The Business Development function will no longer be a “desk-level” effort as it has been since the beginning of the search business. Historically the success of a search firm has been limited exclusively to the aggregate of the “billers” and dependent on how hard or intelligently the billers wanted to work. If they earned enough, they stopped working.
The development of the marketing and awareness/attention function that can be driven by the organization itself will be a step-change for the organizations that initiate these functions in their practices.
The organizations that invest in their brand / reputation will reap the benefits of having the top-of-the-funnel business that can then be incubated and developed by the office itself. The level of call-in business that will be booked and/or ushered along for business will grow.