Alycia Sutor is a Managing Director at consulting firm GrowthPlay where she provides organizations with research-based insight to maximize human potential in the areas of business development and revenue growth. She helps lawyers, accountants, consultants and other doer-sellers solve business development, leadership and teaming challenges to grow their practices.

I’m excited to feature her in the Women Who Wow series as she is someone I have known and admired for many years through the legal marketing industry.

How did you choose your profession?

I “stumbled” into the profession of law after graduating from business school. I was looking for something different and more entrepreneurial than the traditional post-MBA paths I saw my classmates following, which at the time were mostly in management consulting, investment banking or brand manager roles. I was intrigued by the thought of doing marketing in a professional vertical that was only then just discovering the role of marketing, and I loved the challenge of doing something for the first time in an organization.

What do you love most about what you do?

I often joke that what I get to do as a business development coach and growth consultant is transform the world for good, one lawyer at a time. I absolutely love helping people grow their own influence and impact through the power of generosity and service, which in turn has the consequence of helping ourselves get what we need.

By putting this philosophical lens into a disciplined process of selling – whether that’s selling our services to prospective clients, our ideas to colleagues or our boss, or our points of view to our friends and family, this way of building buy-in also has the ability to help us make better friends, deepen loyalty and create commitment from others. And, it also has the benefit of helping people grow their books of business! So, I get to help people have more friends AND make more money, which is a really fun way to spend time.

What do you wish you could tell your younger self?

Three things based on the fact that I’ve spent the pandemic taking up running for the first time in my life:

  1. Life is a marathon not a sprint…so a) recognize that it requires great training and preparation – and even better with a team and a coach; b) you really need to pace yourself or you’ll run out of steam; and c) not every part of the race course will be fun but it will all be rewarding if you persevere, focus on the steps in front of you rather than the finish line and build a coalition of people who will cheer you on when the going gets tough.
  2. Pain is not something to be avoided but should be used as a signal that something needs to be paid attention to so that healing and recovery can begin.
  3. Leaning into the discomfort often takes you to a breakthrough you couldn’t have gotten to without it.

Learn more about Women Who Wow and read the profiles of all of the women featured in the series.