Business development is hard because it surfaces what you've been carrying

She said it almost offhandedly, near the end of our Live, when we were discussing the blocks that women lawyers face in business development.

"A lot of this is psychological. You're working through your own stuff to get to the right decision."

Three clients her first year. Eleven total, and climbing. And that's what she named as a key shift that explained her success: a brave willingness to face what had been holding her back.

That isn't a detour from BD - not when you're carrying something. This is a critical to your BD success.

What I've watched, across hundreds of sessions with top performing women, is that the tactics aren't what stops you. I can teach you how to make the ask. The follow-up cadence isn't that hard to build, either. What stops women so often is what comes up the moment when they are about to actually execute. We freeze.

You know the old story about who gets to take up as much space as they want, and it has never been us. This becomes deeply internalized messaging that asking directly (and often) is aggressive. It's rude.

Subconsciously, it stirs up the memory of another, earlier room, where we were talked over and we didn't push back. We recreate it in real time, because it's familiar.

Women with additional layers of identity face even more stereotypes, which can come up in business development contexts just like any other. Which makes it even more meaningful to break through.

What I now know is this: when a client tells me her outreach isn't working, we don't start with scripts or lists of leads. I ask what happens in the ten seconds before she hits send. That's where the trail starts, and that's where we go.

A question I got this week: "I know what I'm supposed to do. I just don't do it. What's wrong with me?"

Nothing is wrong with you. Avoidance is data. It's pointing at something specific — a fear of the ask, a story about what a yes or no would mean, a room you've already decided won't receive you just as you are.

Name the specific moment you freeze. We work backwards from there.

If you want to go deeper on this live, I'm teaching a masterclass on Thursday, June 4. It covers the five shifts Tara made — in sequence, including the internal shifts we must make in order to win.

Link to register here.

If you're feeling seen and are ready to shift how you show up, I'm here.

Rachel

P.S. If you want to think this through together, we can do that in a private strategy session. You can book one here.