Transferring a relationship from one professional to another is best done while the client is working with your firm, because the work, itself, provides the professional seeking to pick up the relationship plausible reasons for staying in front of the client. There are two principal strategies. The rainmaker can step away from a relationship with a client, while a colleague moves in or the rainmaker can maintain her relationship with the client, providing a colleague the opportunity to develop a relationship with the client's probable successor. I will call the former The Classic Transition and describe it here and the latter The Generational Transition and deal with it at another time.

The Classic Transition

A rainmaker starts a transition in account leadership by assigning a colleague to manage all other of the firm's professionals working for the client company. Once the colleague knows the company's issues and people, the rainmaker starts bringing him to meetings she has with her senior contact at the client. She plays the role of the senior representative of the firm at the meeting, letting the colleague do most of the talking with the client. If the client seems comfortable with the colleague, the rainmaker steps away from the account by:

• Never going to a meeting with the senior client contact without the colleague.
• Deferring to the colleague as much as possible and becoming increasingly quiet at meetings.
• Advising the client that she cannot attend a meeting and recommending that the client and colleague go ahead with the meeting without her.
• Letting the colleague schedule future meetings without her.

As the rainmaker steps away, the colleague must serve the client so well that he accepts the transition. He must, in the words of one rainmaker, get the client to forget the rainmaker's phone number.