# Rory Channer

Rory Channer works on research and training to help professional services firms develop business and client relationships. Their posts describe the Activator approach, which focuses on changing how partners collaborate with clients, colleagues and other firms.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/rory-channer/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorychanner
- LinkedIn followers: 4,770
- Topics: business-development
- Based on 11 dated posts, latest 2026-09-17

## Summary

Rory Channer is most useful for making partner-led business development an organizational practice in professional services firms.

- Best for: Professional services firms wanting partner-led business development, research, training and behavior change.
- Not for: Consumer or B2C campaigns, short-form video, broad awareness or tracked sales.
- Check first: Confirm programme details, pricing, audience demographics and evidence for reported results.

### Takeaways

- Business development behaviors can be learned and measured.
- Change reaches compensation, hiring, associate development, marketing spend and fee-earner training.
- Behavior change needs reinforcement, including software such as Activator Agents.

## Main ideas

- **Clients now expect a different kind of relationship work**: Channer argues that the standard for winning and keeping clients has changed shape. Firms selling complex services are judged on how well their people collaborate with clients, partner firms and internal teams. Clients now assume that kind of collaboration rather than reward it. Activator is presented as a change tool for how a firm's people work with clients, not a course about pitching.
- **Business development is hard, but the behaviors can be learned and measured**: Channer argues that research and training across more than 100 large professional services firms have established what clients need and what Activators do. That makes business development something a firm can teach and track, rather than leave to a few naturals. The unit of change is a single behavior, and Channer asks readers to adopt even one.
- **The change reaches compensation, hiring and marketing spend — not just training**: Channer argues the findings have consequences beyond a development programme. If partners are expected to sell differently, firms must consider pay systems, lateral hiring, associate development, where business development and marketing departments spend their time, and how fee earners are trained. A firm treating Activator as a single workshop is addressing a firm-wide problem with a team-level fix.
- **The case rests on research scale, not personal authority**: Channer's credibility argument rests on the scale of the research: a two-year project focused solely on professional services, featured in Harvard Business Review, drawing on over 100 global firms, more than 18 months of research and six-plus months of writing, alongside years spent running development experiences with partners and recording results. The method, they argue, comes from studying firms rather than from one adviser's opinion.
- **Behavior change needs reinforcement, including software**: Channer argues that training alone does not hold. An expanded Intapp partnership introduces Activator Agents, software intended to support the behavior change that drives firm growth. They frame the fit as mutual vision and aligned industry focus rather than logo placement. Firms investing in Activators, the argument goes, need infrastructure around them, not just development sessions.
- **Credit the ecosystem around the work**: Channer's posts repeatedly credit the people and organisations behind the research — co-authors, faculty, the research team, participating firms and partners, Harvard and the sponsor. The book is presented as the work of many contributors, with firms and partners helping spread its ideas.

## Work to read

- [The Activator Advantage: What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently — book announcement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rorychanner_activator-professionalservices-businessdevelopment-activity-7288494470247923712-S2OW)
- [Research featured in Harvard Business Review — what the study says changes inside a firm](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rorychanner_what-todays-rainmakers-do-differently-activity-7119866825756008449-WlkE)
- [How the research was made — eighteen months, over 100 firms](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rorychanner_there-are-several-person-years-of-work-in-activity-7330571163657465856-3IBT)
- [Intapp partnership expands Activator into software](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rorychanner_intapp-and-dcm-insights-expand-activator-activity-7452038332508831745-MWds)

## Brand relationships

- **Intapp** (sponsor)
- **Intapp** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Harvard Business Review Press** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Harvard Business Review** (mention)

## Partnerships

Rory Channer’s posts describe a partnership with Intapp, named as the sponsor of the Activator research from its start and, as of April 2026, as the partner behind a new software layer called Activator Agents. They frame the software arrangement as a deeper, aligned-industry partnership rather than a one-off sponsorship, with the software positioned to support the behaviour change that drives firm growth. Another commercial route is the book: The Activator Advantage was published by Harvard Business Review Press on 20 May 2025 and is offered for individual pre-orders and early bulk orders for spring partner retreats and industry events. Training and development work with professional services firms is described as already in use at more than 100 firms. The posts do not set out sponsor fees, exclusivity, deliverables or an official partnership inquiry page; the only contact direction is to send a direct message.

## Alternatives

- Rachel Healy: Consider Rachel Healy when a partner-led business development programme has to be justified to partners as an enterprise-value problem. Healy frames the issue as founder dependency: key person discounts of 10 to 25 percent, a £3m EBITDA firm carrying a £3.7m discount at the midpoint, and the point that the discount falls as business development capability spreads through the firm. That framing is more direct than Activator's behaviour-change framing if the owner's question is what the programme does to the firm's value. Healy also names the mechanics a partner programme usually has to install: protected business development time booked weeks ahead, a written plan per key account, a CRM partners actually use, pipeline reviews where every next step has an owner, and every major client knowing more than one person in the firm. They address the mindset blocker directly with the managing partner who told Matt Dixon, “we are not salespeople.” A firm that wants the valuation argument alongside a lighter growth academy or leader community should start here.
- Bill Fotsch: Consider Bill Fotsch when the diagnosis is that the people doing the work have no economic connection to the outcome, rather than that partners lack sales skills. Fotsch describes the founder dependency trap as an economic engagement problem: people cannot see how their work affects the numbers and have no stake in the results, so they wait to be told what to do. The Adams Beasley Associates example is detailed and usable with sceptical partners: a design-build firm that made everyone economic partners, doubled sales in year one with profits growing faster, had no layoffs, and was later featured in Harvard Business Review. Fotsch also offers a free session limited to 10 firms, giving a firm a low-commitment way to test the framework against its own drivers before committing to a wider programme.
- Tom McMakin: Consider Tom McMakin when account leads are already willing to engage and the gap is the client conversation itself — asking about priorities and obstacles before pitching a service. McMakin's post walks through a real sequence: an introduction, several calls, an attempt to climb the relationship ladder, a proposal sent and left unanswered, then a Teams call where asking about the quarter uncovered a live problem, getting practice professionals to write thought leadership, which reopened the conversation. The buyer problem McMakin was brought in for is also stated plainly: account leads who make new friends well but struggle to expand within existing clients, addressed with business development training that emphasises building key accounts. That makes it useful, concrete material for partner training sessions and for coaching account leads.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/