Almost every engagement you have won came from a referral, a former colleague, or someone you met at a conference. It works, right up until the quarter it does not, and then there is no second channel to fall back on.
The frustrating part is that you have the expertise. You have watched a client take a decision you know is wrong, you have written the memo that explains why, and that memo would have ranked. It is sitting in a shared drive because publishing it was never anyone’s job this week.
So business development becomes personal reach-outs and a proposal you write on a Sunday. The firm grows in proportion to how many hours the partners can spend not delivering — which is the definition of a business that cannot scale past the people in it.
And when a prospect does search the problem you solve, they land on a competitor’s guide, book a call with them, and you never learn the enquiry existed.