Business development internship and apprenticeship: learning how to prospect

Business development: between prospecting and follow-up

A business developer looks for customers the company does not yet know, or for new uses among existing customers. The job is not limited to selling: it means listening, qualifying, rephrasing and passing information on. In many organisations the business developer works in tandem with a sales manager who handles the final negotiation.

An internship or apprenticeship in this field teaches you a complete cycle: identifying a target, making first contact, understanding the need, arranging a meeting, following up. The cycle varies by sector. It is quick when selling services to individuals, and longer when selling to companies, where several people are involved before any decision is made.

Typical tasks for an intern or an apprentice

Depending on the organisation, you will be given only part of this cycle. The following tasks are common; check which ones are planned before you sign.

• Building and enriching a list of prospects from public sources and the company’s own tools.
• Writing approach messages, follow-up emails and call scripts, approved by the team.
• Making qualification calls: confirming the contact person, the need, the timetable and the likely budget.
• Attending meetings as an observer, then preparing some of them.
• Updating the customer relationship management system after every exchange.
• Contributing to trade shows, webinars or referral campaigns.

Know the offer before you contact anyone

The first week should be used to understand what the company sells, to whom, and what problem it solves. Ask to read old quotes, to listen to recorded calls where this is permitted, and to sit in on a demonstration. A junior salesperson who knows the limits of the offer, the usual objections and the cases where the company cannot help quickly earns the team’s trust.

A good internship also provides regular feedback on your sales pitch: what interested the other person, what made them hesitate, which wording to rework. This feedback is worth as much as any course on sales techniques.

Keeping a useful prospecting history

A sales file is not just an address book. Each record should show where the contact came from, what was said, what the person asked for, and the next permitted action with its date. Without this, a colleague cannot take over the file and the prospect feels pursued several times by the same company.

1. Note the source of the contact: event, recommendation, inbound enquiry, purchased or public list.
2. Summarise the exchange in two or three factual sentences, without personal judgement.
3. Record the next step and its date, then stick to it.
4. Respect requests not to be contacted again and the company’s data protection rules.

Internship or apprenticeship: which one to choose

An internship is based on an agreement with your school or university, for a period limited by the regulations, with a payment once the length passes a threshold. It suits you if you want to test a career or complete a compulsory placement. An apprenticeship or work-study contract, in France either a contrat d’apprentissage or a contrat de professionnalisation, gives you employee status, pay that depends on your age and level of training, and a pattern split between a training centre and the company.

As an example, the business development manager bachelor at the CCI Le Mans apprenticeship training centre, at level 6, lasts twelve months with one week in the centre for every three weeks in the company. The exact amounts and conditions of a contract are set by the regulations and the applicable agreement, so check with the training centre or the employer.

Programmes that prepare you for prospecting

Several qualifications lead to these jobs. The French BTS in sales negotiation and digitalisation of the customer relationship, at the two-year post-baccalaureate level, trains you to prospect, negotiate, retain customers and develop a portfolio in an omnichannel environment; at the CCI in La Réunion it runs over two years, with two days in the centre and three or four days in the company. At the three-year level, the business development manager titles offered by chamber of commerce apprenticeship centres such as those in Le Mans or Moselle go deeper into sales action plans, prospecting and negotiation.

Vocational degrees, business school bachelors and master’s programmes complete the offer. Compare the rhythm, the place of the company and the recognition of the qualification before you choose.

Applying: showing that you listen and persuade

Many candidates think they have no sales experience. Yet raising funds for a charity, selling tickets for a student event, or a summer job on a till or in catering already shows listening, perseverance and a sense of results. Describe them factually: how many people you contacted, what the target was, what result you achieved.

For the interview, prepare a short pitch: present one of the company’s products in a minute, then ask two questions to understand the needs of a fictional customer. Recruiters look at clarity, courtesy and the ability to listen as much as at ease on the phone. Applying early, as soon as the work-study recruitment campaigns open, clearly improves your chances.

Fictional example: a typical day at a software company

As an illustration, imagine an apprentice in a small company that sells scheduling software to craftspeople. In the morning, he looks at the enquiries that came in through the website and ranks twenty of them by company size and stated need. He calls about ten people, summarises their answers in the system and flags three high-potential prospects to his manager.

In the afternoon, he sits in on a demonstration she gives, notes the objections, then prepares a follow-up email that she reads before it goes out. At the end of the day, he updates his indicators: number of calls, meetings obtained, follow-ups to schedule. On Friday, with his tutor, he compares his scripts and picks two wordings to test the following week.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Talking about the product before understanding the need: the prospect wants a solution to a problem more than a catalogue.
• Promising a deadline, a discount or a feature that the team has not approved.
• Qualifying badly: passing on a contact with no budget or decision-maker wastes everyone’s time.
• Neglecting follow-up: a meeting obtained but not recorded is a meeting lost.
• Getting discouraged after several refusals: they are part of the job, and analysing them improves your pitch.

Agree progress goals with your tutor, such as the quality of records or the number of useful conversations, rather than a sales figure that nobody can guarantee.