For years, many businesses have treated succession planning as a box to be ticked at some undefined point in the future or worse still, avoided it until the metaphorical flame becomes a forest fire. The focus has been on winning the next client, retaining this year’s fees, or delivering on current projects. But the market has changed, and the pressure has intensified. 

According to Merrill (2023), an unprecedented $124 trillion in assets is set to change hands globally by 2048. For professional services firms whose business models depend on trust, continuity, and reputation, this wave of intergenerational wealth transfer is both the biggest risk and the greatest opportunity of our time. Clients are no longer satisfied with transactional advice—they’re looking for assurance that their firm of choice can support them and their successors across decades, not just deliver for them today. 

The reality, however, is that succession risk doesn’t sit only with your clients—it’s inside your team too. Many organisations face difficult questions: Who inherits client relationships when senior rainmakers retire? How do you prevent loyalty walking out the door with a departing partner? And crucially, how do you retain and empower the next generation of advisors when younger professionals are less motivated by hierarchy and more by clarity, mentorship, and purpose? 

As Dr. Eliza Filby explains in a recent podcast episode with Marissa Geist, we are living in a moment where wealth and influence are continually redistributed across generations rather than concentrated in single hands. This shift has redefined succession from a one-off event into an ongoing process. For professional services firms, that means engaging the next generation of client stakeholders now, not later, and preparing your own junior professionals to step into trusted advisor roles before circumstances force the issue. 

MCO Performance’s own survey across the UK and Ireland reflects this gap. While most firms are clear on their Unique Value Propositions and Ideal Customer Profiles, the top challenges they face remain proactive selling, generating qualified leads, and converting them. The problem isn’t vision, it’s activation. Succession, like sales, requires moving from belief to behaviour. You can know who your ideal clients are and what makes you unique, but unless you have a plan to consistently connect, nurture, and hand over relationships, those insights won’t translate into resilience or growth. 

This is where the Rainmaker Genome Project (2023) offers an important lesson. Surveying nearly 3,000 partners across law, accounting, and consulting firms, the research identified five rainmaker profiles. The most successful weren’t the ‘naturals’ at selling—they were the Activators, those who connect, create, and commit. They don’t wait for opportunities to arrive; they generate them. Succession planning is, at its heart, an act of activation. It’s about putting future leaders in the room now, coaching them to contribute, and creating deliberate pathways that secure both your clients’ legacy and your business’s.