When a Washington DC investment bank asks a marketing consultant based in Kent to fly over and speak to their entire team, you say yes.

That’s how last summer’s programme started. A middle-market investment bank of around 55 people, part of a larger banking group, offering M&A advisory alongside its wider corporate finance services. They invited me to design and deliver the business development element of their annual offsite. Three sessions across two days, in front of everyone from first-year analysts to managing directors with 30 years behind them.

It was my first international speaking and facilitation engagement, and it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable pieces of work I’ve done.

Why they got in touch

Most banks and advisory businesses don’t have a business development problem. They have a consistency problem.

Growth at this firm had come almost entirely through referrals and long-standing relationships, and it had worked well. The concern from the leadership team wasn’t that BD was failing. It was that nobody could really explain how it worked, which makes it very hard to repeat, teach or grow.

They wanted three things. Get everyone thinking commercially. Give the juniors permission and practical tools to start early. Help the senior team shift from reactive to intentional.

Discovery came first

I never design a workshop before I understand the firm, so the programme started with a leadership discovery session followed by ten one-to-one interviews across the leadership team, the senior bankers and the juniors.

Those conversations shaped everything. They surfaced the things people say quietly rather than in a group setting. Juniors weren’t sure at what point BD became their job. Seniors were confident with the relationships they already had, less confident about building new ones deliberately. And several people described the same frustration in almost identical words, which is always a useful signal.

I anonymised all of it by role rather than by name. That meant people could be honest with me, and I could still use what they said.

Three sessions, deliberately different

Rather than repeat one session three times, I designed three connected sessions with a shared thread and different jobs to do.

Be Remembered was the firm-wide opener. Everyone in the room together, setting the tone for the programme and making the point that reputation isn’t only a banker’s responsibility.

Build Before You Need It was a two hour session for the analysts and associates, covering personal brand, LinkedIn done properly within their compliance rules, networking with intent, and building relationships long before you need them. They left with a printed toolkit they could use the following Monday.

Pipeline by Design was a two hour session for the VPs, directors and managing directors. Auditing their current client mix, defining who they really want to work with, mapping the deal ecosystem around them, and writing an actual plan rather than carrying one around in their heads.

Every session used the firm’s own words. Anonymised quotes from the discovery interviews went up on the wall, and the exercises used their sectors, their clients and their live opportunities rather than generic case studies. I also produced a written findings and recommendations report for the leadership team afterwards, so the thinking didn’t leave the building with me.

The conversations that happen afterwards

What I don’t think I hadn’t fully appreciated before I went as that the sessions are only half of it.

The most interesting conversations happened in the gaps. During coffee, in the corridor, and in the queue at the end when people wait for everyone else to leave before they say the thing they actually wanted to say.

One person wanted to talk through how to reconnect with a contact they’d let go cold for two years and felt awkward about. Another wanted a second opinion on a sector they’d been quietly building a reputation in and weren’t sure anyone had noticed. A few of the juniors came up simply to check that what they’d heard was real, that they were genuinely allowed to start now rather than waiting to be told.

Those conversations tell you the material landed. People don’t seek you out to discuss a slide. They seek you out because something you said connected with a situation they’re sitting in.

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat.

Working across borders sharpens you. American professional culture is more direct and more comfortable with self-promotion than the UK equivalent, so some of my usual framing needed adjusting, and some of it needed no adjusting at all because the underlying human discomfort with business development is identical wherever you are.

Nobody, in any country, enjoys asking for work. Everybody, in every country, is capable of building relationships that mean they don’t have to ask as often.

If this sounds familiar

If your firm has grown on relationships and reputation, but you couldn’t confidently describe your BD approach to a new joiner, you’re in good company. It’s the most common position I see in professional services and financial services, and it’s a good problem to have because the raw material is already there.

The work is turning what your best people do instinctively into something the whole firm can learn. That’s very doable, and it travels surprisingly well.

Let’s talk about your firm

If you’re planning an offsite, a conference session or an away day and you want the business development element to be more than a slot to fill, I’d love to hear about it. I design and deliver bespoke BD workshops and keynote sessions for professional services and financial services firms, in the UK and internationally.

Every programme starts with proper discovery, so what your people hear is about their clients, their market and their day job, not a generic training deck.

Get in touch for an initial conversation about what you’re trying to achieve. There’s no obligation and no hard sell, just a proper discussion about whether I’m the right fit.