We need a proper pipeline. Do we build it, hire for it, or get help?

Should you build business development yourself, hire someone, or buy the shortcut?

Answer three questions in order and the first no gives you your route. Building takes six to twelve months of partner time. Hiring takes three months plus a salary. Compressing costs money up front. All three still need an hour a week from you afterwards.

20 August 2026 · 4 min read

There are three ways to get a working business development system: build it yourself, hire someone to do it, or buy a compressed version. Three questions pick one for you.

Answer these three questions, in order

With your partners in the room. The first question you answer no to is your answer.

1.Does a partner have half a day a week for six months, reliably?
Reliably includes your busiest month. Yes means build it yourself.
2.Is there enough volume for a full-time person, and a partner to manage them?
Both halves. Yes means hire.
3.Do you need something running this quarter?
Yes, and the first two were no, means compress it. No means wait until one of the first two becomes true, rather than buying out of impatience.

What each costs

Route	Time	Cost	Main risk
Build it yourself	6–12 months	Partner time, the scarcest thing you have	It stalls every busy month, so elapsed time far exceeds effort
Hire someone	3 months to hire, then a ramp	Salary, ongoing, plus the cost of a bad hire	The knowledge leaves when they do
Compress it	Days, then support while you run it	A fee up front, plus an hour a week	You still run it afterwards. Nobody can do that part for you

Watch for these

Building: most firms are three months in when a large project lands, and pick it up the following year. Be honest about the stalling before you choose it.
Hiring: a BD hire cannot work unsupervised, because the judgement about which opportunities are real is the partner's. Hiring and leaving them to it is the usual way this fails.
Compressing: what you are buying is judgement about which triggers matter and what a credible approach looks like from a firm like yours. Not effort.

When none of them is the answer

Check these before you spend anything.

Your market is too small. Count the names first. If you cannot list forty companies that fit what you sell, no system will find them.
You want somebody else to do the selling. All three build capability you then run. If you want outsourced appointment setting, buy that instead.
Nobody can commit an hour a week. Without a rhythm the system decays within a quarter and you have bought a document.
The real problem is your offer. Look at your last ten first meetings. If most became proposals, you have a pipeline problem. If most did not, fix the offer first.

What to do next

1Answer the three questions with your partners today.In order. The first no is your route.
2Before anything else, count the companies in your market.Under forty names that fit, and that is the problem to solve first. No route fixes it.
3Check your last ten first meetings.Mostly proposals means pipeline problem. Mostly not means offer problem.
4Book the weekly hour whichever route you pick.It is identical across all three, and it is the part firms skip.