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Beyond Strategy: The Human Side of BD with Neil Barrow
Neil Barrow returns for part 2 of his special double CPA Life episode to unpack the realities of business development beyond buzzwords. John steers the conversation from the pitfalls of hiring for growth without a plan, to the delicate dance of balancing capacity and opportunity within your firm, and Neil’s philosophy is refreshingly straightforward: keep things simple, focus on relationships, and don’t lose sight of what actually works. You won’t want to miss the unexpected parallel Neil draws between perfecting an award-winning chili recipe and building a business, or his insight into how beer tastings can open doors to new clients just as effectively as chamber of commerce meetings.
Important Links:
The I Hope This Email Finds You Well Podcast
About the Guest:
Neil Barrow started my career in software sales, but got talked into public accounting, where he led BD and origination efforts at two different firms for over eight years. He founded EnabledBD in 2022 and has since worked with over a dozen firms to build or enhance their BD functions, proving that BD is not a soft skill, it’s a system. Beyond EnabledBD, he also runs UndergroundBD, an online community for BD professionals looking for clarity, upskilling, and support.
Transcript:
Thanks for tuning in to CPA Life, where today, John Randolph and Neil Barrow of EnabledBD return for part two of their conversation. Neil shares insights on keeping business development simple, dives into building strong client connections, and more. Welcome to CPA Life.
If I am a business developer, and I am in charge of going out and generating new opportunities and new conversations for the firm, then I need to be able to generate that, and then have confidence that our team will have a great first meeting and will give us the best likely outcome of a good outcome, which is a new client. If I do not have confidence in that, then it is really difficult for me to go and do business development. And so I have to have a focus around how I am going to do that, whether that is private equity, real estate, whatever industry, whatever size of company, whatever problems we are solving for business owners or CFOs, like I have got to get pretty clear about that, so then I can give this to the business developer for them to go and learn more about our firm, meet the partners, and then find the areas where they need to spend their time, so it is focused. So it is not just going out into the market and just being the face of the firm. I hear that a lot, “we just want somebody to be the face of the firm,” which again is fine if you find that person that can go figure it out. We struggle as we are setting ourselves up for frustration and not success when we do not give them some focus areas around what we are great at and which partners to partner with on the most likely good outcomes for the firm.
Yeah. I think that, again, talking to some of our clients where they have struggled is exactly what you are talking about, and they have hired people in the past that have a solid skillset or network in a vertical that maybe they have never really even touched, or they do not know anything about. And either they are winning business and cannot deliver on it, or the timeframe to learn that new business or that new space is affecting their ability to deliver successfully for those clients. So I think that we have seen some of that in talking, some of the clients that are struggling from a growth standpoint when they have hired BD people in the marketplace.
And I am a huge advocate for, obviously I am a business development professional, so I am a huge advocate for the BD role. I think it is an awesome role. I think it creates a ton of value for firms where we know how to use it. So I was talking to, in the vein of your story, I was talking to a firm leader and they were hiring for business development, and so they were just wanting to get my take on what the BD role can look like and need to look like. And so their idea was, “Hey, we have got these areas, like this is really strong in growth, really where we need to be spending our time is in these areas, where we are underperforming.” And I said, “I would never take that job,” because if I am aligned to decreasing value service lines, how am I going to be successful? Like, I want to go get more business to where we are already all stars, where I can confidently walk into a room and say, we are the best at this, and here is why. Here are our stories, here is our partner. Look at him, look at her, right? Kind of what you were talking about is, hey, we are trying to grow into this vertical. Let us hire a BD person who is super well networked. Well, we cannot deliver and we are not really compelling, so why would anybody hire us?
Just putting it all together. I think when you are looking at business development, I think setting them up for success is centered around aligning them with what we’re great at, and then we know we need to be executing more activities to grow more in these areas. So this is where you are going to be spending your time in the activity perspective to align with what we are already doing. And so it’s like a supplement almost, where, hey, we have got a great team. We are growing, but now we need more activity and here is where we are going to spend our time and here is what we need you to be doing.
Yeah, it makes complete sense. One of the things that we see as a challenge a lot of times with the firms that we talk to, and we touched a little bit about this before we started recording again, and it’s the whole dynamic of aligning business development and capacity planning. One of the struggles we see a lot with firms that we talk to is we are struggling delivering for our clients. We are struggling hitting the numbers that we need to hit from a delivery perspective because we are not at capacity, we are over capacity, our people are stretched. And then when we start digging into why is that happening? A lot of times it is we have either got a great business development person, we have got somebody that is bringing in business. We have had a windfall where we have had a lot of yeses on clients that we have been knocking on the door of, and so we are bringing in this business.
I sit there from a recruiting standpoint and say, okay, help me understand what we are dealing with here. You are saying that you care about your people. You are saying that you want to make their lives better, you are saying that they are killing themselves and you want to end that, but you have got business coming in the door over here and you cannot hire at a pace to keep up with that. You are either going to have people that are going to get frustrated and leave because they are working too much, or you are going to have a business development person get frustrated and leave because nobody is delivering for their clients.
Yep, yep.
And you are stuck in the middle, and you are not saying no to anything that is coming in the door, but you are also telling your people, “Hey, we care about your lives” while they are working 60 to 80 hours a week. How do you talk to firm owners about balancing that really fragile line between capacity and business development?
Yeah, so that is something that we address pretty much at the beginning is like, what is our capacity currently? I am not a CPA firm operations consultant, and so for me, whenever I hear capacity is an issue, then we have got to fix it, and so you either need to fix it or we need to find someone who can help us fix it. Because if you truly want to grow, I firmly believe that business development is everybody’s job. And that can be, going back to what I mentioned earlier, that can be something as simple as being a better client service and being more intentional to your clients and developing those relationships and asking better questions all the way to having a full business development plan.
And so we need to be mindful about what we are asking our people to do, and that is why, again, I think this more customized individual business development plan for everybody to allow them to say, like, I’ve got one client and their top people are at capacity. And so a lot of our conversations are working with recruiting, to hire people working on operations, like how do I get out some of these first qualification meetings coming in? Can we move those off to someone else? So it’s more about that operations around the conversation to open them up because I believe that those that are really good at business development need to start pushing things down to other people to free up their time to do capacity or to do business development, because if I can free up those great business developers that are willing to go out and do the activity and want to go do those activities, then I think our firm is in a better spot.
So again, I think it is a delicate line to balance, but we can make business development as easy—as simple as possible, it is not easy—but as simple as possible and practical as possible, no matter where your firm is at. But if you are turning down work, call John, like, figure it out, like we have got to get some help in here, right? Before we even think about business development, because I talked to firms and I am like, hey, I get it, but I cannot help you because you need to fix the capacity challenge first.
Yeah. And that is a definite issue that I think a lot of firms are dealing with on a consistent daily basis. Yeah. And they either struggle with it, but balance it well, or one of those sides of the equation suffers in the process.
Yeah, and I think it is seasonal too, right? Like we ride the rollercoaster of business development: We got too much work, cannot do anything, and then now, oh, we need more work. And so we ride this business development rollercoaster and so it is never going to be a straight line, but how do you even a little bit out rather than these big highs and lows. And that is through consistently executing on a plan on activity.
Yep. I think that you touched on a topic that we have conversations with our clients a lot about is this is not a switch that we can turn on and off. And the more consistent we can get with it: Hey, we are at capacity. We do not need any new business right now, okay, that does not mean we turn the switch off. We may dial the level of gas on it that we are putting. Sure. And we may take that gas and put it more on recruiting and capacity where four months ago, we were pushing business development really hard, we had a good staff level so we could pull back on recruiting. Again, that does not mean we stopped doing it, we just pulled back on it a little bit. Yeah, and I think if firm owners can learn to pull those levers when needed versus shut them off, shut them on, it makes life, it takes those ebb and flows away a little bit.
Yeah, it does. And I think you key in on something important, something that I coach when we are going through, we provide the structure and the plan and the how to, and then you have to supplement that with training and coaching on the back end. I think that’s the model that works best for firms, is like giving the how to and the structure internally, and then training and coaching. But one of those things is whenever I am meeting with a new prospective client, I’ve got a framework for those first calls, but one of the ones that always sticks out is, now that I know your problem and what you are trying to solve for, what is the priority for you to figure this out? Is it number one or, is this number five? And I ask that question whenever I am meeting with a firm, it’s like business development, it seems like you have got other things that are more of a priority right now to fix, which is capacity, maybe operations, maybe implementing technology, right? So that seems like it would get in the way with doing a business development initiative. So why don’t we focus on that? And so kind of what you are saying is we need to help guide the firms that we are working with, but also we need to help our people guide and take their lane around their business development.
Yep, that’s a mindset shift and kind of leads me to a question I was getting ready to ask you: What mindset shifts do you see partners, owners, leaders going into ’26, looking forward into the industry with a lot of dynamics and things occurring in the space right now, what would you say the mindset shifts are that leaders, partners, owners, need to make to be effective in business development beyond just tracking metrics and KPIs?
Yeah. I think from a mindset perspective, everybody is talking about growth, everybody is talking about business development. I think Private Equity has really caused that, as now everybody is focused on what do we need to do to be sustainable long term? And we talked about this a little bit, but there is no right answer for every firm. And so some firms need the marketing aspect, and when I say marketing, it’s SEO and content and trying to get eyeballs on us—how are we going to do that? We need better messaging, we need to tighten our collateral. There’s a lot of things that you can do on the marketing side when it relates to growth. That’s not what I do. I really focus on the business development standpoint. And so when you think about your mindset, there are a million things, there are a ton of shiny objects to chase, there are a lot of things you could be looking at on how to help your firm grow when you are thinking about how to either remain independent or set yourself up for being attractive to Private Equity, whatever that looks like, or succession planning. But when you think about the mindset of growth, of how I think about it, it’s am I invested in maximizing all of our relationships that we have at our firm today, or are we still in the mindset of do good work and the work will come? And that mantra has gotten us farther in the accounting industry, right? It still works, is doing good work That is a baseline.
Yes.
Like you have got to do good work. But I think about it, and it is a hand to hand thing. And it is not automated. It is not AI driven. There are great tools out there that can help you get started and to give you insights, but you are the one that has to pick up the phone. If people start sniffing that it is AI, is that effective? Is that a good use of our time? So I want to shift the mindset to, hey, what do we need to implement? What tech stack? What do we need to do to go generate new opportunities? And I want us to get back to the foundation, what our industry is built upon, which is doing good work and intentional, proactive, being the trusted advisor to the people in our orbit. So this is our clients, our referral sources, our prospective clients. And so I always say we are one degree removed, we’re Kevin Bacon, from our next best client. We are. But it is our job to be intentional about driving those conversations. And that is the foundation for business development.
And I am not saying that is all business development is. I am a big advocate of cold outreach. Like I am a former sales guy, but that is part of a balanced diet and some firms might not be ready for that yet. So I am really focused on the foundational mindset around business development for firms, and that is where I have seen it be most effective and the shortest time to ROI.
I like how you put that, that it’s a “balanced diet.” It could be if we stay with the trends that we are seeing in the world today and we think about diet, yeah. It can be a protein forward diet, you know, whatever that may look like for one firm from business development may not look the same way for another. Firm and business development and being able to tailor that individually, I think is key to what it is that you are talking about that firm is doing. It’s one of the things that you do when you step into a firm to start to advise on how do we attack this problem and how do we deal with this?
I wanted to touch on two quick things that have to do with business development but not business development directly: Beer and chili. Because apparently those are two things that you are passionate about. So, tell me what it takes to be a championship caliber chili chef, because you can wear that title officially.
Oh, absolutely, yes. Thank you for knowing that. So, on the chili front, everybody has their own—so this correlates directly to business development, weirdly—is everybody has their own taste of business on chili, right? Some people like beans, some people like where it is more like a stew, right? Where it is a chili flavored stew. I am a purist, it’s a Texas red, right? So I started building my recipe about 10 years ago and simply it’s being intentional about the ingredients and when I started, it wasn’t good, too many ingredients, and then I started simplifying it over the years to get it exactly how I want to eat it. And it’s won some local contests, I am not like a chili world champion. Maybe one day I will go down there, but I love that, and I love the simplicity of it: Meat sauce. Like I love the simplicity of it. It is always a crowd pleaser,
And it kind of leans back into the whole mindset of business development. Just keep it simple.
Keep it simple. Yes.
Just really keep it simple.
And I am happy to send anyone the recipe. It is public domain.
So it is public domain recipe. It is not something you hold on and guard in grandma’s closet kind of thing.
I am not going to guard it. I am not going to guard it. People need good chili in their lives.
Yes, they absolutely do. And, and tell me about, one of the things that I kind of discovered about you was the certified, is it cicerone? Am I pronouncing that correctly?
Cicerone, yes, that is correct. The beer sommelier, can be just as pretentious in the name as well as sommelier. So yeah, so I got that, that was kind of a fun thing that I did. To be honest with you, a lot of my friends were making beer in their garage when it was popular back in the day, right? Homebrew days. And I would tell them it was bad, but they would not listen to me. And so I decided to get this certification, so you kind of have to listen to me now. And so it is a good party trick, but I think one of the things that I utilized it for, which is a great business development tip: On my podcast, Emily Ackerman, she shared this and it is what I use as well, which is getting people around a shared interest that you all enjoy. And there are a lot of folks that love to go try new breweries, and there are a lot of folks that love to do beer tastings and to try beer is a good beverage of choice for a lot of folks, and they are interested in it, and so I would use that interest and that party trick as a beer sommelier, to get those people together, like what I said like, hey, we need to get our people in our orbit together. And so I would use, hey, let’s go taste beer, let’s go to this new brewery and then invite some people. And these were referral sources, clients, prospective clients, right? People in the community. And that is how I leveraged that. But it is fun. I have been able to trade and tried some of the best beers in the world and it is a lot of fun. I do not drink as much as I used to now. But I still do appreciate a really well made beer.
So if you had to say your top one or two beers that you lean into quite consistently, love the taste, what would you say those are?
Yeah. It is completely dependent on everyone’s beer journey; some people don’t like IPAs, Some people don’t like stouts. And so I think that if I had to share my favorite style, it is a Vienna lager and it is the European Vienna lager, not American Vienna lagers. The reason is, it has got a lot of flavor, it’s malty, toasty, easy to drink, low ABV, it’ s very nice. I think that if I had to, if you are into stouts, some of the best barrel-aged programs in the world really is out of Firestone Walker, which you might have heard of that brewery, it’s out of California. You can find Parabola, Sticky Monkey, they have got a bunch of different barrel-aged beers, so if you are into that, that is great. I think some of the great IPAs that are here locally, Celestial is great, Turning Point is great, but there is a brewery down in Marble Falls, which I just went down to, called Save the World, and they have a new, they won gold medal for their hazy IPA, in the country, I think the US Beer Cup, and it is called Chasing Broncos and it is one of the better beers that I have had, if you like hazy IPAs. So there is a couple.
Chasing Broncos.
Yeah.
I will have to make a note of that. Last question I have got for you is, I have got to know where the name of the podcast came from: I Hope This Email Finds You Well. What did you do? Sit around and think about your worst email openings you could come up with?
Basically! “I hope this email finds you well” is a meme, right? Everybody gets those emails and when you see that first slide, it’s like, okay, well go ahead and hit me with what you have got or I am just going to immediately delete it. But I think it’s in the spirit of business development, is supposed to be fun. Like, “I hope this email finds you well” is a great way to think about how not to do business development or outreach or start your email, but it’s just with that impersonalization. Some people like to start with a nicety in their email, but that has kind of become culturally, an immediate delete. So that was the inspiration around naming the podcast. I’ve had fun with it. We’ve got a couple episodes out now, and I’ve got a lot in the can that are really great, but it is interviewing business development professionals at professional service firms, so not just accounting and legal and consulting and architects, engineering, construction, financial services. So we’ve got leaders at the chief level all the way down to people that are just starting out and everywhere in between, and it’s really centered around strategies and tactics that have worked over their career to generate new conversations and generate pipeline for firms.
The episodes that I have been able to listen to, knowing that you and I were going to spend some time talking today, what I’ve gleaned from them in my years of business and in the training that I have done over the years with salespeople, it resonated with me because there are so many things after you have done this for a little while, whether it’s two years or 22 years, there are so many things that you will walk out of a training or a discussion, and it’s not the epiphany of, man, that was a great idea I have never heard of. More times than not, it’s a realization of how you have gotten away from the basics or a reminder of the things that you used to do that worked, and you go, I used to do that, I do not know why I stopped.
No, you are exactly right. This is not complicated, we just get away from it over time, just like most things in life is we know we’re doing the right things and then we get busy and then things happen, personal life, we’ve got a bunch of stuff going on, so a lot of times it is just getting back to, oh yeah, you know what, like, it would be great. I should do a client event. Like I have been thinking about that. Why don’t I do that? I don’t understand. I’m going to do that right now. Or it is a lot of times, well, my firm is looking like this, where they are not really giving me a lot of guidance on how to do this, so you know what? I’m going to focus around a particular industry and then I am going to join an organization. It’s those things that you know you need to do, but you need a little bit of the reminder or reinforcement. But it’s great to hear those stories from the people that are actually doing it.
Absolutely, it really is. I think that we live in a world and we have lived in the same world for decades that is a, and I don’t mean this literally, but you know, misery loves company. We love to hear what people are doing well. We love to hear the struggles that people are having, not because we want people to struggle, but it validates that, oh, I am not the only person that has a battle with that, and it brings a little validation to, okay, I can give myself a little grace. I don’t need to beat myself up that much. There is an end at this tunnel because she did it, he did it, they did it, I can do it too.
Yep. Yep. And it is about picking what fits your personality, and I think that is what’s great about it is, all these interviews have been centered around relationships, like, we know that relationships are the key to business development, but how they have gone about developing those are a little bit different for everybody. And so that’s what makes it really interesting is you can kind of choose your own path, but as long as it is high activity around a focus around building relationships, that’s where everybody is seeing success.
Neil, if we have got people that are listening to this, watching this, that obviously want to reach out to you, talk to you, firm leaders, firm owners, or even people that have kind of progressed into a role that is now business development components to it, and they are scratching their head wondering what do I do, how do I do it? What is the best way for people to get ahold of you, and what are places that people can find your content, your information?
Yeah. So, Neil@EnabledBD.com, that’s my email. And then I am really, where I post everything is a newsletter that’s once around a particular subject around business development, and I post content on LinkedIn as well. Then my podcast, I Hope This Email Finds You Well. So those are just a couple different areas. I’ve got a really cool thing that I am working on that I don’t know if we’ve talked about, but, kind of a part of supporting business development professionals is with a little bit of clarity around the role and how to execute the role at a high level, and then also with community is like providing, hey, this person gets it, they’re in my shoes, is I am creating an online business development community that’s going to be launching next year sometime to give people some clarity and community so we can all kind of share and get better together.
That would be awesome, because I know that there are a lot of people that we talk to that are fairly new firm owners, started their own firm, maybe they are right now flying solo trying to figure this thing out. Or they are people that have been promoted into roles where BD is a part of the component of what they are responsible for now, and they’re again, still trying to figure it out because the people above them, the training methodology is real simple: “Figure it out, I did,” which is always great for ensuring success.
I want to thank you for bringing a lot of clarity to what business development really means in CPA firms, and for giving us a little bit of a roadmap that is really practical, thoughtful, and is rooted in the realities leaders are facing today. So I appreciate your time.
Absolutely. John, thanks for having me on. This was fun.
You’re more than welcome. And we’re going to put all the contact information down in the show notes. And for our listeners, if today’s conversation really hit home, whether you are wrestling with growth strategy, capacity planning, or building consistent BD systems, I really recommend checking out EnabledBD and Neil’s podcast, I Hope This Email Finds You Well. As I said, those links will be down below in the show notes. I want to thank you guys for listening and investing a little bit of time into the CPA Life podcast today. Be sure to hit subscribe, leave us a rating, and that way you can catch us next time for more conversations that move our profession forward. Until next time.
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