While staying in touch with current contacts is vital, revisiting past relationships can unlock unexpected opportunities and lead to exponential returns. Take a moment today to reach out to someone from your past. You never know where it might lead.

Business development coaching offers a multitude of benefits that can significantly impact the growth and success of a firm Here is a list of key benefits.

If they had gone into the process with clearer goals, they might have known what to ask for when they met with their contacts, including introductions to the people who could get them what they actually wanted.

Here are seven ways to thrive in a down economy by providing business development training to employees: employee onboarding, sales team training, business development coaching, remote or distributed teams, professional development, upskilling initiatives, and continuous learning culture.

How do you strike a proper balance between doing existing work and bringing in guaranteed revenues versus venturing into your network to pursue opportunities that may or may not work out The key is to know when to economize and when to promote.

In our most recent State of CRM in Professional Services Firms industry study, we learned that 40% of marketing and business development professionals cite seller-doers’ lack of skills as a top business development challenge. We also learned that 38% of professional service firms provide business development coaching by internal managers and 54% by external coaches. 

Most people in professional services have referral sources but managing those relationships can be like herding cats. Instead of the inefficient, laborious traditional approach, try setting up a curated referral group made up of proven referral sources.

If you look to technology to help with business development, Client Relationship Management would seem to be the obvious choice, and your firm likely already has it. According to our survey* of more than 600 small to mid-size professional services firms, 93% do.

But the research also shows several reasons why CRM doesn’t work as a business development solution.

You’re so busy juggling client work it’s no wonder business development often gets put on the back burner. But for many seller-doers, it’s not just having the time to do business development that’s holding them back.  Here are four tips to help and for Developing a Rainmaker Mindset.

As a professional services firm marketer or business developer, one of the many hats you may wear is that of a business development coach. It’s a crucial role and, if played well, can contribute significantly to your department’s success.

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.