Almost every consulting firm we speak to wants more rainmakers. Leaders want to shift the weight of business development away from a handful of overburdened founders or partners. They want more of their team generating revenue and more predictability in the sales pipeline. Building that capability inside the firm is your best option, but it’s far from easy.
We brought in a leading expert to help unpack the challenge: David A. Fields, author of The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients. In this session, he explores why rainmakers are so rare and what it really takes to grow them from within.
David started with some home truths:
1. Rainmaker dependency is a real risk…and a growth cap
David kicked off with some sobering data: in most firms under $50M, 90% of revenue is driven by just three people. The risks are clear - losing one of them can halve your income. But beyond that, the reliance on a few individuals sharply limits a firm’s growth, valuation, and resilience.
2. Most attempts to ‘buy’ business development don’t work
Hiring in external salespeople with a “golden Rolodex” rarely delivers, especially for boutique and mid-sized firms. The sale of consulting is relational, expert-led, and trust-based. Unless you’re in a commoditised, low-fee market, external BD hires are unlikely to succeed.
This perspective aligns with Prof. Daniel Muzio’s research on hiring rainmakers. We were fortunate to host a webinar with him in October 2025 called Why Your Superstar Senior Hire is Likely to Fail. Click here to watch that one.
3. Consultants are not coin-operated
Incentives and targets alone won’t shift behaviour. As David put it: “The incentives piece doesn’t work…consultants get into the business to solve problems, to help clients, not just to make more money.” If your strategy relies on dangling bigger bonuses, you’ll likely be disappointed.
4. Skills training is essential, but not sufficient
Standalone skills training, delivered in isolation, won’t make someone a rainmaker. Colin Mann, MD Honeycomb Consulting Skills Training agreed: “You’re going to have a fun day together and people will…go back to their desk and do whatever they were doing before. We have evidence of a broader programme (working), which seeks to develop the mindset component, motivation, inner game, self-understanding of where they’re trying to get to career-wise…then combining it with skills training, expectation setting and incentives.”
5. You can’t just tell people to “do what I do”
Many founders try to mentor others into rainmaking. But the traits that made them successful - entrepreneurial drive, risk tolerance, appetite for rejection - are rarely shared by the broader consulting team. In short, people who join consulting firms are not like people who found consulting firms.
So what does work?
David offered a proven 10-step roadmap for building internal rainmakers:
1–7: Foundation building (for the firm)
Committing to a 3-year investment (yes, really)
Ensuring delivery confidence so BD doesn’t feel risky
Clarifying positioning and messaging
Modelling the right mindset from leadership
Selecting and supporting the right people
Assigning responsibilities
Rebalancing expectations (lower utilisation, higher BD time)
8–10: Skill-building (for the individual)
Relationship development skills (Year 1)
Pursuit and opportunity management skills (Year 2)
Leading BD and coaching others (Year 3)
During the webinar David explores each of these in more depth, and responds to a number of interesting questions from the live audience.
If you’re serious about creating a scalable, resilient business development engine inside your firm, the message is clear: you can’t shortcut it, but it is possible.
If you want some help to figure out what that might mean for your firm, please get in touch. We are always happy to chat.
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There are several other ways you can interact with Honeycomb Consulting Skills Training….
Connect with Deri Hughes (Founder & MD) on LinkedIn
Connect with Colin Mann (MD) on LinkedIn
Book a 30 minute intro call with Deri Hughes
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