How to make partner lesson 6: always make time for business development

In summer 2016 Heather Townsend revealed the 10 lessons that every potential partner needs to learn to an audience of 200 lawyers and accountants. In the sixth lesson Heather talks about the importance of always making time for business development Making partner is one of the hardest things you’ll do in your career.  That’s why I’m going to share 10 lessons that my clients have learnt on their route to make partner. And in today’s clip it’s lesson number 6. I knew something was going wrong but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  My client had disappeared, they’d missed a couple of our scheduled phone calls, they weren’t answering my emails and it didn’t feel right.  When I did get in touch with them they were so apologetic, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ve just been so busy with client work’.  And that was the point I realised that they probably weren’t ready yet for partner. What do I mean by that?  One of the key lessons that you need to take on board is that business development is part of your day job, it’s not just there for when workload is light. The lesson that my client learnt was that you need to have a non-negotiable amount of business development, that you’ll do every day, that you’ll do every week, that you’ll do every month.  Because the only way to get a consistent pipeline of new work is to do consistent amounts of marketing business development.  If you stop when the work is heavy, that is what leads to that painful feast and famine, which I’m sure so many of us have experienced at some time. So lesson number 6 for you to learn on the way to partner, is always make time for business development and see it as part of your day job.