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Rethinking Rainmakers: How Top Firms Multiply Talent and Drive 42% Better Growth
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Rethinking Rainmakers: How Top Firms Multiply Talent and Drive 42% Better Growth

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December 9, 2025

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Top firms aren’t growing the traditional way. Business development cultures that rely less on a handful of rainmakers and democratize BD activities across the firm achieve higher growth and overall better outcomes.

What You’ll Learn in This White Paper

This paper uncovers industry benchmarks from recent research, as well as provides a tangible framework for achieving a high performing business development culture:

  • Benchmark & assess your firm’s business development maturity
  • Understand the traits of top performing business development cultures
  • Gain clarity on the four steps to achieve a mature, systematic BD function

Improve Performance

Firms with mature, “systematic”, business development (“BD”) culture rely less on traditional rainmakers and are are overall higher performing, achieving 42% higher revenue growth, 60% less client churn and are twice as likely to achieve lateral hire success.

Business Development Maturity Model

There are four stages of BD maturity, with lesser reliance on rainmaker as you mature: Solo, Spontaneous, Structured and Systematic.

Five Obstacles to Firm Performance

There are five obstacles to firms achieving BD maturity and high performance, the biggest being lack of pipeline management.

Download Your Copy

Download the full report to uncover the four steps to achieve BD maturity and accelerate your firm’s growth.

Rethinking Rainmakers: How Top Firms Multiply Talent and Drive 42% Better Growth

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