Sales processes and skills – MBD support for the nurturing gap?

October 31, 2025|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Management Skills, Marketing, Relationship Management, Selling|

At a recent PM Forum workshop (Selling processes and sales skills for marketing and business development professionals (MBD)) delegates from legal and accountancy firms focused on improving the sales processes and skills at their firms. Some were from large firms and others were from smaller firms. Their firms varied in the level of sophistication in supporting sales processes for fee-earners. And they were varied in the extent to which central MBD were integrated with devolved business development, relationship management and sales activities by the fee-earners. Fundamentally, there appears to be a need for more support as fee-earners nurture relationships during the early stages of the sales cycle. Sales processes and skills – MBD support for the nurturing gap?

Variety of sales challenges in professional service firms

Unsurprisingly, there was significant variation in the major challenges reported by MBD teams in improving relationships and sales outcomes.

Most firms have ambitious growth targets – set against a tough economic backdrop and fierce competition. This puts pressure on both resource-stretched MBD teams and time-poor fee-earners. This can also cause an imbalance of what the firm wants to sell compared to the needs of the clients and what they want to buy. Many fee-earners experience discomfort when they feel they need to “push” sales onto clients.

Culture and reward systems that are unclear about the expectations and responsibilities of the MBD team and the fee-earners with regards to business development. Who is responsible for what? Silos and protectionism are contributory issues.

This may extend into a short-termism where there are unrealistic expectations about what might be achieved in the short term in terms of generating new business

Fee-earners need to shift their mindset from technical expert into relationship manager. Transition from technical expert to adviser Accountancy firms are perhaps more likely than law firms to recognise the need for each fee-earner to develop their own portfolio of clients and work. Although some reported that there was still a perception that it was the responsibility of MBD alone to generate new business

Similarly, there was a feeling that “sales” and “selling” are still dirty words – with fee-earners preferring to talk about relationship management

There are inadequate data, systems and processes to support the effective tracking of prospects and potential clients and measure outcomes. As well as unreliable or incomplete data in CRM systems, there is the lack of co-operation from fee-earners in entering information about recent interactions with prospective clients and what they plan to do in the next stages of the sales process. Although it was noted that some delegates’ firms provided extensive sales enablement resource hubs to support fee-earners. But engagement proves to be an ongoing issue

A disconnect between what the MBD team does and what the fee-earners expect and need to help them generate new business. This may be exasperated where MBD professionals are in a central team as opposed to embedded with the fee-earners in a particular sector or service line

Lack of confidence, process and/or motivation amongst fee-earners to develop regular BD habits to initiate and nurture relationships so they can explore potential opportunities. There appears to often be a lack of understanding of what an optimised complex sales process looks like across different teams and service lines

Different skills needed for fee-earners – whilst technical skills and expertise are required for success in their professional work, in business development they are more reliant on softer skills such as emotional intelligence, commerciality, communication, questioning, listening and persuasion skills. Larger firms are more likely to have BD academies and training and mentoring programmes to support fee-earners in selling. Whereas smaller firms might empower more junior fee-earners with BD responsibilities

Large and complex firms spanning many sectors, services and territories – which can make it hard for fee-earners to absorb information and be best placed to recognise client opportunities beyond their area of technical expertise. Internal communication and training programmes to support fee-earners in cross-selling or identifying opportunities for their colleagues in other teams are sometimes disconnected from day-to-day client communication activities

The constant challenge of a lack of time for fee-earners to invest in the relationship management and sales processes which can be long and protracted in the B2B professional services environment

The relationship nurturing gap?

The disconnect between MBD professionals and fee-earners during the sales cycle was a particular challenge. Most firms are clear about:

Initiation of sales opportunities – The brand, profile, awareness-raising, thought leadership and lead generation responsibilities of the MBD team (assuming there is an effective dialogue about who is being targeted, their needs and the firm’s value proposition). And MBD’s role in producing events and activities that enable fee-earners to meet with prospects, referrers and clients at relevant networking events

Conversion of sales opportunities – How to convert opportunities once identified – with sophisticated pitch, proposal and tendering systems – guided by central MBD teams and implemented by fee-earners

But there is perhaps less clarity on what happens in the stages inbetween – which you might call the nurturing phase. This is the time after fee-earners initiate contact with the prospective client and start building empathy and trust. Through this process fee-earners need to constantly add value so the client dialogue continues and deepens. This then allows fee-earners to identify or create needs in the client organisations that allow the sales conversation to progress.

In my illustrative sales process, fee-earners can spend some time in the nurturing phase – talking to and developing the relationships amongst different members of the DMU Selling Basics – Detectives and DMUs (Video) while they explore client needs to identify an opportunity.

(Insert sales process diagram)

What is the role of MBD in sales and selling and in the “nurturing” gap?

To some extent, the role of MBD teams is clear:

Plan
- Conduct analysis and research into the commercial environment, client markets and sectors and the competitive landscape to identify the best opportunities for development
- Help fee-earners translate firm-wide reputation, relationship, revenue and profit goals into appropriate goals for their divisions or services into an actionable MBD plan where the target audience (and qualifying criteria) are clear
- Select the best strategic options to achieve those goals – and consider the division of labour between the MBD teams and the fee-earners to pursue those strategies

Implement marketing programmes
- Establish the right environment – whether this is the infrastructure of digital assets such as web sites, resources or social media channels or the appropriate brand positioning of the firm and its core sectors and services
- Design and implement communications activities that raise the firm’s profile within a particular audience – perhaps through the use of thought leadership programmes. To generate leads or opportunities for fee-earners to have conversations with the right people

But it can become less clear about the role of MBD professionals when we consider the later stages of the sales cycle – the nurturing gap:

Nurture leads and explore opportunities
- Support fee-earners in pursuing targets, leads and opportunities once they are identified through a structured process. B2B services typically involve a long and protracted sales process – with multiple stages over a long time period and involving a variety of decision-makers at client organisations
- Planning and preparing for the multiple interactions and meetings that take place for each prospective organisation – through the web of contacts at a client organisation as fee-earners build empathy and trust, add value to the client organisation and identify opportunities where the firm might provide services
- Equipping fee-earners with insights and ideas from extensive research to take to clients for each meeting to add value and ensure the conversations move towards identifying appropriate opportunities
- Ensuring fee-earners know the next steps required in maintaining the dialogue, building relationships and exploring needs towards identifying opportunities. And all the time ensuring that clients perceive value in each stage of relationship development

There is also potentially a gap in measuring progress through the entire sales process

Measure sales progress and success
- Maintain systems and data on the pipeline of potential and identified opportunities so the firm knows the potential future work load
- Track and prompt progress towards the conversion of opportunities into clients and work projects (and ultimately revenue and profits) – for the firm, each team and individuals
- Identify best practices to share with other teams and identifying weaknesses and ways to improve performance
- Engagement in team meetings where regular BD activities are reported and next steps planned
- Calculate the return on investment – whilst most firms will have detailed data on what is invested in marketing programmes, it is often more difficult to measure and track how much fee-earner time is invested in identifying and converting sales opportunities. And with longer sales cycles – as is common in professional services especially for large, complex clients and projects – extending over multiple financial years and divisions of the firm
- Ensuring the future capacity and resourcing and skills is recruited, trained and in place for when the additional work needs to be conducted

Conclusions

From the discussions, it seemed that there was a need for:

Greater strategic alignment and collaboration between MBD and fee-earners
Further education and training about marketing, relationship management and sales processes and how they integrate (and flex for different sectors and services)
More clarity over systems, roles and responsibilities to support improved relationship and sales outcomes
Better provision of data and support throughout the sales process

There was a discussion about the creation of relationship management and business development competency frameworks for fee-earners at the various stages of their careers.

Delegate takeaways

Image`	Idea	Action
Cat (adapt to personalities)	Sales process	Extract key insights from materials
Blue contact box (learning about individuals at client organisations)	Equip with skills for conversations based on questions	Plan follow up at start of campaign planning
Two ears and one mouth (listening skills)	MBD to assist with research	Finish the business development competency framework
David Cameron and Barack Obama (non-verbal communication and rapport)	Research survey for fee-earners to determine what they are doing (and not doing)	Report back on selling processes to the team
Sales process diagram (you can stay in a loop with clients while exploring needs and that’s OK)	Coach lawyers to think beyond the sale	Create a self-service hub for meetings
Body language (role of empathy and emotional intelligence during relationship development)	Decision Making Unit	Produce a basic selling process for people to adapt and follow
	Transition from technical expert to relationship manager	Ensure members of MBD attend fee-earners sales training sessions
	Fee-earner approaches	Incorporate DMU into sales planning
	Less is more (do the heavy lifting with planning at the beginning and refine approach later)	Sales enablement through intranet content, BD training and coaching programme and preparation for sales meetings
	Others’ pain points are similar to our own	Ways to improve the sales pipeline
		BD involvement in sales calls and meetings

Delegate poll results

How would you rate your sales and selling abilities?

29% Really low – no experience

14% Low – little experience

43% Average – some experience

14% High – A lot of experience

What’s the source of the majority of your clients?

0% Digital marketing

25% Internal referrals/cross selling

25% Existing client referrals

13% External referrals

38% Fee-earner’s sales and BD efforts

Are you mostly trying to sell to:

50% Large, global organisations

38% SMEs

0% Not-for-profits

0% Public sector

0% Individuals/families

13% Something else

Which sales objectives do you monitor? (multiple choice)

100% Revenue/profit

100% New clients/transactions

75% New leads, enquiries or opportunities generated

75% Pitches/tenders

75% Referrals and recommendations

63% Additional revenue from existing clients

38% New meetings arranged

25% Fee earner targets vs actuals (BD)

13% Opportunities

How familiar are you with the concept of the DMU? Selling Basics – Detectives and DMUs (Video) and recommended books (kimtasso.com)

50% No idea what it is

38% I’ve heard of it but don’t really understand it

13% We use it in some sales situations

0% It’s an integral part of our sales process

Where do you think your firm is weakest?

0% Focus/targeting

0% Awareness/interpersonal skills

88% Sales process/methodology

13% Discipline and motivation

What do you use to help fee-earners research sales prospects? Key Account Management (KAM) – Research companies (kimtasso.com)

75% CRM/Intranet/Internal systems

63% Artificial intelligence tools

50% Social media (including LinkedIn Sales Navigator)

50% Free online systems (eg Google)

50% Sector group information

50% Paid/commercial information/research systems

50% Industry/professional associations

25% Companies House

13% Other

How do your fee-earners reach out to targets?

43% Through a mutual connection

14% Through a direct approach (telephone/email)

14% Through marketing (responding to enquiries)

14% Through industry/business associations

0% Through social media

0% Through events/networking

14% Other way

How often are you asked to help plan sales meetings?

75% Never

13% Sometimes

13% Regularly

Do you think you/your fee-earners are mostly: Adapting to dog, cat and bear personalities – Better business relationships (kimtasso.com)

	You	Your fee-earners
Cat	63%	50%
Dog	38%	25%
Bears	0%	25%

Do your fee-earner use a framework to plan questions at sales meetings?

13% No

50% I don’t know

13% We developed our own

25% Our sales/BD professionals help them

How much of what we hear do we retain? Active Listening (Video) (kimtasso.com)

71% 0 – 25%

14% 26-50%

14% 51%-75%