The Rainmaking Podcast

The Rainmaking Podcast TRP will help you to get more business, better business, and all the business from your clients.

The Rainmaking Podcast will help you to get more business, better business, and all the business from your clients.

09/21/2026

Your engagement survey says you need to communicate more. So you send more newsletters.
Kim Bohr has a word for that: not trust-building.

Most engagement surveys tell you where things stand but not why. They point to symptoms, not the underlying trust dynamics. And when organizations respond to a trust problem with a communication tactic, they're treating a fracture with a band-aid.
The Trust Performance Index works differently. It measures specific behavioral dimensions: strategic clarity, psychological safety, relational continuity, technology trust, and fairness in change. And it surfaces the exact actions, by real managers, in real moments, that are building or destroying trust day by day.
"Engagement surveys tend to come back and say we need more newsletters. That is not a trust-building activity."

Kim Bohr, episode 343: Can Trust Be Measured?

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4yAc92q
YouTube: https://youtu.be/MRdQ5gmgzpU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

09/20/2026

They had consistently low engagement scores. The leadership team knew something was wrong. What they didn't know was that they were the problem.
In town halls, when employees raised their hands, the CEO would respond dismissively, defaulting to data, shutting conversations down, signaling that questions weren't welcome.
He thought he was being efficient. His team experienced it as a trust fracture.

When SparkEffect brought the research in front of the leadership team, the first question was: can we all agree that trust is the underlying issue? Because you can't fix what you won't name.
Once they could, the work began, and it required changing behavior, changing who was answering questions, and in some cases, changing people. Months later, engagement scores are trending up.
"You have to be willing to hold yourself accountable. And willing to apologize when you've made the mistake."

Kim Bohr, episode 343: Can Trust Be Measured?
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4yAc92q
YouTube: https://youtu.be/MRdQ5gmgzpU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

09/19/2026

Early in Brad Blickstein's career, a manager asked him two questions that changed the way he thought about sales forever.
"Do you believe in our product?" Yes.
"When you try to sell it to someone, do you truly believe it would help them?" Most of the time.
"Well, the rest of the time, don't. But all the times you see they're going to benefit? You're not selling to them. You're doing them a favor."
That reframe is what Brad brings to law firms that still flinch at the word "sales." If you genuinely believe your clients are better off with you than without you, then finding the right clients isn't selling. It's service.
The mindset shift is that simple. And that hard.

Brad Blickstein: Episode 342: What Would Private Equity Do?

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4j2n3cz
YouTube: https://youtu.be/_cYCbz0U1TU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

09/18/2026

Most organizations have a plan for big disruptions. Mergers. Layoffs. Market downturns.
But what about the micro-disruptions? The return-to-office policy that gave people three weeks' notice. The manager who misread why someone was suddenly showing up late. The AI rollout where the message was "figure it out."

Kim Bohr's research across 400 organizations found that leaders are largely unprepared for these and that doing nothing when disruption hits is the single most damaging response an organization can have.
"Doing something increased the impact on trust. But doing something well significantly increased it."
The gap between high-trust and low-trust organizations on customer effectiveness: 91% vs. 30%.
That's not a culture metric. That's a revenue metric.
Kim Bohr, President & CEO of SparkEffect, Episode 343 of The Rainmaking Podcast.

🎧 TRP 343: Can Trust Be Measured?
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4yAc92q
YouTube: https://youtu.be/MRdQ5gmgzpU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

🎙️ New Episode Alert! TRP 343: Can Trust Be Measured? with Kim Bohr"I wish we could measure trust. It's unfortunate we c...
09/17/2026

🎙️ New Episode Alert! TRP 343: Can Trust Be Measured? with Kim Bohr
"I wish we could measure trust. It's unfortunate we can't."

Kim Bohr kept hearing that from leaders. Her response: Actually, you can.
In this episode of The Rainmaking Podcast, Scott Love sits down with Kim Bohr, President and CEO of SparkEffect and researcher behind the State of Organizational Trust™, to break down exactly how trust gets measured, what the data reveals, and what leaders can do about it.

What you'll learn:
✅ The 5 domains of the Trust Performance Index
✅ Why 85% of organizations experienced major disruption in the last 24 months
✅ 91% vs. 30%: what high-trust vs. low-trust organizations deliver to customers
✅ 5 everyday practices that build trust starting tomorrow
Trust isn't soft. It's a KPI.

🎧 Listen now

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4yAc92q
YouTube: https://youtu.be/MRdQ5gmgzpU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

09/17/2026

Here's why cross-selling is almost impossible at most law firms, and it has nothing to do with willingness.
If you bring another partner into your client relationship and they get the origination credit, what's in it for you? If the project goes sideways, you look like a fool. If it goes well, the managing partner gives you an attaboy at bonus time.

Brad Blickstein puts it plainly: "The risk-reward is out of whack."
This isn't a character problem. It's a structural one. Firms that want partners to think systemically to cross-sell, to share clients, to build something bigger than a personal book have to make it worth their while. Until the incentive structure changes, the behavior won't.

"I'm not suggesting partners change out of the goodness of their heart. I'm suggesting the firm makes it worth their while."
Brad Blickstein: Episode 342: What Would Private Equity Do?

🎧 Listen here: TRP 342
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4j2n3cz
YouTube: https://youtu.be/_cYCbz0U1TU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

The general counsel pyramid is gone.Legal decision-making now sits with divisional GCs, technical counsel by service lin...
09/16/2026

The general counsel pyramid is gone.
Legal decision-making now sits with divisional GCs, technical counsel by service line, industry-specific counsel, and portfolio company representatives. If your BD approach still assumes one decision-maker at the top, you're pitching into a structure that no longer exists.

Mike Mellor, President + Founder of 742advisors, introduces The Matrix: a two-part mapping exercise that pairs an honest inventory of your firm's own capabilities with a detailed map of how your clients actually buy.
The payoff isn't just better targeting. It's spotting the lifecycle gaps, the moment a client needs labor or immigration work you don't offer, before a competitor uses them as a way in.

Read it in the September issue 👉 https://therainmakingmagazine.com/p/understanding-the-matrix-mapping-your-firm-s-capabilities-in-a-complex-legal-landscape

09/16/2026

Imagine a private equity owner asking the head of biz dev at a law firm: "What does your pipeline look like?"
Brad Blickstein says you'd get one of two things: a blank stare or a resignation letter.

That's the gap. PE-backed portfolio companies review their pipeline every single month. Law firms, by and large, do business development when an event comes up or when the workload starts to thin. Not systemic. Not scalable. Not sustainable at the level these firms could be operating.

"It's not that it's not sustainable; law firms are doing fine. They could do a whole lot better if they built the right processes."
Brad Blickstein, author of What Would Private Equity Do?, Episode 342 of The Rainmaking Podcast.

🎧 TRP 342: What Would Private Equity Do?

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4j2n3cz
YouTube: https://youtu.be/_cYCbz0U1TU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

Conferences don't create opportunities. Professionals do. Trust isn't built through persuasion. It's built through authe...
09/15/2026

Conferences don't create opportunities. Professionals do. Trust isn't built through persuasion. It's built through authenticity. And your firm's biggest growth opportunities are hiding in plain sight, if you know how to map them. 🎯

The September issue of The Rainmaking Magazine just dropped five more expert articles, covering how to make conferences actually work for you, Ari Galper on building trust in life and business, Mo Bunnell's 4-step BD strategy, Mike Mellor on mapping your firm's capabilities, and the social proof that gets transferred before the first meeting.

Five reads. Zero cost. Your subscription is completely complimentary.

👉 therainmakingmagazine.com

🎙️ New Episode Alert! TRP 342: What Would Private Equity Do? with Brad BlicksteinLaw firms keep saying no to private equ...
09/15/2026

🎙️ New Episode Alert! TRP 342: What Would Private Equity Do? with Brad Blickstein
Law firms keep saying no to private equity.
But what if the PE playbook could grow your firm without giving up a single point of equity?
In this Sometimes Tuesdays episode of The Rainmaking Podcast, Scott Love sits down with Brad Blickstein, legal industry futurist, founder of Blickstein Group, and author of What Would Private Equity Do?, for one of the most practically useful conversations on law firm strategy the show has ever featured.

What you'll learn:
✅ Why pricing is the lowest-hanging fruit at most law firms right now
✅ The difference between eminence marketing and pipeline management
✅ How origination credit blocks cross-selling, and what to do about it
✅ What PE-backed portfolio companies do every month that law firms almost never do
✅ 3 action steps to start applying the PE playbook at your firm today
The firms winning tomorrow are already running differently today.

🎧 Listen now

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4j2n3cz
YouTube: https://youtu.be/_cYCbz0U1TU
Listen here: https://therainmakingpodcast.beam.ly/listen-now

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