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Professional Development: An Effective, Individualized Approach to Business Development Training

By James R. Lovelace
March 30, 2009

In his book “True Professionalism” (Touchstone, 1997), David Maister addresses why many professionals, attorneys included, have a negative attitude toward the topic of business development. He feels it partly comes from “a profound misunderstanding of what business development is truly about.” He says that many attorneys have the mistaken impression that business development is similar to “encyclopedia selling.” For those of us tasked with training attorneys, this “misunderstanding” explains why many attorneys are reluctant to commit to business development training. They see the exercise as pointless because they do not possess the innate acumen or drive for “sales.”

Maister correctly calls this view “nonsense” and goes on to say: “Being good at business development involves nothing more than a sincere interest in clients and their problems, and a willingness to go out and spend time being helpful to them.” (p. 28) At Pillsbury, we recently teamed with Akina Corp. to roll out a training program that builds on this broader view of business development. To date, over 100 attorneys ' partners, counsel, and senior associates ' have taken or are taking this training. This article briefly describes our program and highlights feedback we have received.

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