Organic business development can be slow, painful, and often ineffective, writes Eric Fletcher in Here Are The 4 Keys to a Successful Business Development Initiative. Fortunately, there are a few things all firms can do to increase their odds of success. Like providing the right incentives:

If your firm has any expectation that resources invested in the current (or forthcoming) business development initiative will deliver value, the way you measure time and resources invested — especially in the early days of the process — should reflect this belief.

On the other hand, penalize someone for missing a billable hour benchmark without any consideration to the future value of the hours spent (legitimately) on business development, and you’ve just told everyone that the only thing that really matters is billing hours.

Fletcher’s post is full of practical insight. Read it, then start building BD initiatives around his four critical success factors to set yourself up for success. You’ll be glad you did.

H/T to Patrick Fuller