The expertise trap: When being great at your job is no longer enough
Opinion
David Clayton of True & North outlines the creator-seller dilemma: how the more senior you become in creative industries the more your job becomes about selling, and explains how you can overcome and thrive.
In professional and creative services, there is an invisible ceiling that no one warns you about.
For the first decade of your career, the rules are simple: be a brilliant creator, a meticulous strategist, or a technical powerhouse. You are rewarded for doing. But then, you hit a certain level of seniority – partner, director, SVP – and the goalposts shift. Suddenly, your value isn’t just in delivering great work; it’s in finding and closing it, too.
The creator-seller dilemma
This is the moment a “doer” realizes that 50% of their job description is now a discipline they were never taught, and frankly, one they’re probably not in love with.
When you’ve spent years building an identity as an expert, the act of selling can leave you feeling like an amateur. It feels challenging, forced, and, if we’re being honest, sometimes a bit “icky.”
But the reality of growing a business centred on professional expertise is that the people doing the work must also be the ones winning it. When a client hires a consultancy or an agency, they aren’t buying a product off a shelf; they are buying a brain. They are buying a specific way of thinking, a track record of problem-solving, and a relationship.
You cannot separate the creator from the reason a client buys into the company. And so it follows that in order to thrive, the Creator must become the Seller.
The archetypes that hold us back
Research by Matt Dixon published in the Harvard Business Review analyzed 1,800 professional service partners and found that most fall into five archetypes – four of which actually have a negative correlation with growth:
The Expert: They believe their reputation should do the talking, investing time in public speaking and thought leadership. When it comes to business development, they wait for the phone to ring, acting only when a client has already set a budget.
The Confidant: They truly care about their clients – many of which are pre-existing relationships from school or previous jobs. They expect that great work and being a nice person will mean clients buy again automatically. They rarely ask for more.
The Debater: They have strong opinions and love to challenge the status quo, which they do so masterfully given their expertise. While great for a project, being constant contrarians can feel combative and exhausting for a client over the long term.
The Realist: They are masters of the “How”. But they’re so focused on managing expectations, that they forget to paint a picture of what success actually looks like. They deliver the brief on time and in full, but they don’t inspire.
The only profile that showed a consistent, positive impact on growth, is the Activator.
Activators don’t stop being experts to become sellers. Instead, they realise that business development is simply an extension of their professional skill set. They do five things that the other archetypes don’t:
- They carve out dedicated time for business development rather than just fitting it in between “real work”.
- They split their business development focus between new and existing clients. They’re on LinkedIn and at events building new relationships.
- They act proactively, seeking and creating new opportunities, and capitalising on emerging ones.
- They don’t hoard relationships . They foster collaboration, proactively introducing clients to colleagues and partners with different skills that can help them solve new problems
- They generously create value – they share insights, market trends, and expertise outside of direct engagements and even before a contract is signed.
The research shows that when partners move from weak to strong on skills associated with the Activator archetype, revenue generation increases by up to 32%. The opposite is true of skills associated with the other archetypes.
As we reflect on the five profiles, we see ourselves and others in them, as I’m sure you do. But what can you do as an organisation? And what can you do if you’re not naturally an Activator?
Shifting the perspective
Out with timesheets, in with sales operations: If senior leaders are going to do business development then they need time. And the organisation needs to be able to capture the impact: CRM and Pipeline to measure sales cycles, average deal sizes and win:lose ratios.
Growth culture: Many professional services firms shout about new business wins, but don’t give the same kudos to the more important work of growing, and in turn, retaining existing clients. Celebrate the upsells and cross-sells as you would new business. Make it part of your organisational DNA.
From Selling to Solving: The “ick” of selling disappears the moment the leaders flip their thinking and see that they’re solving problems, not selling something. When there is a shift in their approach from a one way transactional interaction of self interest, to one of mutual benefit and collaboration.
Added value: Leaders must be trained on how to be generous with their time and expertise. Train leaders to be ‘in market’ enabling clients and prospects to identify problems worth solving and ‘testing’ potential paths to solutions.
We must stop viewing the transition from Creator to Activator as a compromise of our integrity or an unwelcome distraction, and start seeing it as the expansion of our impact. You aren’t “selling out” when you seek new business; you are ensuring that your expertise goes where it is needed most.
By embracing an Activator mindset, we bridge the gap between being a “doer” and being a “driver.” Growth is no longer a distraction from the craft – it is the craft. It’s time to stop hitting the ceiling and start building the floor for the next decade of your career.
David Clayton is the CEO of True & North
