Ep 08 - Scott Rusnak
"I'm Not Really Doing Any Business Development": Scott Rusnak on Where Clients Actually Come From.
Key takeaways
For most Implementers business development is a second job: its own block, its own dread. Scott doesn't recognize that version, because he stopped treating the people who could hire him and the people he wants in his life as two separate groups.
His reframe is the whole episode: same hours, allocated differently. "It's not hanging a banner up at a trade show or sponsoring a golf tournament. It's having real conversations with people who you really bond with."
The framework behind it is Dunbar's number: we can only hold so many real relationships, nested in rings of about 5, 15, 50 and 150, and the inner rings shape you most. "You become the version of the people you hang out with. So you better really make sure you're hanging out with the right people."
So he audits the rings on purpose, keeping clients he genuinely likes because he can't fake a fit: "You've got to love working with your clients. You can't fake it."
The results then look accidental: a heli-skiing trip to Revelstoke grew from three buddies into 15 entrepreneurs, and one became a client without a pitch. "There was no intention there."
This issue's newsletter
The Idea
The client you weren't trying to sign.
Most Implementers treat business development as a second job. It gets its own block, its own dread, its own quiet guilt when the block gets moved. Booth, cold list, golf tournament. Follow-up you keep meaning to send. Something you schedule and grind through. Scott doesn't recognize that version of it.
Scott merged them. "It's not hanging a banner up at a trade show or sponsoring a golf tournament," he said. "It's having real conversations with people who you really bond with." Same hours, different allocation.
What makes that deliberate rather than lucky is a framework: Dunbar's number. Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar found we can each hold only so many real relationships, and that they nest in rings of rising closeness: an inner circle of about 5, a close group of about 15, then wider bands of 50 and 150. The inner rings take the most time and shape you the most.
"You become the version of the people you hang out with," Scott said. "So you better really make sure you're hanging out with the right people."
So he audits the rings on purpose. Five core people on the business side, five on the personal side, then the next 15, his best clients included. He gets specific about who feeds him and who drains him, and he adjusts. The clients he keeps are people he genuinely likes, because he can't push someone he isn't a fit with. "You've got to love working with your clients. You can't fake it."
The results show up in ways that look accidental from the outside. This past winter he organized a heli-skiing trip to Revelstoke that grew from three buddies into 15 like-minded entrepreneurs. He wasn't selling. One of them became a client. "There was no intention there."
That's not a story about skiing. It's what happens when the people in your calendar and the people who could hire you stop being two different groups.
The Steal
Build your inner 15 on purpose.
Before your next planning block, list the 15 people you spend the most working hours with: clients, peers, referral partners, whoever is in your ear most weeks. Beside each, mark one thing: does that time leave you sharper or flatter? This is the ring Dunbar says you become, so treat the list as real data. It sets your standards and your energy, and it is where almost every good client and referral you get next year will come from, not from a booth or a cold list.
Then act once. Move one draining name to a wider ring and guard the hours you get back. Pick one person whose work and values you respect and book a genuine hour with them this month. Do that every quarter and business development stops being a task you dread. It becomes a room you are quietly filling with people you would happily coach anyway, and the people in it send you more like them.
Get it in your inbox every Tuesday
