Internship field
Business Development & Sales
A practical sales and business-development internship built around prospect research, outreach, discovery and pipeline reporting.
Week 1 — Market and prospect research
Identify a target market and ideal customer profile.
Objectives
- ICP
- Market research
- Lead lists
Tasks (3)
- 10 pts
1. ICP definition
Define an ideal customer profile with firmographic and behavioural criteria.
Deliverable: PDF.
- 15 pts
2. Market map
Research a market and identify five competitors plus their positioning.
Deliverable: PDF.
- 20 pts
3. Lead list
Build a clean list of 25 fictional or publicly available prospects that match the ICP.
Deliverable: Spreadsheet.
Week 2 — Outreach
Write professional outreach that earns a response.
Objectives
- Personalisation
Tasks (3)
- 20 pts
1. Email sequence
Write a three-step outreach sequence for one buyer persona.
Deliverable: Document.
- 15 pts
2. Personalisation exercise
Personalise five outreach messages using public business context.
Deliverable: Document.
- 15 pts
3. Objection library
Create responses to ten common objections without using misleading claims.
Deliverable: PDF.
Week 3 — Discovery and CRM
Structure discovery and manage opportunities.
Objectives
- Discovery questions
- Qualification
- CRM
Tasks (3)
- 20 pts
1. Discovery guide
Create a discovery call guide with questions, notes and qualification criteria.
Deliverable: PDF.
- 15 pts
2. Opportunity stages
Design a six-stage pipeline and define exit criteria for each stage.
Deliverable: PDF.
- 20 pts
3. Pipeline dashboard
Create a spreadsheet showing opportunities, stage, value, next step and expected close date.
Deliverable: Spreadsheet.
Week 4 — Sales strategy
Final projectTurn the work into a complete go-to-market sales plan.
Objectives
- Pipeline review
- Forecast
- Strategy
Tasks (3)
- 20 pts
1. Pipeline analysis
Analyse the sample pipeline and identify bottlenecks and next actions.
Deliverable: PDF.
- 20 pts
2. Sales forecast
Build a simple weighted forecast using opportunity stage and probability assumptions.
Deliverable: Spreadsheet.
- 30 pts
3. Final sales plan
Present ICP, outreach, qualification, pipeline and 30-day action plan.
Deliverable: PDF.