I draw on over two decades of experience in eDiscovery as a business development professional, business owner, and discovery consultant for my work as a talent advisor. As I've worked across legal tech, discovery, professional, and expert services, I've seen a pattern that separates thriving organizations from those struggling with service delivery and employee churn.
Most tech companies, service providers, and consulting firms invest heavily in hiring top sales talent. As they should.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Too often, great sales professionals are hired without the internal support they need to deliver products with the best possible client experience.
This is important for C-Suite and company leadership to recognize, because even if a sales team is doing a great job lining up incoming business, without an equally strong internal delivery infrastructure, companies will struggle to earn repeat sales, face declining company culture, and have unhappy employees who will move on to other opportunities.
The solution?
Companies that hire several project managers to support delivery for each business development professional they bring in come out on top.
In my experience, companies that hire Project Managers – including Analytics Consultants (and AI), Discovery Consultants, Customer Success, and other supporting professionals alongside their sales professionals have more productive cultures, better employee retention, and deliver a stronger customer experience that drives new sales.
A few thoughts:
- Sales gets customers in the door. Delivery keeps them there. Without a strong project management infrastructure, even your best sales efforts can leave clients disappointed and your reputation damaged.
- Project managers may be your future salespeople. Often, the first step into a company is as a project manager or another support individual. The best inside teams don't just execute; they know how to build relationships, identify opportunities, and create the client experience that drives sales growth.
- People. Process. Technology. In this order! No question, AI and automation tools are valuable, but they must be secondary to skilled support teams who understand both the work and the client.
- Unbalanced hiring can breed over-promising with under-delivering. Strategic tandem hiring across sales and delivery almost always results in sustainable growth and client retention.
The net-net? Sales and delivery aren't separate functions – they're two perspectives of the same sales strategy. Investing in both functions creates an infrastructure that turns one-time deals into long-term partnerships.
- James Bickley
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