving ready for a useful conversation?”
Why This Matters:
A productive business development conversation should not begin from zero. The buyer should already understand enough about the problem, see your relevance, and have enough confidence in your expertise to engage seriously.
A strong High-Trust Conversation is less about presenting and more about diagnosing. It helps you understand the buyer’s current state, obstacles, desired outcome, and what needs to happen next.
Start Here:
Think about your last few business development conversations. If too much of the meeting was spent explaining who you are, what you do, or why the buyer should trust you, work on building more understanding and confidence before the conversation begins.
What to Work On:
If Conversation is one of your lower-scoring capabilities, focus on earning better-prepared conversations and making the conversations themselves more diagnostic and useful.
1. Define the conversation you want to earn.
Be clear about who the conversation should be with, what they should already understand, and what a useful discussion should accomplish.
2. Build context before the meeting.
Use your narrative, proof, content, and Useful Next Step to help buyers arrive with enough understanding and confidence to engage meaningfully.
3. Diagnose before presenting.
Spend time understanding the buyer’s current state, obstacles, pressures, and desired outcome before moving toward recommendations or solutions.
4. Ask questions that improve the buyer’s thinking.
Useful questions should help both sides understand the situation more clearly — not simply collect information for a sales pitch.
5. End with a useful next step.
Base the next move on what you learned during the conversation. The goal is progress that makes sense for the buyer, not forcing every discussion toward a proposal.
Related Modern Business Developer™ Capability: High-Trust Conversation
A High-Trust Conversation is a structured, buyer-centered discussion designed to understand the buyer’s current state, obstacles, desired outcome, and most useful next step.
How easily buyers can remember, reuse, explain, and share your ideas, proof, and value.
06 — CARRY-FORWARD VALUE
What This Score Means:
A lower Carry-Forward Value score often means your expertise makes sense when you are present, but loses power once the conversation ends.
Buyers may understand you personally while still struggling to explain your value to colleagues, decision-makers, or other stakeholders. The key question is: “Can my authority keep working when I am no longer in the room?”
Why This Matters:
B2B decisions often involve more people than the person you first speak with. Your ideas, proof, and value need to survive that handoff and remain clear enough for others to understand and use.
Strong Portable Authority turns your best thinking into buyer-facing assets that can travel across conversations, content, partners, events, and internal decision processes. It helps your expertise continue building confidence without requiring you to personally explain everything.
Start Here:
Choose one important idea or piece of proof that currently depends on you explaining it live. Turn it into something a buyer could understand, remember, and share without you being present.
What to Work On:
If Carry-Forward Value is one of your lower-scoring capabilities, focus on packaging your strongest ideas, proof, and language so other people can use them without needing you there to explain them.
1. Package your core ideas into reusable assets.
Turn your strongest thinking into frameworks, guides, assessments, diagrams, short reports, checklists, or other assets buyers can revisit and share.
2. Make your language easy to remember and repeat.
Use clear terms, concepts, and phrases that buyers can carry into internal conversations without needing to translate your message first.
3. Connect proof to the ideas you want carried forward.
Make it easy for buyers to pair your claims with the evidence that supports them so your credibility travels with the message.
4. Help buyers explain your value internally.
Give champions simple language, logic, proof, and tools they can use when discussing your value with other stakeholders.
5. Reuse what works across channels.
Once an idea, framework, or proof asset resonates, adapt it across outreach, content, partnerships, events, and future Authority Lanes instead of rebuilding from scratch.
Related Modern Business Developer™ Capability: Portable Authority
Portable Authority turns your strongest ideas, proof, frameworks, and language into buyer-facing assets that can continue working across conversations, channels, partners, and roles.