Before You Burn Millions on Ads, Try Talking to People

When most companies talk about expanding into new markets, the first instinct is to crank up performance marketing, localize the website, or spin up a regional sales team. But here’s the truth: you can’t scale what you don’t understand.

In one of my most pivotal roles, we were tasked with launching into two new regions — without wasting months (or millions) on unvalidated assumptions. The twist? We didn't lead with marketing. We turned business development into our market discovery engine — and it changed how we scale forever.

This article is about how we used BD to explore, test, and adapt before making any big bets. Think of it as a blueprint for market validation — one conversation, signal, and small partnership at a time.

Step 1: Redefine the Role of BD — From Seller to Scout

In most orgs, business development is tasked with creating pipeline or closing partnerships. But in an expansion scenario, we flipped the script. Instead of asking, “How can we sell here?” — we asked, “What can we learn here?”

We created a temporary role called Market Discovery BD. The KPIs weren’t revenue. They were:

• Number of qualitative conversations with ICPs
• Signals about market pain, behavior, and maturity
• Evidence of potential GTM fit (tools, processes, budget owners)

Our BD lead wasn’t armed with a pitch deck. They were armed with a discovery script, focused on learning:

• What local alternatives are already dominant?
• How are buying decisions made?
• What are the most urgent problems no one's solving?

Within three weeks, we had 42 interviews across 3 verticals — and some assumptions completely unraveled.

Step 2: Prototype Offers Through Conversational GTM

Rather than launching a new pricing page or funnel, we started by prototyping offers directly through conversations.

Here’s how it worked:In week 4, we began proposing lightweight pilots to high-signal accounts. Not via campaigns — via BD calls.

We’d say:

“Based on what you shared, we can spin up a pilot focused just on [pain point X], using [feature Y]. Would you be open to trying that over 2 weeks?”

The response rate? 60%+ interest. Why? Because the offer came after deep understanding — not before.

This helped us answer:

• What positioning resonates most?
• What objections are we hearing early?
• What kind of results move the needle for these customers?

Instead of writing case studies months later, we were generating real outcomes during discovery — and feeding those insights into product and marketing in real time.

Step 3: Use BD Feedback Loops to Design Scalable GTM

By week 6, we had real traction. A handful of customers had completed fast pilots, shared testimonials, and even introduced us to other local players.

But more importantly, our BD team had collected first-hand, structured intelligence that shaped everything:

• Messaging → We dropped “efficiency” in favor of “speed to ROI”
• Objections → We created specific assets to answer local procurement issues
• Ideal Customer Profile → We narrowed our focus to mid-sized tech teams with internal tooling challenges

We fed all of this into a GTM readiness doc, co-created by BD, marketing, and product. It was clear:

1. Where to focus
2. How to position
3. What was still missing

Only then did we greenlight regional ad spend, build local landing pages, and begin hiring.

Conclusion

Using BD as a market exploration tool — not just a channel — helped us move faster, de-risk expansion, and build real conviction before we scaled. In a world obsessed with automation and dashboards, it’s easy to forget the power of high-signal, human conversations. But if you treat business development as a learning engine, you get more than leads. You get clarity.

So before you launch your next region, ask yourself: Are you ready to sell — or do you still need to listen?