You didn’t do all that study and gain your qualifications to become a sales person. But that’s exactly who and what you need to be if you want to move your career beyond being a manager or associate.
Does the word “selling” make you wince? Do you see business development as something you’ll do later, when you’re less busy, more senior, or magically more confident?
You’re not alone. But if you’re aiming for partnership, seeing business development as optional is one of the biggest blockers to progressing your career.
In this episode of the How to Make Partner podcast, we’ll reframe what Business Development (BD) really is (hint: it’s not about being pushy), explore why so many professionals avoid it, and show you how to start building a simple, consistent habit that works for you.
Listen to this episode to discover:
- Why “being good at your job” is no longer enough to make partner.
- 6 common reasons talented professionals avoid Business Development, and how to overcome them.
- How to reframe selling so it feels aligned with your strengths and personality.
- The one mindset that future partners all share around winning work.
- Practical tips to build your own business development habit. Even if you’re busy or feel like you’re starting from scratch.
Tune in to find out how to stop passively hoping things will happen – and start making real progress on your path to partner.
Listen to my podcast on It’s time to get comfortable with the ‘S Word’. I’ve put the transcription below if you’d prefer to read the advice.
You can also listen to this episode on Substack and on Apple Podcasts
Do you ever feel like this?
Hello and welcome. Let’s talk about the “S word”. No, not that one. I mean selling. Or maybe your firm calls it business development or perhaps client relationship management, practice development, hunting, pitching, rainmaking. Whatever the term you use, does the idea of actively going out to win work make you feel slightly uncomfortable, maybe even a bit grubby?
Do you see it as something separate from your real job as a lawyer, accountant or consultant? Something you’ll get to eventually when you’re less busy. If so, you’re not alone. Many highly skilled professionals hate the thought of selling. They didn’t spend years qualifying to become a salesperson. But here’s the unavoidable truth for anyone aiming for partnership.
Business development isn’t optional. It is part of your day job and embracing this mindset is critical. This is the How to Make Partner podcast with me, Heather Townsend, the author of Points of Partnership and co-author of How to Make Partners Still Have a Life.
In this podcast, I’ll be highlighting some of the great stuff in our Progress to Partner Academy. New episodes are released weekly, so press subscribe so you never miss a new episode. Right, let’s get comfortable with business development. Why is this mindset? You know, seeing business development or as it’s commonly known, BD as part of your core role.
So important because the days when you could make partner purely based on technical brilliance are long gone. Honestly, even being a great senior manager or associate often isn’t enough anymore.
Now, to make partner today, you typically need to demonstrate that you can win your own work, not just some work, but enough work to build and sustain a practice that supports you and the team beneath you. You can’t just feed off the clients handed to you by partners indefinitely. Yet, despite knowing this, why do so many talented professionals consistently deprioritise business development? Why does it so often fall to the bottom of the to-do list?
Why is it one of the prime ingredients for the too hard box? So first of all, there’s six things. The first is time pressure. The reality of high billable targets often leaves only an hour or so per day for all of your non-chargeable work. That means admin, management, developing yourself and business development.
As a result, business development often loses out to more immediate demands. The second thing is delayed gratification. Business development is a long-term investment in building profile, reputation, relationships. The payoff is intermediate, which makes it easy to postpone in favour of urgent client work. Sometimes the path isn’t clear. What business development activities will work?
This uncertainty can lead to inaction or relying on luck rather than a consistent strategy. Dislike or discomfort. As we said, many professionals dislike the idea of selling. They fear being seen as pushy or salesy, so they avoid it altogether. Maybe the activities they think they should do, like public speaking, fill them with dread. Lack of know-how.
Many haven’t been formally trained in how to win work effectively. You know, waiting for quiet time, believing they’ll focus on business development when things calm down, a time that, let’s be honest, rarely arrives in professional services. So they’re those six reasons why we put at the bottom of the list that time pressure, delayed gratification, uncertainty,
dislike or discomfort, lack of know-how and waiting for quiet time. You know, all of these factors contribute to business development being treated as an optional extra rather than the fundamental part of the job for someone with partnership aspirations. So how do we shift this?
First, reframe what business development means.
It’s not about high pressure, pushy sales tactics. You know, the shiny-suit salesperson, you know, that’s all style rather than substance.
You know, the best business development, the type that works in professional services, is about helping clients buy. It’s about understanding their problems, offering valuable insights, building trust and guiding them towards solutions. It’s about relationships and expertise, things that you’re already good at.
Second, recognise it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Winning a consistent supply of work doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from consistent, persistent effort over time. You know, small actions done regularly compound your results. You know, for example, you know, the first ever trailer I put out for this podcast got, within a week, 70 downloads.
The first episode that I got for this podcast within a week got over 100 downloads. And now I’m getting hundreds of downloads for each episode of this podcast within a week. And that just comes because I’m doing the small actions regularly.
Third, make it a habit.
This mindset is so crucial that one of the key indicators for partnership readiness is literally about having a business development habit, doing a little bit each day.
If you want to assess yourself against any of the key indicators and I popped a link to the free partnership readiness in the show notes that will show you exactly where your gaps are in order to be ready for partnership. Now, we’ll dive deeper into forming habits in Chapter 8 of Poison Partnership and likely a future podcast episode. But the core idea is to embed small business development actions into your daily or weekly routine. So they happen automatically regardless of workload fluctuations.
And by the way, I popped a link in the show notes to Poised for Partnership.
Fourth, find your way.
There isn’t one right way to do business development.
You know, when I’m working with accountants, lawyers, consultants and helping them think about building that business development habit, I often ask them, what’s your best way?
What’s your favourite way to win work and what’s your least favourite way? And I often find that there are people that put their top stuff. You know, what is their top thing is actually for others, their bottom thing. You know, it’s so personal, you know, doing business development.
You know, some people excel at networking events, others at writing insightful articles, others at deepening relationships with existing clients. What matters is finding activities that align with your strengths and personality that you can commit to consistently and that you generate results.
You know, don’t feel pressurised to do things you absolutely hate, even if your partners are saying this is the best way. You know, if there are other effective avenues or ways to market are available. Now, embracing business development as an integral part of your role, reframing as helping clients and committing to consistent action is a non-negotiable mindset for making partner in today’s environment.
So shifting your perspective on business development comes from a dreaded chore to a core professional part of your day job. And backing that up with consistent action is essential for building your business case for partner. It demonstrates commerciality, productivity and your potential to contribute directly to the firm’s growth.
In fact, within our Progress to Partner Academy, we’ve got a great recorded masterclass on how to be seen as more commercial. Now, if you’re thinking, OK, I accept I need to do this, but I still feel uncomfortable. I’m not sure what activities would work for me or I struggle to find the time and motivation. These are exactly the challenges that structured support can help overcome.
The course, how to truly commit to moving your career forward, helps you build the underlying confidence and time management habits needed to prioritise business development. And within the Progress to Partner Academy, we have specific courses like how to create your business development plan and resources focused on networking and building your personal brand and finding business development strategies that genuinely work for you and your personality. I popped a link to buy the How to Truly Commit Your Career Forward course directly in the show notes for this episode. This course is just one of the 12 plus courses in our Progress to Partner Academy.
Also in the show notes, you’ll find links to my books, Progress to Partner, sorry, poised for partnership and how to make partners still have a life so you can easily find them on Amazon.
And as a thank you for listening, there’s a link for a 10% discount on annual membership for our Progress to Partner Academy, giving you access to a wealth of resources to help build your business development confidence and effectiveness. Now, that’s all for this episode of the How To Make Partner podcast. And for you this week, what’s one small business development action? Maybe reaching out to a client, sharing a valuable article or planning your next networking event that you can
incorporate into your routine this week. Remember to hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode.
Thanks for listening.
Join my Progress To Partner Academy and access all my courses and use the code PODCASTBP10 to get 10% off 12 months of premium annual membership.
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