I Hope This Email Finds You Well

“I hope this email finds you well” is where business development gets real. Hosted by Neil Barrow, this show brings you candid conversations with business development professionals and leaders who know what it takes to grow. No fluff, no endless theory — just practical strategies, stories of wins (and failures), and the unfiltered lessons that actually move the needle. Whether you’re building your pipeline, closing bigger deals, or rethinking how you approach growth, each episode gives you tools you can use today. Listen in, level up, and let’s make business development simple, sustainable, and successful.

I Hope This Email Finds You Well is a business podcast hosted by Neil Barrow, with 23 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Neil Barrow hosts I Hope This Email Finds You Well, a business show with 23 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #22

  The "Unicorn" Skillset Every Firm Wants | with Ravi Kumar

  Aug 19, 202648 min

  Today, I’m joined by Ravi Kumar. He is the guy that founders and CFOs call when they're about to do a transaction that can make or break their company - like taking it public. He’s a partner at The Connor Group who has worked on hundreds of massive deals, and today we're breaking down what he calls the "Unicorn" skillset. We talk a lot on this show about the challenges of BD, but Ravi is the rare professional who can execute high-level technical delivery and seamlessly build deep, lucrative client relationships at the exact same time. He shares his playbook for how he transitioned from doing the work to winning the work, how he scales his time using a dedicated team, and why fighting internally over origination credit is the fastest way to kill your firm's growth. If you're looking for the "secret sauce" to turn a $20,000 initial project into a multi-million dollar, multi-year partnership, you're going to want to take notes on this one. Let's get into it. Chapters: 00:00:00 The "Unicorn" Skillset: Technical Expertise + Dealmaking 00:01:25 The 3 BD Takes: The Combo Meal 00:04:38 Top of Funnel vs. Closing the Deal: Why Partners Matter 00:07:03 The Customer Success Angle (Turning $20k into Millions) 00:08:32 Stop Fighting Over Credit: Grow the Pie, Don't Maximize Your Slice 00:12:14 Ravi's Origin Story: Building a Network Through Delivery 00:16:56 How to Integrate BD Into Your Daily Work (Social vs. Tactical) 00:21:32 Time Management and Prioritizing Your Pipeline 00:25:35 How to Successfully Transition Clients When Moving to Full-Time BD 00:30:49 Cross-Pollinating: Being Curious About Other Service Lines 00:33:42 "How Do I Make Another Ravi?" (Scaling Yourself with a Team) 00:37:56 What a Successful Week Actually Looks Like for an Elite Partner 00:40:16 The Long Game: Helping Executives Find Their Next Role 00:43:36 Looking Ahead: Preparing for the Next Wave of Tech IPOs 00:45:58 Final Thoughts: Trust and Long-Term Relationships Win

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  Episode #23

  Lean Into the Chaos - The BD Advice That Shaped His Entire Career | with Chris Newman

  Aug 5, 202657 min

  Today, I'm joined by Chris Newman, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Mintz. Chris has spent his entire career inside AmLaw 100 firms and he's built a reputation for walking into ambiguous, undefined roles and turning them into growth engines. He's also the first-ever president of LSSO and has held leadership roles with LMA. What I love about this conversation is the through-line: chaos isn't the obstacle, it's the opening. Chris got that advice from a senior partner at Cravath early in his career, and you can trace it through every move he's made since — the blank-canvas BD role where he used Bloomberg terminals to spot the '08 crisis before the partners did, the cross-sell culture he built at Cooley, the nine years at McDermott where he helped build the BD system that a lot of the Activator Advantage research came out of. We also get into why he pushes firms past their own comfortable vocabulary, why "full service" is quietly hurting your cross-sell, and why the how is almost always harder to move past leadership than the why . If you're in a role nobody has clearly defined, or you're trying to change behavior at a firm that likes how it's always done things, this one's for you. Let's get into it. Chapters: 00:00:00 Cold Open: Lean Into the Chaos 00:01:00 The BD Combo Meal: Chaos Creates Opportunity 00:03:04 Authenticity Starts at the Top (The Sneaker Story) 00:05:36 Simplify to Maximize — and Why We Keep Chasing the New 00:08:47 Origin Story: Falling Into BD at Cravath 00:13:10 Seeing '08 Coming: How Bloomberg Built His Credibility 00:17:07 Cooley: Building a Cross-Sell Culture From Scratch 00:20:59 A Healthy Daily Diet of Information 00:24:14 The "Full Service" Trap and Disrupting Firm Language 00:27:28 McDermott: The BD System Behind the Activator Advantage 00:31:33 CRM: The Expense Report Hack That Changed Behavior 00:35:44 What Effective Attorney BD Training Actually Looks Like 00:40:24 Year One at Mintz: The Mobilizers Team Charter 00:44:32 Can You Actually Influence Leadership? 00:48:47 The Why Is Easy. The How Is Where Behavior Changes. 00:50:51 Client Experience Is the Next Frontier 00:54:24 LMA, LSSO, and the Case for Smaller Conferences 00:56:00 Wrap Up

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  Episode #22

  How to Source Your First Big Win (Without a Network)

  Jul 22, 202649 min

  Today, I’m joined by my friend Lydia Donnell, the VP of Business Development at Root Engineering, a commercial real estate design firm based right here in Dallas-Fort Worth. On this podcast, I usually talk to professionals who have a decade or more of experience in business development. But what I love about this conversation is that Lydia is exactly three and a half years into her BD career. She's right there on the ground, reflecting on exactly what it takes to build a sustainable, revenue-producing network from absolute scratch. We talk about the hard transition from casting a wide net to finding your firm's "slam dunk zones," why trying to be a "jack of all trades" is the worst thing you can do for your marketing message, and the controversial truth about whether office drop-ins actually work. We also get into the weeds on how to leverage ancillary relationships - like general contractors and developers - to feed opportunities directly to your ideal clients. If you are in the first few years of your business development career, or you're a firm leader trying to figure out how to properly support your newest BD hire, you're going to get a lot out of this one. Let's get into it. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Cold Open: The Pride of Landing Your First Big Deal 00:00:19 Introduction: Neil Welcomes Lydia Donnell 00:01:34 Why We Are Talking About the First 3 Years in BD 00:02:10 The BD Combo Meal: 3 Hot Takes in 5 Minutes 00:02:48 Take 1: Why Leadership Support is Make-or-Break 00:04:40 Take 2: Do Office Drop-Ins Actually Work? 00:07:31 Take 3: The Danger of the "Jack of All Trades" Marketing Message 00:10:39 Getting Uncomfortable and the Vulnerability of "Making the Ask" 00:12:44 Lydia's Origin Story: Starting BD from Scratch at a Bank 00:17:13 Why Casting a Wide Net Will Kill Your ROI 00:21:20 Finding Extreme Clarity in a New Industry 00:24:23 The Trap of the New: Balancing Prospects vs. Existing Clients 00:26:45 How to Build a Powerful Network Using Ancillary Relationships (COIs) 00:29:45 The Golden Hour: Why In-Person Lunch Meetings Drive the Best Results 00:32:39 Evolving Your Role: Offloading Admin Tasks to Focus on Revenue 00:35:27 The BD Handoff: Earning Trust With Your Technical Delivery Team 00:38:09 The Exact Questions Lydia Asks to Uncover Client Pain Points 00:40:14 Sourcing and Closing That Critical First Deal 00:44:03 Opening a New Office and Enabling the "Seller-Doer" Model 00:47:11 Final Advice: The Go-Giver Mindset and Intentional Networking

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  Episode #20

  Keeping Client Conversations Focused on What Actually Matters | with Brooke Pratt

  Jul 8, 202646 min

  In this episode of I Hope This Email Finds You Well , Neil sits down with Brooke Pratt, Senior VP of Growth at Praesidium, to discuss how to build a highly focused business development engine from the ground up. If your firm is struggling with stalled deals, this conversation reveals why giving prospective clients too many options creates avoidance, and why educating your buyers without driving a decision is a massive waste of time. Brooke shares her exact playbook for scaling firm growth without relying entirely on your busy consultants. You will learn how to transition a firm from passive, word-of-mouth referrals to a proactive revenue machine by qualifying the right leads and keeping client conversations focused on the actual problem. Chapters: 00:00:00 The Consulting-Led Growth Trap 00:00:22 Introduction 00:01:53 The BD Combo Meal 00:07:13 Brooke's Career Journey 00:11:59 Getting Consultants to Create Content 00:14:40 Testing New Growth Initiatives 00:17:40 Building Presidium's Foundation 00:21:45 Implementing CRM and Messaging 00:26:38 Structuring the BD Team 00:30:39 Hiring for Business Development 00:32:04 Keeping the BD Team Focused 00:36:06 Developing an Annual Growth Plan 00:41:17 Building the BD Tech Stack 00:42:53 Industry Benchmarking for Revenue 00:46:04 Outro

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  Episode #20

  Stop Training Your Team. Start Coaching Them. | with Darryl Cross

  Jun 24, 202641 min

  In this episode of I Hope This Email Finds You Well , Neil Barrow sits down with Darryl Cross, Chief Global Collaboration Officer at Norton Rose Fulbright, to dissect exactly what it takes to build a high-performance business development culture. Darryl breaks down the critical mistake most professional services firms make: confusing basic training with actual coaching. If your firm is relying on a few natural rainmakers or struggling to get professionals to consistently drive new business after an 8-hour seminar, this conversation provides the blueprint. Darryl shares his "proficiency model" for scaling BD skills across hundreds of professionals, why you must stop pitching your past credentials (The SWAN Principle), and why treating business development like elite sports coaching is the ultimate key to firm-wide growth. Chapters : 00:00 Introduction & The BD Combo Meal 01:41 The "SWAN Principle": Sell the Future, Not the Past 03:16 Why You Need a Real Reason to Collaborate 04:14 Walking Backwards in the Client's Shoes 05:27 Darryl's Origin Story: Selling Gym Memberships at 16 14:41 The Trap of "Credibility Pitching" vs. Real Differentiation 20:44 The Critical Difference Between Training and Coaching 24:06 The "Proficiency Model" for Scaling Firm Revenue 28:55 Reflective Coaching: How to Actually Coach a Partner 30:35 The Astronaut Analogy: Why Simulation is Mandatory 34:22 Navigating Global Business Development Cultures 36:51 Using Data to Predict What Your Clients Need 39:36 The Secret to Elite Performance (And The "Closed Door")

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