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Business Development Associate

🆔 Job ID: BHADEE1
🏢 Industry: Sales / Innovation & Cultural Strategy Consulting
🌎 Location: South Africa only, Cape Town preferred
🕒 Job Status: Full Time
⏰ Work Schedule: Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM EST
💰 Salary: $10 - $12 per hour
🚀 Target Start Date: ASAP

About the Client

Cultivate is a management consulting and professional services firm that partners with large, science-led organizations to solve complex leadership, organizational, and workforce challenges. The client primarily works with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare, life sciences, and other highly technical industries, helping organizations improve leadership development, organizational culture, talent strategy, and change management. Their clients are global enterprises with complex buying processes, requiring thoughtful relationship-building and consultative engagement throughout the sales cycle.

About the Role

The Business Development Associate will support the Head of Business Development by managing the early stages of the sales pipeline, focusing on industry trends research, market research, competitor research, outbound prospecting, relationship nurturing, and opportunity qualification. This role is responsible for identifying and engaging prospective clients through personalized outreach, maintaining accurate Salesforce records, coordinating early-stage proposal support, and preparing qualified opportunities for the business development team. Success in this role requires exceptional research, written communication, organization, and CRM management skills, along with the ability to build meaningful relationships within complex B2B sales environments for large companies in target industries.

Key Responsibilities

Outbound Prospecting & Relationship Development

• Execute targeted outbound prospecting campaigns following account plans established by the Head of Business Development.
• Research target organizations, key decision-makers, and industry trends to personalize outreach efforts.
• Build and nurture relationships through thoughtful multi-channel communication, including LinkedIn, email, and other outreach methods.
• Manage outreach sequences and follow-up cadences to ensure priority accounts remain engaged.
• Identify market signals, company updates, and trigger events (e.g., client or prospect moves to a different role) that create new business opportunities.

Sales Pipeline Management

• Conduct initial qualification conversations to understand client needs, buying timelines, budget indicators, and decision-making processes.
• Advance opportunities through the early Salesforce pipeline stages, from Nurture through Discover.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date CRM records and reports, ensuring all accounts, contacts, opportunities, activities, reports, and tasks remain current.
• Track outreach performance, meetings booked, and pipeline activity, providing regular updates to leadership.
• Coordinate with internal teams to maintain Salesforce data quality and pipeline standards.

Meeting Coordination & Proposal Support

• Schedule and prepare discovery meetings for the Head of Business Development and Senior Partners / CEO.
• Compile detailed meeting notes, research, and account context before client conversations.
• Support proposal development by transforming meeting notes into professional PowerPoint presentations and pursuit materials. This includes review of materials for exceptional graphic and visual design with the visual design team.
• Collaborate with Content Development and Proposal Development teams to support account warming and early-stage business pursuits, including content development ideas and insights.
• Assist with additional prospecting, pipeline planning, and business development initiatives as priorities evolve.

Qualifications & Skills

Must Have

• 3+ years of experience in Business Development, Sales Development, Account Development, Lead Generation, or a similar B2B sales role.
• Experience conducting personalized outbound prospecting, account research, and relationship nurturing.
• Strong experience using Salesforce or another enterprise CRM.
• Excellent written and spoken English with exceptional business writing skills.
• Experience qualifying leads and scheduling meetings for senior sales executives.
• Ability to research organizations, identify decision-makers, and tailor messaging to different audiences.
• Strong Microsoft PowerPoint skills, including creating polished client-facing presentations and proposals.
• Excellent note-taking and documentation skills during client meetings.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple accounts, follow-ups, and deadlines simultaneously.
• Comfortable working with LinkedIn, Microsoft Office, Slack, and other business productivity tools.

Preferred

• Experience selling or supporting sales within consulting, professional services, leadership development, HR, talent management, organizational development, healthcare, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or life sciences industries.
• Experience supporting proposal development or creating client presentations.
• Experience working with long, consultative B2B sales cycles involving multiple stakeholders.
• Located in South Africa (Cape Town preferred).
• Experience working remotely with international teams.

Personality Traits

• Naturally curious with strong research and analytical skills.
• Professional, consultative, and relationship-oriented.
• Exceptional attention to detail.
• Highly organized and proactive.
• Strong written communicator with persuasive but thoughtful messaging.
• Friendly, courteous, and an active listener.
• Self-motivated and capable of working independently.
• Adaptable and eager to learn complex industries and client environments.