TRP 295: [Legal] How to Incentivize Partners for Business Development with Michael Roch

Michael Roch joins Scott Love to unpack a deceptively hard leadership challenge in professional services: getting partners to consistently do business development, and designing incentives that actually drive the right behavior. Roch’s central message is that there’s no universal compensation fix—the right approach depends on firm size, strategic priorities (rapid growth vs. deepening key relationships vs. refreshing a stale client base), and even national partnership culture (e.g., UK lockstep traditions vs. more individualistic U.S. models). He stresses that compensation is only a “lever,” not a self-executing solution: it works best when paired with strong leadership, clear expectations, and accountability conversations that tie each partner’s strengths and goals to the firm’s strategy.

Roch describes practical incentive strategies that go beyond simple origination credit. He argues firms should recognize that partners contribute differently—some excel at landing new clients, others at expanding existing accounts, and others at protecting “crown jewel” relationships—so incentives should be aligned to those roles and tracked accordingly. Non-monetary incentives can matter too, such as giving junior partners meaningful internal initiatives to build an “equity-owner mindset,” and publicly recognizing teams (not just lone rainmakers).

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YouTube: https://youtu.be/Hl7GPJjpdfI

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Michael Roch guides partnership boards, managing partners, and senior leaders globally on architecting strong partnerships and on leading their organizations to competitive growth.

Michael has advised dozens of organizations become market leaders in relation to their:

• Global partnering strategy
• Partner profit sharing, compensation, and reward
• Partnership governance, leadership, and execution

Michael’s most recent book is The Partner Compensation Handbook, the comprehensive guide on profit sharing in professional services partnerships (together with Performance Leader's CEO Ray D’Cruz, Globe Publishing 2022).

Michael's clients range from multinational partnerships and alliances to mid-sized firms to start-ups across the globe; most operate in the professional services, technology, and related sectors. All of them value how Michael’s partnerships advice is infused by his hands-on experience as an entrepreneur and leader of partnerships - and how he brings together a unique combination of in-depth experience around partnership economics, governance, organizational design, motivation, and reward to help clients drive growth.

 Links:

https://www.mhpradvisors.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelroch/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/mhpradvisors

e: hello@mhpradvisors.com

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