From Founder-Led Growth to Scalable International Success

How Professional Services Firms Can Transform Their Business Development Process

Scaling a professional services firm is a journey fraught with challenges. Early growth often depends on founder-driven relationships, but these approaches can limit scalability as the organization grows.

For many professional services firms, business development starts with relationships. Founders and senior leaders secure early deals, and success grows organically through word-of-mouth and repeat business. But scaling that approach is like trying to build a skyscraper on a foundation designed for a single-family home. Most firms find that to keep pace with growth, they need to rebuild their business development process.

Bill Theofilou, former CEO of Axia and later Senior Managing Director at Accenture Strategy, knows this story well. As Axia, a boutique strategy consulting firm founded in 2000, began to grow, Bill and his team hired from the outside and promoted internal high-performers from doers to rainmakers. But replicating the winning formula with new people, outsiders, and self-taught up-and-comers was becoming a challenge to continued sustainable expansion. The senior team was doing their best but running a few too many playbooks. Fortunately, in 2005, Axia partnered with Next Level to transform its business development strategy into a stable, scalable foundation that supported its meteoric success over the next two decades. Axia became integral to building a 6,000-person, $3 billion strategy business with Accenture. Bill’s story is an instructive blueprint for professional services firms looking to grow to any size.

Let’s explore the common hurdles firms encounter, what you can do about it, and the transformative results that follow.

The Challenges: Growing Beyond Founder-Led Business Development

By 2005, Axia had grown to 40-50 employees. While their reputation for delivering exceptional results brought organic growth, capacity, and talent to develop new business fell short:

• The Transition Problem: Partners and principals, promoted for their technical expertise, often struggled to transition into "doer/seller" roles in leadership.
• Ineffective Lateral Hires: Recruiting leaders from large firms often didn’t deliver results; many relied on their former employers’ brand halo to succeed.
• Inconsistent Approaches: Every team member approached business development differently without a standardized process, creating inefficiencies and missed opportunities.
• Founder Reliance: Key client relationships rested on a handful of leaders, making continued growth unsustainable and putting the firm at risk.

These challenges are common in professional services, where individualism and aversion to business development can create significant barriers to scaling.

The Solutions: Partnering with Next Level

Axia turned to Next Level to address these issues, whose Sandler-based methodology brought structure, accountability, and long-term cultural change. Together, they implemented solutions that redefined how Axia approached business development:

1. Mindset Shifts:
   • Overcoming “head trash” (unproductive beliefs) that held back leaders, empowering them to approach sales with confidence and clarity.
   • Teaching concepts like equal business stature, enabling partners to engage as peers with high-level clients and recognize unprofitable relationships.
2. Standardized Processes:
   • Creating a unified business development pipeline with clear stages and shared language.
   • Standardizing how leads were developed, ensuring that preparation, follow-up, and collaboration became seamless.
3. Reinforcement and Coaching:
   • Embedding training as a core part of Axia’s culture, requiring senior leaders to embrace and implement the system consistently.
   • Supporting leadership evolution, helping Bill and others transition from traditional boss roles into effective coaching leaders.
4. Resilience During Tough Times:
   • Even during The Great Recession, Axia maintained its investment in growth and Next Level, cutting costs elsewhere but preserving business development budgets.

The Results: A 20-Year Success Story

The partnership with Next Level delivered transformative results for Axia and later for Accenture following their acquisition:

• Scalable Growth: Axia grew from a boutique firm to playing a critical role in a $3 billion division of Accenture , impacting 6,000 employees globally.
• Unified Culture: Leaders from diverse backgrounds adopted a shared philosophy, replacing fragmented approaches with a cohesive system that drove collaboration.
• Revenue and Profitability Gains: The disciplined pipeline and shared processes enabled stronger client relationships and consistent financial results.
• Broad Impact: The lessons learned at Axia, through Next Level, became embedded in the DNA of Accenture Strategy, influencing the culture and success of a global organization.

Lessons for Other Professional Services Firms

Bill Theofilou’s story illustrates what’s possible for any professional services firm facing similar challenges. If you’re in the trenches of scaling, here are the key takeaways directly from Bill:

1. Start Early: Bill says, “The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The second-best time is today.” Business development transformation takes time, so start before issues become crises.
2. Commit to Reinforcement: Training isn’t a one-time event. Long-term success requires embedding new processes and mindsets into the company culture.
3. Prioritize Alignment: A shared language and process are essential for reducing inefficiencies and driving team-wide collaboration.
4. Focus on Mindset: Concepts like equal business stature and addressing “head trash” around selling can unlock untapped potential in your team.

However, transformation isn’t without its challenges. Firms must commit to the process and address resistance from seasoned professionals who may be set in their ways.

What Is the Next Level for You?

If you’ve ever felt your business development relies on luck or new hires require “divine intervention” to succeed at your firm, it’s time for a change. Axia’s story shows the transformative power of creating a scalable growth engine.

Today, Bill champions the importance of Next Level’s methodologies, advising others to make the investment early. His journey is a powerful testament to the transformative impact of a partnership focused on mindset, systems, and measurable outcomes.

“Whether anyone at Accenture knew it or not, Next Level had a real outsized role in shaping Accenture Strategy’s DNA,” Bill explains. Next Level helped Axia and Accenture Strategy differentiate itself in a highly competitive market by creating a consistent, repeatable approach to business development

Next Level’s Sandler-based approach isn’t just traditional sales training—it’s a roadmap to sustainable, repeatable success. Whether you’re a boutique firm or a global organization, the principles that shaped Axia and Accenture Strategy can help you unlock new levels of performance.

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