Context

A professional services firm engaged Unison to design a tailored business development (BD) training program for senior leaders. Leadership wanted more than a one-off training: they wanted to ensure a consistent way of selling across the firm, and build habits that would stick.

The specific goals were to:

1. Increase BD activity and accountability
2. Standardize how senior leaders articulate the firm’s value
3. Align selling practices with firm-wide best practices
4. Build sustainable habits around relationship development and time dedicated to BD

Step 1: Align Leadership on a Common Business Development Framework

Unison began with the leadership team. In a facilitated workshop, we helped leaders define and agree on a unified sales process  that cut across service lines. We worked with leadership to define a structured approach to business development, organized into:

1. How to identify and pursue opportunities; and
2. How to advance opportunities into signed engagements.

At each step we aligned the team on the behaviors most predictive of success, and ensured they reflected the firm’s values. This became the foundation for the program.

Step 2: Codify Role-Model Behaviors

To make the program authentic and practical, Unison worked with leadership to identify high-performing professionals who already excelled at business development.

We interviewed each of these professional to capture their strategies, lessons, and examples. This content was transformed into a comprehensive training toolkit.

By elevating internal role models as teachers, we build credibility and made the training feel practical rather than theoretical.

Step 3: Train Managers to be Coaches

Training doesn’t stick without reinforcement. Unison designed a coaching layer into the program:

• Managers of newly promoted senior leaders were trained in coaching basics
• Each manager received monthly progress updates with data on participation and completion rates.
• Managers were provided with structured coaching guides to make their conversations effective.

This ensured that every participant had support, accountability and reinforcement beyond the classroom.

Step 4: Deliver a Meaningful Training Experience

In collaboration with the firm’s business development support team, Unison delivered a meaningful training program that included:

• Immersive off-site training sessions
• A resource-rich learner portal
• Weekly practices to build habits
• Monthly manager coaching sessions
• A final capstone: a judged pitch presentation

This structure turned business development from an abstract idea into a repeatable, scalable process leading to reliable results.

Results

Within six months, the firm saw measurable improvement:

• BD activity and CRM adoption rose by 7%
• Learners built lasting habits around BD time and relationship development
• Leadership gained confidence in the team’s ability to drive growth
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Most importantly, Unison helped the firm take what had once been black box skills of its top rainmakers and make business development success repeatable across the next generation of leaders.