Rainmaker Story #2: The Man Who Didn’t Get It
Experienced rainmakers can have little patience for a rainmaker-in-the-making. They are a driven group and sometimes see the newcomer’s fumbling attempts as a series of lost opportunities.
Too many years ago, a professional in his mid thirties was put in charge of a practice when the former head moved up to take over an office. He was smart and decent and at least once I had heard him described as a Superman-look-alike. I will call him Clark. His boss had been a rainmaker of monsoon proportions and had built up a practice made up of professionals who looked to the practice head to flood them with work.
And Clark tried to. The practice had an enviable reputation, resulting in many unsolicited requests for proposal. It also had a first-rate business developer, who ferreted out opportunities. Clark would pursue these leads vigorously. Returning from each client meeting, he would say how good it had been. Every presentation, he would say, had been a whopping success. Then the client would call to tell him that they had picked someone else. Clark would go to the next meeting and again report on a near win. But it wasn’t. Not once. For almost a year.
“He just doesn’t get it,” asserted one of the best rainmakers in the firm, and he certainly seemed not to. The description stuck to him; he just didn’t get it. The end of some long-term projects was in sight, increasing the pressure on him to find more work for his team.
He hung in there for pitch after pitch remaining upbeat, always sure he would win the next one. And eventually, he did get one. And then he got another and over four or five years became a rainmaker himself and eventually the president of the firm.
There were several reasons for his ultimate success; I will make a point of one here. What saved Clark was his boundless optimism. His ability to rebound from every loss was unlike anything I had seen. He may not have gotten it (whatever “it” was), but if he had he might have become discouraged. Most people would have. I would have.
Ever since then, when looking for rainmaker material, I have looked for optimism. And when I have been asked to help young professionals learn to sell, I have sought to help them be more optimistic. And in doing so, I have become more optimistic, myself.
You should have been with me this morning on the sales call. It was fantastic!
