Patience

Over the last 12–18 months, I’ve had the same conversation with multiple firm leaders: “Our inbound just isn’t what it used to be.” 

They’re not wrong. We’re living in a zero-click world. AI is changing how clients discover, evaluate, and select firms. Website traffic is down. Inquiries are down. The old playbook isn’t producing like it once did. 

So, firms are responding the way you’d expect. They’re leaning harder into business development. More outreach. More meetings. More pipeline pressure. 

And to be clear, that’s not a bad move. Business development drives today’s revenue. And if the marketing engine is faltering, you need to find revenue through other means.  

But when you optimize everything for “the now”, there’s a good chance tomorrow will be worse than today. 

The Business Development Treadmill 

The problem with business development is that you have to crank it really hard all the time to get results. Every day. Every month. Every quarter. Every year. 

Stop cranking it … and it stops working immediately. There’s no compounding effect. No stored energy. No momentum that carries forward. It’s effort in → revenue out.  

It’s the lifeblood of the firm at any given moment. But it’s not sufficient to systematically grow a firm over time.  

Marketing, Done Right, is a Flywheel 

By contrast, marketing, when it’s working, functions more like a flywheel. It’s slow to start. In most cases, frustratingly so. For months, it can feel like nothing is happening… 

Until suddenly something does. The right point of view resonates with the right people. And your firm starts showing up in client conversations you’re not aware of. Suddenly, your name is coming up in client boardrooms and decision-making groups before your business development team does.  

And over time, that motion builds on itself.  

Don’t Break the Flywheel Before It Starts 

Often, however, firms kill the flywheel right before it starts to work. I saw this a few years ago with a client who had invested in a client/prospect roundtable. The program brought together C-suite leaders to discuss their most pressing business issues. The roundtable was a way to connect active clients with prospective ones, identify emerging business issues of the day, and prioritize thought leadership topics. 

Twelve months in, it wasn’t producing direct leads, so leadership shut it down. On paper, it made sense. We’re investing hard-earned profit dollars in something that’s not directly generating top-line revenue. Why do that?  

In reality, they were probably 6–9 months away from it becoming one of their most valuable growth assets. Flywheel shuttered.  

The Real Problem You Need to Solve 

Many firms have a marketing problem right now. The marketing model that worked for the last 15 years isn’t working the way it used to. The flywheel you built in the last decade has ground to a halt.  

It’s time to build a new flywheel. But many of today’s firm leaders don’t realize or remember what it took to build the last flywheel. As a result, they’re turning their back on marketing altogether.  

These firms are over-rotating toward BD and squeezing marketing budgets to compensate. They’re treating marketing like an expense instead of what it actually is — a long-term growth engine. 

Other firms are trying to deploy AI to optimize the old model: More content. Faster production. More noise in an already saturated system. They’re playing a volume game in a world that no longer rewards volume. 

Both of these approaches may work today, but they’re not going to work tomorrow. 

The real question firm leaders should be asking themselves right now isn’t, “How do we get more leads?” It’s “have we adapted our marketing approach to how clients buy in the AI era?” 

Marketing and Business Development Both Matter 

The fact is, you need both marketing and business development to build a thriving firm. Business development to win deals today. Marketing to ensure you have deals to win tomorrow. 

One is a treadmill. The other is a flywheel. If you over-index on the treadmill, you’ll hit your number this quarter. But eventually, you’ll look up and realize there’s nothing left to run toward. 

So, before you cut another marketing investment…ask yourself: Are we fixing the problem? Or just running a faster race to the bottom?