Article · Professional Services

The BD hire who can coach partners

Training partners to sell only sticks when someone inside the firm reinforces it daily. That is a hiring profile, and it is rare.

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A conversation over coffee

Most firms have paid for sales training for partners at some point. Most will also admit that six months later, little had changed. External coaching creates a moment. Behaviour changes when someone inside the firm keeps the standard alive between moments.

The profile

The people who do this well are senior BD leaders who have earned the right to challenge: they have sat in enough pitches, won enough work and read enough rooms that partners take the feedback. They coach in the flow of real pursuits, not in workshops. And they are comfortable being the only person in the building whose job is to say the practice run was not good enough.

How to interview for it

Ask for the last time they changed how a partner sells, what the partner did differently, and what it won. Candidates who can answer in specifics are the ones who have actually done it. Titles do not predict this skill. Scar tissue does.

Buy training for a moment. Hire the person who makes it a habit.

I keep a close eye on the small group of people in this market who fit that profile. If you want to know who they are: charles@daltonhandley.com.

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