How “Boring” BD Habits Lead to Homeruns

Neil Barrow: Hi, welcome to the I hope this email Finds you well podcast. I'm Neil Barrow. With us today is Chad Corley, Senior Relationship manager at Armanino. That's right.

Thanks for joining me today.

Chad Corley: Thanks for having me, appreciate it.

Neil Barrow: Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about your journey into business development.

Chad Corley: So I've been doing BD for about 11 years now, starting software right out of school, move to start up and then a hard right into investment banking. OK, pretty unique journey. Didn't take accounting or finance school, but a buddy of mine was like, hey, we're hiring a full time BD person, are you interested in investment banking? And I said, I don't know what that is, but love people.

So sure, I can hop in, build a network.

Neil Barrow: So tell me what was different about moving from software sales startup stuff into like a more relationship based role or something like that in investment banking? What was the main difference?

Chad Corley: I think the main difference moving from a software product right to a service is the relationship and then the startup into strictly relationships. I think we talked about technology and AI and all the buzzwords and those can help you sell or enable you to sell. But it was wild to me how, if they like you and whoever's executing the work does it, well, you've got a great.

Neil Barrow: That's a good combo, great combo. I mean, because that's ultimately how partners and people professionals execute business development is do good work over a long period of time, right. But if you can then add the relationship piece, which is what you were coming in and doing. So tell me you left software, then you moved into investment banking.

What was the first like 6 to 12 months like at the investment bank?

Chad Corley: Well, I started in COVID, so there's an asterisk there. But building relationships on Zoom, I mean, I had to learn how to do that, which was super challenging.

Neil Barrow: OK, So what did you do? How did you do that?

Chad Corley: Reached out to people and I think DFW is great because people want to help. They actually want to help you. And so just started building a list in the first year, was just aware of DFW, aware of Dallas and the players and the people that were there just to have fun. And it's kind of a, it's a job, but yeah, we're just going to have fun and go to all events.

Neil Barrow: OK. So you're building your relationships at the investment banks, you're spending your time networking that you're reaching out cold, correct to referral sources. Is this or prospective clients?

Chad Corley: I was really focused when I would meet, let's say with a commercial banker, right, That was lending money. Hey, who's an attorney that you know, right. So every conversation I have, I was very particular. Who are two or three people that I need to know play the new card.

Hey, I'm new, help me out you know? That's the

Neil Barrow: that's the best card you can play when you're new, right? It's help me like please. Like I'm trying to build my network,

Chad Corley: correct. Who do you know who's the best networked person in DFW that I need to meet? And most people would say Emily Ackerman.

Neil Barrow: Right for sure, but.

Chad Corley: Early on, but it's great, but it's ultimately like I've got to leverage those conversations and ask for help and make a particular ask.

Neil Barrow: And so you did that to grow and expand your network, right? And so that's where you were spending most of your time.

Chad Corley: Most of my time that first year, I would say definitely concentrated on to that particularly and just getting that list going right. And then, you know, it takes about a year. I would say even if you move jobs in this industry to re educate your network, if you're reaching out, let's say quarterly to a person you really want to get to know, you know, it takes a while to stay in front of them. And so yeah, that was my main role that first year.

Neil Barrow: And so when you were thinking about obviously the, one of the number one goals of business development is to build your network valuable people and to make connections for folks and introduce folks. But then when you think about the goals of the investment bank, what were they relying on you to do that they necessarily couldn't do or didn't have time to do? Like what were what was some of the things that you were finding that was the most valuable thing there?

Chad Corley: Yeah, I think it was two things. It was when I walked in, I said, hey, who sends us the most deals or what type of person sends us the most deals? Smart.

Chad Corley: And they said, well, I don't know, like this wealth advisor or this attorney. Oh my.

Neil Barrow: Great. OK, so after a couple years at our company retreat, I can show them, hey, here's the actual metrics. Very simple. So you're.

Chad Corley: Tracking, you started tracking referral sources, correct?

Neil Barrow: And that's novel concept to a lot of small boutiques is they inherently have in their brain who sends us deals. Like I know who's sending me work, but we don't track it. And I would assume, and I don't know this to be true, so you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I would assume that there was a lot of people that you found that were on that list that they haven't caught up with in a while, right? It might have been a while since they talked to him.

Chad Corley: Right. Yeah, They did a great job. They'd been in business probably 8 years when I got there. But it's like, hey, year two and three.

Who sent us that contract manufacturer? Yeah. Oh, it was what, you know, which was fun, right? You're just scrappy.

You're just trying to survive. Sure. And I think the partners, the vision was like, hey, let's, let's get a little smarter. So our marketing dollars, our pursuit dollars, where are those going?

You know, CPAs traditionally are at the bottom, wealth advisors are typically at the top in that investment banking world. And so we spent more money as far as wining and dining and that sort of things with those types of people.

Neil Barrow: So, OK, well, let me recap that. So you went in, We're asking, hey, just selfishly, where are you getting all your deals so I know where to spend my time? Exactly. And they were like, well, we kind of know, but we're not sure.

So then you took it upon yourself or with them, right? Right. To say, hey, I'm going to build this list out. We're going to think about where these referral sources came from.

And then you were able to come up with a list of your best referral sources. And then it's OK. Well, if we're going to spend dollars in business development on events or things that we're going to do to do, these are the people that we're going to do it with. And now we know, OK, financial advisors are best referral sources.

Then you know where to spend your time. Exactly. Yep.

Neil Barrow: And I think that's a really key point to business development because that's what a lot of BDRs coming in, that's what they're trying to figure out, right, is where do I need to spend my time? Because I'm going to all these events, I'm networking, I'm building my relationships, I'm going wide instead of like focused and going deep and with those that are most likely to send us a referral. And so I think that's really great. So what did y'all end up doing for that kind of Tier 1 referral source?

Chad Corley: Yeah, so the vision was, hey Chad, go build your own network, get leads coming in and help us internally manage our pretty decent strong network. And so once I found out that data, it was, you know, getting with an assistant that could help schedule lunches and those sort of things for the relationships already going. And then for me, it was like, hey, how do I just expand on the success they've had, whether it's maybe a younger wealth advisor that's 25 at Goldman Sachs has to smile and dial constantly and a $50 million deal their investment banks not interested in, can we send it to you guys, right. So just kind of expanding the fringe right of what they were doing and then kind of building my own

Neil Barrow: so. So you're highlighting again, every business development role, which is I've got some internal responsibilities and I've got some external responsibilities. And how do I balance my time between those? Because you've got to build your own network to find new referral sources for you.

And then you've also got to enhance the current referral relationships that we already have that are really strong. And so you were taking on, again, business development as relationship business. And so you're focused on the right stuff, which is our top referral sources. OK.

So then what else where some of your day-to-day or tactical responsibilities that you learned over time or most valuable for you at your investment banking stop?

Chad Corley: Yeah, I think there's someone that uses the enable word, right, sales enablement, which I which is exactly didn't know it, but that's what it is, right. And so at the investment bank it was so refreshing because I was getting paid to literally meet with people all day. So by the time I left, there was, if you looked back on the past 12 months, I was meeting with 360 people a year. I mean, that's all I was doing.

Because once we could get that business owner, that prospect in the door, pass it off to the team and go get the next one. So I was not building decks. I was not doing any kind of CRM work really besides keeping my own CRM of my contacts and so it was strictly go in Dallas make our name great represent as well.

Neil Barrow: So then you went to Armanino, your current role and how long have you been there?

Chad Corley: 2 1/2 years.

Neil Barrow: So enough to know what's great and what's not. So you know, when I was in business development and accounting, I was at 2 stops and both were very different and both required, what was required of me was different. And so could you share a little bit about what maybe you were told the role was versus what it is today, 2 1/2 years later? Because these are on an evolutionary journey, these business development roles change and more over time.

So what is it that you're doing right now for Armanino?

Chad Corley: I think the reason it was a good fit on the transition because the investment bank was 10 people, really tight knit team, very similar personalities in the room and Armanino is close to 3000 employees across the country, right. So very different but similar in hey go make Armanino brand very well known in Texas, really in Dallas.

Neil Barrow: So well, let me stop you there and ask you a question. Is that a good goal to have? Like when we think about what business development is, because a lot of people think, well, it's building your brand, it's having someone to build your brand. What do you think about that as an overarching goal on business development?

Chad Corley: I think it's a good idea and it makes sense because a lot of other brands, Nike or whoever, do it well. Apple, right, go down the list, but I think in professional services, there's not an execution, there's not a back office per SE internally to execute that. And So what I think happens is you build your personal brand, which is OK, right? People like you back to the partners doing well.

It's a great marriage. And so while yes, that's the vision, the brand, the name, how do you say Armanino? You know, that was a big thing, right? Because it's kind of funky, but we're going to tie sales goals to it and so that breaks down a little bit.

Neil Barrow: Yeah. And so because a lot of people think, well, if people, if more people just knew about us, we would just crush it, you know, and we know that's not well, yes, but that's not necessarily the case because everything's in the follow up,

Chad Corley: right? Right. So yeah, everybody, we could sponsor a bunch of stuff. We can get our name out there.

Neil Barrow: But I love how you shared. It's really while we're building the firm brand, it's really about building. If you build your personal brand, the firm brand will grow too.

Chad Corley: Yeah. And I'll say one more thing. Who's our buyer usually controller, CFO, right? And so who is that person?

Not really highly emotional, you know, So if we know our customer, it's not the 22 year old that's scrolling TikTok. Oh, that's a cool brand and buying. You got to know who the CPAs. And so while yes, branding is important, I think if you can actually care about a CPA, which is hard at times the controller CFO, I think that goes pretty far.

Neil Barrow: No, I would agree with you. I think that branding is big component of business development, right, is you're building your personal brand to enhance your firm's brand, right, in the market, right. And it's about where you're focused on your time, Totally.

Neil Barrow: So you're in there, right? You're hired to, hey, we need to get our brand out there, right? So that means that Chad has to get out there and build his brand. Yeah.

So how are you doing that? What did you do when you first jumped on board? Because I'm sure during that honeymoon phase, it's so awesome, Yeah. Right.

Everything's perfect. Everything's no problem. Best accounting firm in the world.

Chad Corley: Yeah. So again, I took the mindset of, hey, this first year, you know, there's 43 partners in Texas between Dallas and Austin that I was like told, hey, go support them. What does that mean? I don't know what that means.

So me being relationship guy, I fly down to Austin and I take the time to meet every single partner I in Dallas in the office everyday meeting partners, understanding their life and just everything about them, like actually caring about them as a human while. So that was the internal sales enablement wheels I was starting to turn and re educating my network. Hey, this is what I'm doing now the whole pitch. So again, I think that's that's about 12 months, I would say of educating both internally and externally is my role originally back to your question was more of a sales enablement.

It was help the partners and audit partner, tax partner that could use some help getting a deal from start to finish. That was my main kind of goal that first year is like just build that relationship. So there's great trust between me and the partner group, bring in some deals, some deals started to trickle in and then kind of transition into kind of a full outside sales.

Neil Barrow: And I said, well, and that's a great way to think about ramping, right? Like when you think about business development, when someone new is coming in where they're spending their time, they're getting to know the firm, they're going to know the partners are getting to know what they're good at, Then they're also doing the external piece. We're talking to their network and expanding their network and going to all these events. And so that ramp time can be shortened if we have if I as a business development person and not coming in and trying to chase this down, right?

So like a 12 month period could be shortened into three months. If I'm presented with things. It's here's exactly what we're good at. Here's our ideal clients, here's why they buy, here's what our message is, here's the partners that you need to talk to, right?

It's, but we have to figure that out on our own, correct? And so then it's a lot of trial and experimentation and figuring it out. And we're getting with all these partners and we're saying, hey, half of you I'm man this is great. The other half not really interested because you've got capacity constraints, you've got a want to on business development in general.

You're bad at service.

Chad Corley: Bad at service. You can't do the work, right?

Neil Barrow: So there's a lot of these things that you've got to kind of sift through when you're early on. And so you're 2 1/2 years in, so where are you spending a lot of your time now?

Chad Corley: So I think when I look at the world and our goals that were given to us in 2025, it was very OK, 2,000,000 bucks. I'm like, OK, so let me work backwards to a day-to-day calendar or To Do List, right, Because I know M&A, I chase kind of high net worth individuals around a transaction. And then investment banking, private equity, anything around the kind of accounting services that fall out of what needs to happen. Because the only way for me to build a book per SE, because that goal is just going up next year going up.

How do I get 5 to 10 PE firms, independent sponsors to send me kind of consistent work so that I can continue to chase those revenue goals? So it's way less internal. I think my internal work which we can talk about is a lot more on the marketing front and then getting other BD people new into the fold, trying to expedite that 12 months. Hey, here are the partners that are great.

Here are the partners that need some more love because I only work, let's be honest, with maybe the 20 to 30% of the partner group that I'm consistently doing deals with just from a capacity well.

Neil Barrow: You don't have time like personal capacity. And then also it's where your interest and where you're seeing traction and where it's your network plugged in. And that's where you really need to spend your time because you're, you've got a number to hit, you've got a quota, you've got a deal flow that you've got to prove into. So it's, it's maintaining that focus level and getting to that focus level, which is tough for a lot of BD folks that are coming new into the role or maybe they're experienced and they've got a, they're trying to, they're being asked to do all these things and it's how do you focus it down?

And so you found this kind of because your backgrounds and investment, like you've been an investment bank BD. So that's naturally you're already plugged into that world. So it makes the most sense for you to spend time in there. And I think that's a really important point is what is my experience, prior experience allow me to speak and get into rooms that might be easier for me personally to do.

Chad Corley: Yeah, that's good.

Neil Barrow: And so for me like what I'm doing now, I do business development consulting, but what it's easy for me to get into those rooms and accounting because my background in business development and accounting. So that's where I spend a lot of my time. And so your sales enablement, so you're helping the partners quarterback these deals that are coming in, which is again, one of the most valuable things that smaller firms that are thinking about easing into business development can do. It's how do we have someone help us and centralized all of this and make sure that we're communicating quickly because you know, this to be true is it's the speed to lead deal.

Like I won more deals in my career because I was the first one to respond. I was the first one with a price. I was the first one to ask and like, Hey, we're ready to go. And so we that shows that we want it more.

And so you can win by just doing that. And that's not as necessarily a skill set. That's a process. Right, right.

Neil Barrow: So tell me a little bit about some of the enablement things that you're doing and then some of the origination things that you're focused on now going into Year 3.

Chad Corley: Yeah. So framing this coming from an investment bank, if we sold three to six companies a year, so three to six deals, we were partying, that was fun. Now the most deals I've managed at one time last year, my pipeline was over 100. That's crazy, right?

So obviously different price point and I knew that. So I had to really tighten up my processes tremendously because if your average order size is 60 to 100 grand versus 2,000,000 bucks, right? So I knew the network was similar, but I knew my process had to change. And so, yeah, on the enablement side is that, you know, we've hired someone in Austin to kind of pass a lot of that off too.

So I'm training her, developing her and making sure the relationships are going well, right. And trying to be more of a leader in that and less of a that's my role. And so I still field some of the website inquiries and kind of help across Texas do that. But the outside sales in the private equity world, everyone's calling PE 27 times a day, right?

Because there is a good amount of money there and there is a good amount of reoccurring deal flow. And I'm probably just a little crazy. I just think I can do it a little better than the person next to me at the next CPA firm. And I know what we're good at, right?

Back to your point, we're not good at everything. I went from one product. We have 160 products on one page that we throw in our decks, right? And I don't have them.

I don't know what we, you know, I don't know, I'm not a CPA And so, but what I do know is what we're really good at. For example, Tom Brunton, who's a consulting partner, we go to Old Parkland or Uptown Financial Services district of Dallas, and we cut up, he's from England and we kind of get this bit going And the PE guys like actually laughed, right? And so we kind of have our thing and his team is very good at executing what they do.

Neil Barrow: Yep. And it's important because you've got to find that both, right? Like, so because your reputation's on the line, right? Right.

If you bring in an opportunity and then you can't service it as well as you need to, right? And you don't meet expectations for that client. And so that's part of what you're doing is finding those people internally that you know can do good work that you know will follow through on it and that will make it impressive. So you continue to build those relationships.

And so I want to focus a little bit on your inbound, right. So I think it's awesome that most firms don't centralized inbound, right? And so as you grow, you need to, but most of the firms that are, you know, under 40 million, 50 million in revenue, they have a tough time like knowing what all the deal flow is. And so a lot of people come to me saying, hey, Neil, we need more leads.

I'm like, you don't even know what your lead flow looks like, right? So how like you're managing 100 deals. Like talk to me a little bit about how you've changed your process because I'm not a detail oriented guy. And so keeping up and following through and making sure things don't fall through the cracks.

Like how have you managed that?

Chad Corley: Right. So we have a CRM internally we are approaching 800 million in revenue, acquiring a couple firms a year trying to do more right. And so the integration on data is tough like it's hard and people as well. And so you know we have more of an order taking system I would say which is very necessary for the amount of data that we have.

It's a lot of data, but we've struggled I think over the years to pull list and get that data clean.

Neil Barrow: The cliche, that's not clean data, sure.

Chad Corley: And so I have monday.com, it's my own CRM, very simple because when I come in the morning, I've got to know here are the three deals I need to check on and here are the three CFOs I need to call. And I don't need to go filter or push any buttons. I need technology just tell me what it is. And that's, I mean, every, most CRM should do that anyways.

And so that's, that's an element got to be organized speed. And that's, you know, our culture here is like, if you can't really keep up, then this is not a great job for you. So 1st 22 year olds, probably not a great job because there's not a lot of hand holding. And so the leads internally that filter down to me are all Texas based.

I, I serve the country naturally, but just because I kind of lead our Texas efforts of those come to me and I'll either work them for complexity or certain amount of details or I try to pass a lot of those on to our Austin business development Rep and have her run those and close those and because she has a lot more capacity than me currently.

Neil Barrow: And so you're organized, you're helping all these leads filter in, you're finding the right team you're working with, they're pulling you in on complex deals, right? To help you organize this, What are some of the challenges or the maybe a success story, maybe a combo of when you think about the client journey, the buyer journey, the sales process, whatever you want to call it. But that first conversation to close, what are some, do you bring in partners immediately? Do you have the first conversation?

What do you talk about? What questions do you like asking? Like, tell me a little bit about the sales process.

Chad Corley: How long do you have? So to summarize, yeah, I think when my, when I get a lead from PE firm, right, it's hey, what's the service? And then I have probably one or two partners that I'm like, hey, they would serve them well. And this is, I mean, it's a constant relationship game.

I got to know what's going on with them personally. Like are they going to be excited? Is something going on at home where it's probably not a great time and then are there examples or other situations where they've done super well and I can bring them in? So every service line is a little different.

But let's say it's a control. We need controller for two months. Right? Back to my Tom example, I'm bringing him in someone on his team and we're having that conversation together together.

And I will divert a little bit. I had someone at the Christmas party, a spouse, ask me, Chad, why can't you just sell it yourself? Like just

Neil Barrow: so what'd you say?

Chad Corley: Just sell it yourself, Chad, Like you're, you know what you're doing, you're getting in front of people, etcetera. And I was a little offended. I shouldn't just to be honest, like I was a little offended. I was like, what do you what?

And it's like, hey, I sell people. Like I'm in the business of selling people. What I love about Armanino, especially in the consulting world, they'll throw a controller and they might suck or they might be good. We don't have that model.

It's there's a team, even if there's one person executing the job, we've got three people on that team overlooking that engagement. And so it is 99% of the time I'm bringing a partner or someone that is there servicing it or their team is because without it it just doesn't work.

Neil Barrow: And so you're bringing in the partner, you're having those conversations. What are some of your questions that you like to ask to get things moving to the next stage? Because we all have these opportunity stages and things like that. But do you have some go to questions in your discovery calls or?

Yeah, I think.

Chad Corley: The calls, yeah, I think it's important, you know, there's all, there's all kind of timing charts and here are the five questions you have to ask.

Neil Barrow: Do y'all have a playbook at Armanino?

Chad Corley: Yes, in our CRM, it's not like a mandatory you have to, but we've done a great job. Sam Corsi, my current boss has done a great job on more operationally, you know, documenting everything so that when people come in, they, there's a page and 1/2, which is painful. I can't imagine trying to put that together, but he's disciplined enough to put it together on every step.

Neil Barrow: At 800 million, it's time to do that, right?

Chad Corley: Yeah. He's very gifted at that. And so, yeah, I think timing's important and budget and half the time they won't tell me or they, which is fine, but I don't mind the awkward conversation. Let's talk about it.

I think that's part of our roles as kind of the emotional intelligence hire is to read the room and ask, you know, what's your budget, what's your timing? Because there's so many CPA firms out there, so many consulting firms out there. Just want to we got a level set. Hey, are we in the right fit for you?

Neil Barrow: No, absolutely. My job is to find, I think as you develop and grow in your business development career or sales career, but business development right is instead of trying to find the yes, I'm trying to find the no right is why won't this work right? What are the barriers to us working together? And so some of my favorite questions are, what level of priority is this for you?

Chad Corley: It's good, I like that.

Neil Barrow: So you can tell me it's number one or it's actually, you know what, we've got other stuff going on. This is actually maybe priority three. We're probably going to revisit this. We're kicking figuring it out.

It's probably going to be fall or winter before we really get around to evaluating. And So what that helps me with is understanding when I need to follow up, right? So why don't we go ahead and schedule a meeting like in October or I'll schedule a touch point to kick back with you in October and we'll revisit this whenever the timing is better for you. But what do you need to know now?

Yeah, so it's what's helpful and like, hey, send me a proposal like, well, why? What do you need? What do you need to know? What's going to help you make a decision?

And so you're seeing those things come up and it's really cool that y'all have a playbook that's integrated into your CRM that can help people with this knowing what questions to ask, know what might be important to ask during those stages. And so you're helping with the inbound. You're also transitioning a lot of that out so you can focus more on origination. And so tell me some about your how do you think about developing those right relationships with people to generate a business relationship that's going to lead to helping you hit your quota, helping them solve their problems?

Like what does that look like?

Chad Corley: To yeah, to zoom in again, I focus on private equity, right. And so if everyone's calling them, how are you different differentiation? What is your difference? And back to the beginning of our conversation, if CPAs at the bottom of this referral list of hey, I have a business owner exiting advised me, help me.

No CPAs no asking no they get a call saying hey my CPA we just signed an LOI I need some help. Yeah, I need some tax guidance or whatever. And so I tell people, I mean, I had drinks with a new private equity firm that I'd never met last night. And it's, hey, I'm trying to be the first CPA in town that actually sends deals out to the market.

Neil Barrow: What a novel concept.

Chad Corley: It's a novel concept and it started like I wouldn't say the flywheels going, but those wheels are turning and it's awesome. Like it's been both. It's both a personal network. Here's a business owner I know and here's my tax partners client.

Yeah.

Neil Barrow: And so how are you? How are you thinking about helping your partners ask these questions to find opportunities to connect them with the network? Like how are you thinking about that now?

Chad Corley: You know, January, February, right before tax season gets hot and heavy, I'm like, hey, will you guys find out? Is it, if anyone's interested in selling, will you let me know? And, and I kind of take them down. We've got growth goals that keep going up, skyrocketing every year.

So a way to get some deal flow coming back to us on accounting services is to just introduce them to one or two either investment banks, or a private equity firm.

Neil Barrow: And I know we're talking a lot about focusing on us and our process and what we want, but this is really serving the, this is about serving the clients. Like if I don't know that my clients looking to sell, I can't help them. I can't connect them with people that can help them. I can't give them good advice.

I can't help them figure out what's right for them. And so if I don't know to ask those questions or if I'm not being encouraged, enabled to ask those questions by someone like Chad internally, that it's hard for me for that to be top of mind because I've got other things to do. And so I think it's really important that you're highlighting this for them is like this is in serving your clients. This is being the trusted advisor.

And we have to be proactive in a lot of ways to do that. So you're wanting to activate these partners to enable them to go and understand their clients and when they're ready to sell or if they're ready to have a conversation around succession planning. And so then plugging them into your network, I think that's super smart.

Chad Corley: They're, you know, the only accounting firm that's ever really been successful at that, you know, ended up selling to a larger firm and there's kind of a void in the market for that. And

Neil Barrow: so I think you can fill that gap and I think that's a great goal for you to have. So wrapping up and thinking about your weeks, what is your typical week look like? How do you build in activities? Where do you focus your time?

Like because a lot of business developers that I talked to, we struggle with clarity. Like where should we be spending our time? What should my focus be? I can do so much, I can go to all these events, I can do everything, but how do I focus and create clarity around my calendar so I know what's the most useful thing.

So what have you found the highest ROI things that you could focus on?

Chad Corley: You're asking me how many times I play golf every week?

Neil Barrow: Maybe that was implied. OK, but.

Chad Corley: That's what everyone tells me. I play golf too much so.

Neil Barrow: So I start at the top and like — what?

Chad Corley: Who has sent me the most amount of deals? And is there something I can do this week to send them a deal and improve their life? Anything check in? What's an excuse to reach out?

And I do actually want to help. I'm not just saying can you send me a deal? Can you send me a deal? It's no how can I help improve your life so.

Neil Barrow: Connections or information or checking in or an invite to an event, like those type of things. That's how you're creating.

Chad Corley: Yeah, that's how I'm, that's how I'm organizing My week is starting at the top and then going down, right. And it's, you know, when we're filming, this is summertime, right? So things are a little slower. And so there are every quarter, every six months, I go back through every meeting I've had and say, hey, is there any CFO I need to follow up with?

Yeah. Did I miss anybody right? Because this is such a volume game now for me, I cannot, I have to put every CFO in my CRM. I'm losing them.

So there is this kind of direct to consumer, if you will, direct to CFO and then the referral game with a private equity firm.

Neil Barrow: So you're balancing, yeah, outbound a little bit like warm outbound and your referral relationships and you're starting at the top and you created this short list and you're working down it and then trying to find ways to add value to each of those people, right. Thinking about the relationship, OK. And what is, so how do you go get new like opportunities, referral sources? How are you like, How are you building that into your months or weeks?

Chad Corley: Yeah, it's similar to when I was at the investment bank, right, Like hey, do you corporate attorney, M&A attorney, do you know who's your best you're? Asking.

Chad Corley: Private equity, you know so.

Neil Barrow: You're going and asking your best relationships to help you build other relationships. I think that's a key missing point for a lot of people.

Chad Corley: Is to ask.

Neil Barrow: I've got a because that's an easy low level, low commitment ask for me is like, hey Neil, what insurance broker do you know that deals in private equity? Well, OK, well let me look. I'm happy to make an intro if I can. And it's not asking for me to dig into my clients and try to send you a client.

So it's a lower level ask and I want to be helpful to you because we have a relationship, but you haven't asked me. If you say, hey, if you know anybody that's looking to for counting stuff like let me know. Like no, I don't know that, but you're making this particular ask, which is smart.

Chad Corley: I think I'm confident enough if I can get in a launch or whatever event it is with the CFO, I'm, I'm going to manage that relationship for the next 5 years. Sure, work will fall out eventually. And same with private equity, right? It's, hey, can you know, I do this with my partners and it's worked so well there.

There's an independent sponsor in town, SMU. You know, buddy, we just have a lunch. 12 months later, we're billing them over $1,000,000 at work because I've gotten in there, added value, cared about them, sent them a few deals, told them where we can help, what we're not good at, what we're good at. And we look back and we're set, you know, over 1,000,000 bucks deep.

And that's the stuff that gets me excited.

Neil Barrow: And so you've highlighted a deal like, is that your best deal? Do you have another maybe story that is interesting?

Chad Corley: Yeah, I think when I can get creative or have to get creative it's fun and it's like, I mean that stuff goes right to the vein, right. So again, I have this direct to CFO and then I have this, you know, private equity thing as well. And so, yeah, I have a couple stories of we do an audit for one portco, we get the introduction to the partner at the private equity firm and we're 6 deals, you know, 12 months, we're 6 deals in.

Neil Barrow: How do you how do you make that? That transition is hard for a lot of people. How do you?

Chad Corley: I think I know how to talk to the PE Bros, you know, like I.

Neil Barrow: Is that what you mean? Like, well, yeah, like how do you, how do you get in? Like, OK, because a lot of firms have one portfolio company that they do the audit for, but they have no relationship with a private equity firm, right. So how do you make that transition?

Chad Corley: I just ask, right? And a lot of it's like, oh, I don't like at the private equity firm or it's tough right now. They're on me constantly. So I can't make that introduction.

So a lot of times it's.

Neil Barrow: You're asking the CFO, yeah, for the introduction to the private equity firm.

Chad Corley: Or sometimes we're brought in right when they buy. And so the PE firm's involved a little bit. So there's some relationship and this is A1 down in Austin. And so my audit partner, Jeff Owens, who's awesome, was like, hey, I think he'll meet with you when you go down there.

Just ping him and sure enough, 20 minutes, right? That's all I got. It's a coffee after lunch. And this particular service line is like, oh, the past two years have been terrible.

I'll just give you the next one, which is not a Dallas conversation, right? Austin's very different, but it's been a great market for us. And so we got the next deal for him.

Neil Barrow: So yeah, it's in the expansion of current opportunities and finding those opportunities. You know, a lot of firms are trying to cross sell more, but that's scary, like scary for a lot of people. Like I don't want to sell anything. And so, but it's finding those opportunities to add value and making the asks like that's what we've got to do, right?

So I think you've highlighted some cool stuff. And so if you had to summarize like your philosophy around business development or thinking about, you know, the leaders or the BD pros that are listening to this, like what is it for you that you would focus on? Like what is if you distill down BD into a nugget? Like we've talked about relationship building, we've talked about being intentional, we've talked about being organized, we've talked about doing a lot of activity.

We talked about enablement versus origination. But what? What is that for you? Bring it down.

Chad Corley: I think knowing a lot of people transition from a tax partner to BD, and maybe that makes sense. But knowing what you're good at and being OK with saying, hey, I'm good at X, right? And if you truly are, again, this is a weird marriage. I'm a sales guy stuck in financial services.

But I love it because Armanino understands it's important to bring people very different than a CPA into the firm to help us grow. So I'd say no. Know your gifting, be organized. We're we're in a TikTok world.

I mean, we go home, we scroll. I mean, stuff is flying everywhere. This is not COVID anymore. And so you got it.

You got to shut it off and know, you know the those high leverage activities, you got to know exactly what you need to do. One of my stops, one of my bosses, Murray McKee — big on hitting singles. We're just hitting singles today and this year's tough, right and I can get all emotional and then I suck at my job and it's like, no, we just got to come in and we're hitting singles. We're calling those CFOs, we're calling those PE firms.

And so know what you're good at, know who your target is and then be organized. And I think the organization piece slips in a in a in this world.

Neil Barrow: Yeah. So you highlight really the path and this is the evolution of a business development person professional in professional services is you've got to figure out yourself and what you're good at and what you want to spend time doing and what you will do consistently over years. Years, yes.

Neil Barrow: And then how are you distilling down the entire universe once you know yourself and what your firm is good at, into these little buckets so you can define what's good activity, like what is, what am I going to be doing? So for you, it's knowing who the private equity firms are. It's knowing your network and who your high leverage, like tier one clients, referral sources, prospective clients like these are ideal. And you're only doing things to track the eyeballs and converse to generate conversations within those buckets.

Chad Corley: That's a good way to summarize.

Neil Barrow: Yeah, it's great. OK. On that high note, Chad, I appreciate you man. Thanks, Neil.