At Ackert, knowing selling professional services is much more a marathon than a sprint, we have long been strong proponents of a Systematic Approach for Business Development. Recently we discovered a valuable infographic that supports many of our findings from The Rain Group, a fellow firm that offers sales coaching to professional service firms and several other industries as well.

Addressing the disconnect between the business development team’s (and the firm’s) strategic goals and the seller-doers’ desires requires a culture change that can be difficult to achieve without external resources. That’s why more than 70% of U.S. firms adopt business development training and coaching programs.  

Based on the 2021 PipelinePlus TRAINER video viewing data of more than 800 users, here are the top three business development topics you should focus on to help propel seller-doers to business development success.

Helping lawyers develop and implement business development plans is one of marketing and BD professionals’ most daunting tasks. However, doing it effectively is the key to a BD team’s success.  

If you’re looking for ideas to take your business development to new levels in 2022, here’s a checklist of tips that will get you well on your way.

Whether you’re already using it or including it in next year’s budget, we want to make sure you optimize the PipelinePlus Platform to help meet your 2022 goals. Here are six top tips from PipelinePlus Platform power user firms.

We created the PipelinePlus Platform solution to be the perfect complement to professional service firms’ CRMs. Here are the top three ways PipelinePlus optimizes business development that your CRM can’t.

Let’s face it, the mundane business of keeping on top of business development can be tedious.

That’s why we specifically designed the PipelinePlus Platform to make business development simple, fast, and engaging. Here are the top five ways.

In our 2021 State of Business Development Coaching and Training at Law Firms, we learned that, on average, firms invest 5% of their marketing budgets in coaching, and 79% of firms have implemented a business development coaching and training program. 

Competition today is fiercer than ever as professional services firms increase their investments in the technologies that can help them attract, target, and acquire new business. Firm leaders who used to view client development as a function reserved for rainmakers look for ways to leverage contributions more broadly across the firm, and marketers work hard to keep up with increasing demands. But one thing hasn’t changed: seller-doers such as lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, and consultants continue to resist the idea of “selling.”

Today’s top talent is not only interested in compensation but in skills development that helps them advance through their careers. Is your firm enabling the next generation of talent to become effective business developers? 

In the seller-doer model, business development is typically an afterthought, and any platform that enables it will have to compete with the technologies that enable client service.

That’s not to say that sales enablement software won’t work in the context of law, accounting, or other advisory firms, but it must be driven by the following seven best practices.