I need to be more than a great technician
Get confident with business development & start winning work – unlock all the tools you need to be able to progress confidently in your career in your professional service firm
Making partner is about more than technical ability & hitting targets!
If you want to progress in your career in your firm, you need to show the partners that you understand the need to win work for the firm whatever level you are at.
As you progress your career, you need to actually start winning work for your firm!
Does this feel incredibly daunting?
Are you worried about how you are going to “win work” because you don’t know how and there aren’t enough hours in the day?
Perhaps you baulk at having to win work – you didn’t envisage a career in sales after all!
But how do you get started?
1. You need to think of business development as your day job, rather than something you just fit in when there’s not much delivery work to do.
Make a choice every day about how you will do some business development.
The people in your firm who are successful at networking, business development and who eventually will win work, are the ones who choose to create a daily BD habit and then stick at it.
2. You need to create the time to do business development, and that often fits in with the need to change your mindset.
That means choosing not to go over your billable time targets too much, so that you do have some time to get business development done.
3. Choose a niche and stop being a generalist. To win work effectively, you’ve got to choose what you want to become known for.
This is a totally different set of skills than your technical skill-set so you may be worrying about how you can make this change.
Building these skills doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time – small efforts daily, weekly and monthly that add up to so much more.
If the thought of “selling” and “networking” brings you out in a cold sweat, then I am here to help!
My Progress to Partner Academy site has everything you need to learn how to:
- get into a business development mindset
- understand why you need to be more commercial
- make time in your day for business development
- create a BD plan that you will actually stick to
- get confident using LinkedIN to network & get referrals
- choose your niche
- become known as the Go-To-Expert for your nice
- Become someone who wins work for your firm
The partners will sit up and notice if they see you are putting in the effort to build a network, to win work and are thinking more commercially – no matter what level you are at.
This isn’t generic business development advice. This is specially tailored for you if you work in a professional service firm. This is for you if you are a lawyer, consultant, accountant, auditor who understands the needs to win work to progress in your firm.
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There are 14 Courses (workbook with video) in Progress to Partner Academy – check out these below that will help you get better at business development.
What else is inside Progress to Partner Academy?
Inside Progress to Partner Academy, with a Premium membership, you’ll get 12-months access to:
- 14 Courses (downloadable workbooks with videos & exercises) all aimed specifically at people like you who work in a professional service firms – our members are accountants, consultants, auditors and lawyers.
Work through the courses slowly at your own pace (you’ve got 12 months access!) and build the skills and put the habits into place that will get you noticed by your firm.
Courses include:
⭐️ How to make time for business development
⭐️ How to create your cast-iron business case for partner
⭐️ How to excel as a line manager
⭐️ How to delegate like a pro
⭐️ How to become known as the “Go-to Expert” (building your client portfolio)
Work through the courses slowly at your own pace (you’ve got 12 months access!) and build the skills and put the habits into place that will get you noticed by your firm.
There are also recordings of past webinars and workshops for you to listen to and learn from when you need them.
How to develop work from existing clients
How to use blog posts to generate reliable and good-quality work
How to structure your business development activity
How to build a team of introducers that regularly send you work.
How to generate a lead and get prospects over the line
Increase your bid/tender rate
How to win work in 30 minutes without leaving your house
How to get noticed and grow your profile in an authentic way
How to build a team of introduces that regularly send you work
How to go from coffees to instructions
How to become a rainmaker when you’re known as a great technician
How to be seen by your partners as sharp, commercial and future partner material
How to make the time for business development
Buy your Premium membership for just £290 for 12 months here.
Progress to Partner’s self-study courses will show you
How to be seen as a true Go-To Expert both within your firm and externally, so work comes naturally to you
How you can grow your own partner-sized client portfolio and be seen as a rainmaker
How to come out of your partner’s shadow
How to not spend hours on business development but still win work
How to demonstrate you think and act commercially so your partners are desperate to have you around the partnership table
Read on to find out about Progress to Partner’s self-study courses and guides:
Are you working every day/week/month on business development activities?
Do you have a business development plan?
Do you even know where to start?
How would you feel to have at your fingertips checklists, guides, short recordings and self-study courses so that you could focus exactly where you need to each day, week and month of your career?
Tax Director – UK
“Once again, thank you so much for your advice, support and guidance – our Managing Partner (sponsoring partner) said you are doing an incredible job as all 5 of the partners have noticed a marked change in my mindset over the last 3 months or so, from focusing on me and my team, to focusing on growing the business.”
The courses, guides and workbooks in the Progress to Partner Academy will help you make the time to work on your career…and work on the right things to get noticed as “one to watch” ahead of your peers
You can log-in to work through a self-study course module, read a guide, watch a video and steadily go through the workbooks in the Progress to Partner Academy.
You will have all the tools you need to be able to progress confidently in your career.
You will get noticed! Your colleagues will be looking at you, getting ahead and wondering how you are doing it!
It’s like having a Netflix account for your career – find what you need to watch or read at the time you need it. You’ll have everything you need right there, it’s like a “go faster” button for your career. You can stop searching the entire internet (and not finding what you need). Unlock 12-months of Premium membership for a one-off payment of just £290
Stop keeping your head down and hoping you’ll be noticed. It doesn’t work like that!
Stop waiting for your firm to decide whether or not you should progress.
There are Game Plans you can work through (guides, recordings, course sections from all over the membership site ) including:
Game Plan if you’re a good technician but need to work on your client portfolio
Game Plan if you are 1-3 years from making partner
WEEKLY emails with suggestions for reading or a recording to listen to – just enough to keep you going and making sure you are working on your career each week.
Tax Director – UK
I really do wish I had signed up with you earlier, but I am delighted that I made the decision to join Progress To Partner …! The Managing Partner said I am a hot topic at partner meetings as they have noticed a huge change in my focus and are receiving excellent feedback from their own contacts.”
You’ll also be able to listen to our Quick Wins – short videos that get straight to the point when you don’t even have time to listen to a 30-minute webinar:
How to find and monetise your niche
How to use LinkedIn to get noticed
How to make the best out of a secondment opportunity
How to use blog posts to generate reliable and good quality work
Choosing a different niche when yours has radically declined
How to get the referral, not the partner?
How do I generate business when I can’t meet people for coffee
PLUS there are our downloadable guides and workbooks available for you to read and digest. These resources have been designed to help you think in the right way
Blogging made easy
Guide to creating a marketing plan
Guide to content planning
guide to creating a networking plan
Guide to creating your LinkedIn profile
The reluctant business developers guide to winning clients
Referralology
Choosing your niche worksheet
LinkedIn :10 point profile checklist
New Partner
Heather and the Team… shone a light on progression and, once the penny dropped, it was clear what I had to do – stop thinking about my own workload and winning work for me and start thinking about “our” firm and winning work for our team.
There are even self-study courses to work through when you need to find the time to work on your own career and to make the time for Business Development:
How can we help you?
If you would like to explore how our courses and corporate membership program, Progress to Partner, can support the professional growth and development of your team, please don’t hesitate to contact us using the form below.
Why Choose Us As Your Career Partner
Develop at Your Own Pace
Whether you are still preparing, actively working towards partnership or are getting ready for the presentation, we offer a level of service.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Partnership requires a variety of personal and technical skills. Play to your strengths and cover your weaknesses, track progress with our assessments.
Coach Led Programs
Our team is vastly experienced and can often unlock progress to partner with a switch of mindset. The insights and aha moments are what we look for.
Entry Level Program
Preparing early for Partner is by far the easiest way to get there in the end. In small and subtle ways at first, your skills and reputation inside the business emerges. Give yourself time.
Premium Monthly
This is often for the sprint, cramming and final preparation. If you only need to work on a specific area for a short period then this is the level of membership that lets you do that.
Premium Annual
If you have decided on the path to partnership and are actively taking steps, this program gets you access to everything, and us. Work through the areas of your assessment with us to guide you.
Heather Townsend is the leading global expert in what it takes to move from senior fee earner to partner – and when you get there, stay there. She regularly runs programmes to help fee earners take the step up to partner, and establish themselves as a new partner, for mid-tier law, accountancy and consultancy firms. It just so happens that she is rather good (and not really that modest either!) in helping individuals successfully market and sell themselves. Just the skills you need when you are aiming to grow your client portfolio AND make it to partner.
In fact, her clients have added over £1 million in fees to their client portfolio in the last year. Heather often works with private clients who want to drive their own career (regardless of the development options offered by their firm) via her Progress To Partner membership site. The membership site helps lawyers, accountants and consultants to:
She is the author of 6 books including ‘How to make partner and still have a life‘ (co-authored with Jo Larbie), ‘Poised for partnership‘, ‘The Financial Times guide to business networking‘ and ‘The Go-To Expert‘. Her books have sold over 20,000 copies globally and been translated into over 6 different languages and attracted over 200 five star reviews on Amazon.Her coaching style has been described as challenging, friendly but very supportive.