Build the business case before you need it

Best practice — the spine

Every good business case answers one question: why should this firm hire you now? Six lines carry it, and every conversation in the process should reinforce the same six.

A simple, repeatable narrative beats a thorough one. Say it the same way every time.

Say it consistently and do not oversell. Confidence comes from clarity and evidence, not volume. At this level firms are not buying potential — they are buying certainty. Your job is to make the decision easy.

What goes in it

Four sections, in this order: value proposition, client base, track record and revenue, business plan and fit. Everything else is an appendix.

• 1 · Value proposition. Headline positioning in one line, two or three proof points, and how you fit the firm’s stated strategy. Lead with numbers — years at partner level, practices built, career origination, industries served. Big numbers early buy you attention for the rest.
• 2 · Client base and network. Ten to fifteen relationships that genuinely matter, named at the person level and not just the company. Group them by sector, or by how fast they convert: expand existing clients, activate a warm five-to-ten-year network, then originate new. Be explicit about which are active and which need reactivation — precision beats bravado, and this is the part that gets checked.
• 3 · Track record and revenue. Three to five cases as situation, approach, impact — quantified. Then revenue year by year with origination split out and the accounts behind each number. Then two or three short origination stories: pipeline built from your own network, a dormant account reactivated, a proposition co-created with a client, repeat business sustained over years.
• 4 · Business plan and fit. A sequenced plan — expand, activate, originate — with expected revenue at twelve, twenty-four and thirty-six months, and year-one milestones in three phases. Then the fit: immediate revenue via existing pipeline, the capability you extend, the competitor you strengthen them against, and what their platform lets you scale.
• Team, only if you are moving with one. Roles and revenue contribution, no names at this stage, and a ramp-up plan for who joins when. It shows you can scale, not just sell.

Polishing it

The polish is not design. It is pre-empting the two conversations the partners will have after you leave the room: do we believe the network, and what could go wrong.

• Pre-empt the doubts, in writing. Four questions come up almost every time: is this move a step sideways, is the network real or aspirational, are you a flight risk, and is the depth genuine or surface. Put them in the document with your honest answer. Confidence comes from having thought it through, not from hoping it will not come up.
• De-risk the hire explicitly. Name what could go wrong — ramp slower than planned, the network not converting, credibility under a new brand, integration, market volatility — and how each is already prevented. Weighting year one to warm relationships rather than cold origination is the single most reassuring thing you can show.
• Quantify everything you can, in €. A number with an account behind it is evidence. A number without one is a target, and everyone in the room can tell the difference.
• Pick one layout and cut the rest. If you have three ways to show your network, show the one your evidence actually supports. A case that hedges across formats reads as a case that is not sure what it is claiming.
• Build it with your sponsor where you can. A case calibrated to arguments that work inside that firm lands better than a stronger case built alone.
• Rehearse the cut-down. You will be asked to do it in ten minutes at least once, usually by the most senior person. Know which four slides survive.

What not to do

Do not claim a relationship you could not phone this week, do not lead with your CV, and do not let the deck do the talking.

• Don’t present your career history. They have the CV. Half a pitch spent on background is the most common way candidates run out of room for the part that decides it.
• Don’t list companies where you mean people. A logo is not a relationship. Named person, seat, and when you last spoke.
• Don’t blur origination and delivery. Separate the two in every revenue figure. Blurring it once discredits the whole document.
• Don’t put an unweighted pipeline in. Confidence levels — high, medium, building — make a forecast credible. A flat list of everything you might win does the opposite.
• Don’t leave the risk section thin. It is the easiest section to differentiate on because most candidates skip it, and it is the one that gets discussed after you leave.
• Don’t send it and go quiet. The case is a conversation starter. Offer to walk them through it, and ask what they would want to see more of.