Эксперт по B2B-маркетингу призывает бизнес не игнорировать «негативные» рынки ради скрытых возможностей

Damini Sood is a B2B marketing strategist focused on enhancing small business competitiveness through supply chain and tech innovations. The markets that need technology, connectivity and operational solutions the most are not always the ones that get the most attention. Many business development teams chase the same accounts, territories and “hot” markets while overlooking markets labeled risky, declining or difficult. I’ve seen this repeatedly in my work with small businesses and technology adoption. Avoiding a market based on reputation rather than evidence can be costly. Often, the biggest opportunities lie in the territories or industries others have stopped pursuing. Communities labeled economically distressed, because of lower employment, underused property, aging infrastructure or declining investment, can quickly be dismissed as unattractive. But a label is not a business case. Investors may see risk. A business developer should see a question: What has changed since the market earned that reputation? It is as much a business development issue as an economic development one. Accounts, territories and partner categories are often treated the same way. When a market earns a reputation as saturated, risky or declining, pipeline activity quietly disappears, regardless of whether that reputation still reflects current realities. The Reframe: Distress Signals Can Be Mispriced Inputs A more productive approach is to look at overlooked markets as potential high-opportunity areas and ask a different question: What do low real estate costs, underused infrastructure, available talent or limited competition mean to the right operator? For a small manufacturer or assembler, they may translate to lower facility costs, access to a workforce that is not competing with dozens of employers and industrial space that already exists. The same principle applies to technology. In my experience, technology adoption does not always happen in the most sophisticated markets first. Sometimes the greatest opportunity exists where businesses have been underserved, where legacy systems are still being used or where a relatively simple technology solution can produce an outsized operational improvement. The facts may be identical. What changes is how those facts are interpreted. That distinction matters because small business economic activity accounts for 43.5% of U.S. gross domestic product, and small businesses employ 45.9% of private-sector workers. With small businesses representing such a significant part of the economy, the markets in which they operate cannot simply be dismissed because they look less attractive on a conventional dashboard. Business development organizations encounter this kind of mispricing more often than they admit. They write off a regional account after one poor renewal cycle. They deprioritize a region because a competitor arrived years ago and claimed the market. They ignore a partner category because an earlier effort moved too quickly and damaged the relationship. The data supporting those decisions may still be accurate. The problem is that it may no longer be complete. Conditions change. Technology changes. Competitors change. Customer expectations change. Yet organizations often continue operating from decisions made two or three years earlier. Where The Real Opportunity Lies: The Connective Tissue The real question is what happens after you recognize an overlooked opportunity. Underserved communities often have workforce programs, community colleges, chambers of commerce, economic development organizations and technology providers, but they frequently operate independently. Training programs may lack employer pipelines, manufacturers may overlook local talent and technology providers may miss the broader needs of the businesses they serve. Strong initiatives run in parallel instead of reinforcing one another. The same disconnect causes business-to-business (B2B) growth strategies to stall. Marketing generates a lead and sales closes the deal, but customer success may never understand the customer’s broader objectives, while partnerships miss potential referral opportunities. It's the same thing I've seen with small businesses adopting technology: The technology is rarely the hardest part. The real challenge is connecting the solution to the business need, the people implementing it and the opportunities that relationship can create. Nothing is necessarily broken, but nothing is connected either. The solution is often a formal alliance structure linking existing institutions and stakeholders through shared metrics, clear ownership and intentional handoffs. At a regional level, that is a governance model. At the business development level, it is simply good account planning. Business development, done well, creates the connective tissue between stakeholders who each hold part of the answer but lack a shared view of the whole. The Market-Timing Argument Is Real There is another reason business development leaders should pay attention to overlooked markets: Supply chains are changing. Reshoring and domestic sourcing have gained momentum as companies reassess supply chain resilience, geopolitical risk, transportation costs and dependence on overseas suppliers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has highlighted reshoring as an opportunity for small- and medium-sized manufacturers seeking more resilient domestic supply chains. The Reshoring Initiative reports that reshoring and foreign direct investment accounted for 244,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs in 2024. These trends create opportunities beyond headline projects. Large manufacturers and infrastructure investments tend to generate demand for smaller suppliers, technology providers, logistics companies and service businesses. Agile operators can win by identifying these kinds of needs before they become obvious. Look Beyond The Label Not every business developer needs to become an expert in economic development policy, manufacturing incentives or workforce programs. But there is a transferable habit worth adopting: Periodically reassess the markets, accounts and partner categories your organization has quietly written off. Use today’s facts instead of yesterday’s reputation. Ask: • What has changed in this market? • What technology or infrastructure is now available that was not available before? • Has competition increased, or has everyone simply assumed it has? • Are customers facing a new problem that our existing solution can address? • Which businesses are growing despite the market’s reputation? I’ve learned that the best opportunities are not always in the biggest markets or highest-value accounts. Often, they are found where others have stopped looking. Business development is about recognizing emerging demand before it becomes obvious. Markets that are written off rarely stay that way. The question is whether your organization will recognize the opportunity first. Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives. Do I qualify?