How high performers land new business: the activator advantage

Executive overview

Client loyalty in professional services is breaking down. Five years ago, ~75% of C-level buyers said they would return to a firm that did good work; today that figure is closer to 50%, and only a third say they would skip a competitive pitch. Professionals who grew up "aggressively waiting for the phone to ring" are now exposed.

Matt Dixon's research across thousands of professionals identifies one winning profile: the activator. Activators are defined by three behaviours — a metronomic commitment to business development, broad and deep connecting, and proactive value creation. Most are introverted; none were born salespeople.

The core insight: in a world of eroding loyalty, consistent outreach with genuine personal value creates the only sticky client relationships left.

Why the old model is failing

• Buyers now complete ~60–100% of their research before contacting a vendor; by contact, their shortlist is set and they are negotiating on price.
• Average buying committee size has grown from 5.5 stakeholders (2013) to upwards of 20 today; Zoom accelerated this.
• The "do good work and clients return" compact has frayed. A third of C-level buyers say they will make even a trusted incumbent compete for the next engagement.
• Professionals who dislike selling avoid it until a client leaves or an engagement ends — the worst possible moment to start.

Commitment: the metronomic habit

• Activators treat business development as a non-negotiable daily routine, not a scramble triggered by lost revenue.
• They start small — minutes per day — and build sustainable habits (per James Clear's framework).
• They never let client work, firm initiatives, or recruiting crowd business development off the calendar.
• Most activators describe themselves as introverted; consistent practice, not personality, is the differentiator.
• Resilience compounds with consistency: regular outreach means more rejections, which builds a thicker skin and faster learning.

Connecting broadly and deeply

• Activators treat their professional network as their most important business asset, managed deliberately.
• At conferences they arrive with pre-scheduled coffees, lunches, and dinners; they work the room, not the colleagues' corner.
• One top rainmaker ($30–40 million book of business) described conference days as "the hardest I work all year" — she then skips the bar to recharge as an introvert.
• Unlike most partners, activators actively introduce colleagues into their client relationships (73% do so frequently vs. 29% of non-activators).
• Bringing colleagues in creates firm-level loyalty, not just individual loyalty — a far stickier relationship that clients think twice before severing.
• Acting as a general contractor for expertise lets activators pursue bigger, more complex — and better-paid — engagements.

Creating value proactively

• Activators send ideas, insights, and opportunities to clients before the client has recognised the need.
• Paying it forward establishes goodwill without billing; it also shapes the client's framing of a problem in ways that advantage the activator when work is eventually scoped.
• Three types of value activators deliver:
  1. Business value — help clients make money, save money, or mitigate risk.
  2. Trust value — honest, transparent work that meets or exceeds expectations.
  3. Personal value — understanding what matters to the client personally (career challenges, causes, team struggles) and finding ways to help outside the scope of paid work.
• Business value + trust value = trusted advisor. Most competitors offer this too. Personal value is the layer that creates genuine stickiness.

Sending thought leadership the right way

• Two common mistakes: sending content as-is, or not sending it at all. Both leave value on the table.
• Activators add a specific overlay: "Based on our conversation at X, page 53 speaks directly to the challenge you mentioned."
• Clients' number-one complaint about partners is not hearing from them often enough — the "I don't want to bother them" assumption is wrong.
• Clients expect partners to act as a window into the market: they know what they don't know, and they rely on partners to surface it.
• Partners who don't reach out proactively create an opening for a competitor who does.