When I was a junior associate, I thought business development was the sole province of gray-haired partners who raked in millions of dollars in originations each year on the strength of their networks alone.
In my mind, these rainmakers, who looked nothing like me, sat around schmoozing with Fortune 500 executives at golf clubs or resorts — lives very different from my own, in which I pulled all-nighters with my nose to the grindstone.
No one spoke to me about business development at that stage in my career. I was focused on being the best lawyer I could be, convinced that doing impressive work was the way to eventually make partner.
To the extent I thought about how those rainmakers first got started building their book of business, I chalked it up to some innate quality or mere luck.
Spoiler: Rainmaking isn't magic or something that requires inherent charisma. Business development just takes the right mindset, hard work and the courage to put yourself out there — the earlier, the better.
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