The Rainmaking Podcast

Episode 298 of The Rainmaking Podcast features Scott Love in conversation with Eva Wisnik on how to fit business development into an already hectic schedule—especially for busy law firm partners and associates. Eva explains that many lawyers are trained to “issue spot” (anticipate what can go wrong), which is great for client service but can sabotage rainmaking unless it’s replaced with an opportunity-focused mindset. She reframes BD as “selling through substance”: asking better questions, showing genuine curiosity, and positioning outreach as problem-solving rather than “sales.” Her core message is that most BD resistance is fear (rejection, failure, imposing), and the antidote is shifting from self-focused thinking to client-centered value. Eva then gets tactical: build a pipeline by staying in touch with intent and consistency, because meaningful business relationships often take 2–5 years to convert. She recommends simple, repeatable habits—“one action a day” (send a thoughtful note, share a relevant article, set a meeting, register for a conference), plus tracking micro-actions to build momentum. Practical examples include handwritten notes, small meaningful gifts, and “thinking of you” outreach tied to something useful. Her three action steps: look backward to identify the clients/relationships you most enjoy and then find more like them, take one BD action daily, and track those actions as wins so the process stays sustainable and you maintain control of your career. Visit: https: //therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/VT4jwamTMtI ---------------------------------------- 📖 Subscribe to The Rainmaking Magazine If you’re serious about growing your book of business, you’ll want to check out The Rainmaking Magazine — a monthly digital publication packed with insights, strategies, and real-world advice for professionals in law, consulting, recruiting, and beyond. 💡 Created for results-driven rainmakers who value credibility and substance. 💥 Now live — subscribe today www.therainmakingmagazine.com ---------------------------------------- This show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. For a free demo, visit this link: https://www.leopardsolutions.com/index.php/request-a-demo/ ---------------------------------------- Eva Wisnik is a career expert and recruiter who has spent three decades shaping the careers of marketing, business development, and communications professionals in the legal industry. As the founder of Wisnik Career Enterprises, Inc., she is a trusted advisor to law firm leaders and CMOs seeking to build and retain top talent that drive business growth.   Eva’s expertise is rooted in her firsthand knowledge of the legal industry. Prior to launching her firm in 1996, she served as the Director of Recruitment and Training for leading firms Schulte Roth & Zabel and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. Since then, she has  placed over 1,100 professionals in more than 120 AmLaw firms, including CMOs and senior marketing/BD  leaders.   A recognized authority on talent and professional development, Eva’s insights have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg. She is also the author of Your Fairy Job Mentor's Secrets for Success.  Eva has personally conducted over 900 training programs, equipping attorneys with a growth mindset and practical tools to build successful careers.   She holds an M.B.A. in Marketing from Fordham University and a B.A. in Psychology from Barnard College, Columbia University.  Links: https://www.wisnik.com/about-us/bio-eva-wisnik/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/eva-wisnik/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Legal Episode 297 of The Rainmaking Podcast, Scott Love welcomes Chuck Curtis to discuss the unique challenges law firm partners face when considering a lateral move. Drawing on decades of experience in attorney recruiting and integration, Chuck explains that the decision to move should be driven primarily by platform fit—whether a firm truly supports and promotes a partner’s practice area. He emphasizes that partners must thoughtfully evaluate whether their current firm provides the marketing support, strategic alignment, and internal collaboration necessary to grow their book of business. Before going to market, partners should have candid conversations with leadership and, if moving as a group, align internally to ensure consensus and minimize risk. The episode also explores best practices for navigating the transition process, including handling compensation discussions, preparing for potential counteroffers, and managing group dynamics. Chuck highlights the importance of transparency, strategic planning, and cohesion—particularly when moving as a team. Successful lateral integrations, he notes, occur when partners understand their value proposition, collaborate early with their new colleagues, and treat the move as a long-term business decision rather than a short-term financial negotiation. For partners contemplating a move, this episode delivers practical guidance on reducing disruption and maximizing success in a competitive legal marketplace. Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/A-ragpjvPBY ---------------------------------------- 📖 Subscribe to The Rainmaking Magazine If you’re serious about growing your book of business, you’ll want to check out The Rainmaking Magazine — a monthly digital publication packed with insights, strategies, and real-world advice for professionals in law, consulting, recruiting, and beyond. 💡 Created for results-driven rainmakers who value credibility and substance. 💥 Now live — subscribe today www.therainmakingmagazine.com ---------------------------------------- This show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. For a free demo, visit this link: https://www.leopardsolutions.com/index.php/request-a-demo/ ---------------------------------------- Chuck Curtis is a dynamic professional with nearly 40 years of professional services experience, including as Senior Director of Attorney Recruiting at Pillsbury from 2007 until his retirement in 2023. Shortly thereafter, he began his own coaching/consulting practice, utilizing his deep expertise and industry knowledge to consult with law firms regarding upgrading their partner hiring and integration processes, including aligning firm leadership with practice section leadership and recruiting leadership to developing winning hiring strategies and practices. He also provides strategic coaching to partners, associates, high-level internal recruiting leaders and external legal recruiters. Links: https://clcurtis31consulting.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-curtis-7461a39/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Episode 296 of The Rainmaking Podcast, Scott Love interviews Joshua Altman, founder of Beltway Media, on how professional services firms can repurpose content to drive business development and brand visibility. Instead of treating webinars, interviews, white papers, or conference panels as “one-and-done” events, Joshua explains how a single piece of thought leadership can be transformed into blog posts, LinkedIn articles, short-form video clips, podcasts, email newsletters, and even white papers. By using a structured content calendar strategy, professionals can multiply their marketing output without constantly creating from scratch. Joshua outlines a practical framework for modern content marketing built around four engagement pillars: what clients read, see, hear, and experience. He emphasizes planning ahead, avoiding platform dependency, and leveraging existing material to build consistent visibility across channels like LinkedIn, YouTube, email marketing, and professional blogs. For lawyers, consultants, and financial advisors looking to grow their brand and generate inbound business, this episode delivers tactical guidance on scalable content marketing, personal branding, and strategic media repurposing. Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/jghfwLIYgNU ---------------------------------------- 📖 Subscribe to The Rainmaking Magazine If you’re serious about growing your book of business, you’ll want to check out The Rainmaking Magazine — a monthly digital publication packed with insights, strategies, and real-world advice for professionals in law, consulting, recruiting, and beyond. 💡 Created for results-driven rainmakers who value credibility and substance. 💥 Now live — subscribe today www.therainmakingmagazine.com ---------------------------------------- This show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. For a free demo, visit this link: https://www.leopardsolutions.com/index.php/request-a-demo/ ---------------------------------------- Joshua is an experienced storyteller, strategist and creative force with more than two decades of experience shaping how people see, hear and connect with big ideas. Today, he leads beltway.media, a bold D.C.-based communications firm that helps brands and organizations cut through the noise. Before founding the firm, Joshua was a multimedia journalist at The Hill, diving deep into federal policy including energy and the environment, tax and finance, healthcare, immigration, defense and criminal justice, and covering high-stakes election cycles right from the front lines. For more than two decades, Joshua’s served as a member of The Telly Awards Judging Council, a select group of past winners who judge each year’s annual competition. Now he works with everyone from scrappy startups to federal agencies including the  U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Commerce, helping them refine their message, elevate their brand and truly connect with their audience, whether that’s customers, investors or the public at large. From reimagining agency websites to crafting magnetic stories, Joshua’s work has one goal: to make communications clear, compelling, and impossible to ignore. Education Georgetown University, M.A., Communication, Culture and Technology The George Washington University, B.A. Journalism and Mass Communications Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaialtman/ https://beltway.media/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Roch joins Scott Love to unpack a deceptively hard leadership challenge in professional services: getting partners to consistently do business development, and designing incentives that actually drive the right behavior. Roch’s central message is that there’s no universal compensation fix—the right approach depends on firm size, strategic priorities (rapid growth vs. deepening key relationships vs. refreshing a stale client base), and even national partnership culture (e.g., UK lockstep traditions vs. more individualistic U.S. models). He stresses that compensation is only a “lever,” not a self-executing solution: it works best when paired with strong leadership, clear expectations, and accountability conversations that tie each partner’s strengths and goals to the firm’s strategy. Roch describes practical incentive strategies that go beyond simple origination credit. He argues firms should recognize that partners contribute differently—some excel at landing new clients, others at expanding existing accounts, and others at protecting “crown jewel” relationships—so incentives should be aligned to those roles and tracked accordingly. Non-monetary incentives can matter too, such as giving junior partners meaningful internal initiatives to build an “equity-owner mindset,” and publicly recognizing teams (not just lone rainmakers). Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/Hl7GPJjpdfI ---------------------------------------- 📖 Subscribe to The Rainmaking Magazine If you’re serious about growing your book of business, you’ll want to check out The Rainmaking Magazine — a monthly digital publication packed with insights, strategies, and real-world advice for professionals in law, consulting, recruiting, and beyond. 💡 Created for results-driven rainmakers who value credibility and substance. 💥 Now live — subscribe today www.therainmakingmagazine.com ---------------------------------------- This show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. For a free demo, visit this link: https://www.leopardsolutions.com/index.php/request-a-demo/ ---------------------------------------- Michael Roch guides partnership boards, managing partners, and senior leaders globally on architecting strong partnerships and on leading their organizations to competitive growth. Michael has advised dozens of organizations become market leaders in relation to their: Global partnering strategy Partner profit sharing, compensation, and reward Partnership governance, leadership, and execution Michael’s most recent book is The Partner Compensation Handbook, the comprehensive guide on profit sharing in professional services partnerships (together with Performance Leader's CEO Ray D’Cruz, Globe Publishing 2022). Michael's clients range from multinational partnerships and alliances to mid-sized firms to start-ups across the globe; most operate in the professional services, technology, and related sectors. All of them value how Michael’s partnerships advice is infused by his hands-on experience as an entrepreneur and leader of partnerships - and how he brings together a unique combination of in-depth experience around partnership economics, governance, organizational design, motivation, and reward to help clients drive growth.  Links: https://www.mhpradvisors.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelroch/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/mhpradvisors e: [email protected] Receive MHPR Insights: https://www.mhpradvisors.com/insights-signup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 294 focuses on the gap between “we have great culture” and the day-to-day behaviors people actually experience inside a firm. Scott interviews Alejandra Ramirez, founder of Ready Cultures and a longtime internal communications leader in big law, on what it really means to “walk the culture talk.” Her definition is simple but demanding: culture is credibility—aligning stated values with observable actions. She argues firms should start by auditing whether claimed values (like collaboration or transparency) show up in real behaviors (cross-selling between practices, sharing information with BD teams, etc.). Culture isn’t a slogan; it’s a set of conditions leadership actively creates, and when words and actions don’t match, trust erodes and performance suffers. Alejandra then lays out how leaders close the gap: clear, consistent, actionable communication; active listening and feedback loops; and tying culture initiatives to measurable outcomes like engagement, retention, risk reduction, and cost savings. She emphasizes that firms recruit laterals on numbers but often lose them on fit—so culture must be evaluated explicitly during hiring through behavioral questions and by ensuring the “recruiting experience” matches the lived experience after arrival. Her three action steps: lead with curiosity (listen and ask questions), audit your internal communication system (tools, messages, measurement), and treat culture as a verb, not a noun—something you repeatedly do through choices, behaviors, and reinforcement. She also offers a practical “3H” framework (Head, Heart, Hands) to help leaders communicate change: facts, why it matters, and what to do next. Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/iwev7mcnzcw ---------------------------------------- 📖 Subscribe to The Rainmaking Magazine If you’re serious about growing your book of business, you’ll want to check out The Rainmaking Magazine — a monthly digital publication packed with insights, strategies, and real-world advice for professionals in law, consulting, recruiting, and beyond. 💡 Created for results-driven rainmakers who value credibility and substance. 💥 Now live — subscribe today www.therainmakingmagazine.com ---------------------------------------- This show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions Legal Intelligence Suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. For a free demo, visit this link: https://www.leopardsolutions.com/index.php/request-a-demo/ ---------------------------------------- Alejandra Ramirez is an internal communications strategist and the founder of Ready Cultures. With nearly 20 years of experience in communications—including 15 years in Big Law and professional services—she helps leadership teams close the gap between what they say and what their people actually hear, especially in high-stakes environments where clarity directly impacts client experience and results. Her work focuses on executive messaging, crisis communication, and organizational alignment during moments of growth, change, and pressure. By strengthening internal clarity and trust, Alejandra helps firms improve execution, reduce friction, and deliver more consistent, high-quality client service—the foundation of sustainable rainmaking. Links: Website: https://www.readycultures.com/ 3H Framework: https://www.readycultures.com/3h-framework  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malejandraramirez/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices