Business Development Coaching

“I had the incredible opportunity to work with Mary just as I was beginning a new role in Business Development. Mary is ever-present, ever-focused, and ever-wise. Even in our first 1:1, I had an enormous sense that she was invested in both my personal and professional growth. I always left our meetings energized, motivated, and excited to take the next step. I continue to carry Mary’s insightful teachings with me in what’s now my eighth year with this company,” Sarah Koehn, Associate Director of Operations, Meta House.

“As a coach, Mary helped keep me motivated and accountable for my goals. Moreover, Mary assisted with my development and comfort in personal advocacy and helped me navigate professional challenges I was facing in the work place. Mary provided perspective and always encouraged me to seek out a solution to make my circumstances better. If it were not for Mary and her support at many points of my career, not only as a coach, but as a woman, I would not be where I am today.”

Marian LaLonde, Director, Fennemore Craig

“Mary is an incredible resource on all things business development and client engagement.  Not only does she hold me accountable in a meaningful way, she offers creative, sound, business advice for moving forward on a wide variety of client development issues.  Whether advising on engaging with difficult to reach prospects or running dress rehearsals for more complex team pitches, Mary offers a wealth of experience and knowledge that significantly increases the caliber of our business development efforts and ultimately leads to success,” Lucy Dollens, Executive Committee Member, Quarles & Brady LLP

“Mary is a passionate, focused leader with a proven track record of helping professionals identify, build, and execute sales and business development strategies.  Mary effectively balances short-term goals with long-term trajectory, and helps professionals maximize their strengths to develop a clear business development strategy.  Mary’s advice is timely, on point, and generates results.  She is a true asset to any business that is invested in optimizing performance of its people.” Eric Matzke, Partner, Quarles & Brady LLP

“I can point to specific clients and pieces of work that I am not sure I would have been able to obtain without Mary’s help and support.  She really helped me to be the best version of myself from a marketing standpoint,” Katie Mason, Partner, Quarles & Brady LLP

 “Mary was a significant factor in almost every in-person RFP pitch in the last decade. She strategized at a high level with partners to take specific, actionable steps to secure new work and offered detailed  feedback during long and difficult pitch practices for group pitches. She was a significant influence  in the increase in business for almost every younger equity partner rainmaker over the course of their career,” Raye Daugherty, Partner and Client Service Team Leader, Quarles & Brady LLP,

Professional Development Training

Mary Balistreri supported CYMKE (City Year Milwaukee) to learn and deepen our emotional intelligence skills. She was a great collaborator to work with as we designed yearlong PD (Professional Development) opportunities for our staff about different emotional intelligence topics. Mary was committed to differentiating the materials to be relevant to our organizational culture and consistently sought ways to make sessions interactive and engaging. Additionally, CYMKE worked with Mary to lead our Senior Leadership Team’s retreat to review and recommit to our emotional intelligence commitments…” Elizabeth Flamm, Senior Director of People and Strategy, City Year Milwaukee.

“I had the privilege of working with Mary for several years while I was practicing law at Quarles & Brady…Once I moved on from Quarles and into my new role as CEO of Meta House, Mary generously donated her time and expertise to train the agency’s leadership team. She shared her professional network with the agency’s leaders to further their professional development. She is generous, knowledgeable, and would be a great asset to any organization she joins,” Valerie Vidal, President & CEO, Meta House

I truly believed that Mary’s leadership was key to the firm’s BD and professional development and helped set Quarles apart from other firms,” Cherya Jenkins, Senior Client Development Manager, Akerman LLP.

Leadership Coaching

“It has been an incredible journey working with Mary on my leadership and professional development. Through this coaching experience, I have been able to identify ways in which to maintain focus on my goals, better understand and navigate work frustrations, improve my confidence, as well as improve on my communication strategies. Mary helped me to identify areas in which I could improve and challenged me to go outside of my comfort zone. I am leaving this experience with plenty of confidence, as well as development tools, that will help me to be successful in the workplace.” Erin Ganzke, Finance & Impact Evaluator, Urban Ecology Center

“Thank you so much for your time, expertise and encouragement.  It was a pleasure working with you and I’m excited to put your suggestions to practice.  You are truly a valuable resource.”
L.B., Manager at non-profit organization

I partnered with Mary Balistreri for over five valuable years. Mary is a dedicated and effective professional development coach. She was integral to my success in both business development and the path to equity partnership at the firm. I can say with 100% certainty that Mary was a critical element in my development as an attorney. She was able to focus in on the issues that matter most, truly understand the challenges I faced, and collaborate on a concrete yet flexible plan to lead to my professional success and personal career fulfillment. I looked forward to my time with Mary. It was always evident that she thought carefully about each of us individually and did not come at her job with a one size fits all approach. Mary clearly invested a great deal of time and energy on continually learning about new approaches and techniques and how they could apply to us. She is a thoughtful, authentic person whose talents in professional coaching are unmatched.” Adie Olson, Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP

“Mary really was the key that helped me unlock my potential for growth,” Maria Kallmeyer, Partner, Quarles & Brady LLP

“Mary had a unique ability to win the confidence of partners, convince them that she had things she could teach them to make them better at developing client relationships, marketing themselves and winning new business, even in the beauty contest world, and then helping them do it,” Fred Lautz, Former Managing Partner, Quarles & Brady LLP

“Mary was a crucial part in my development as a junior partner at a national law firm… She would challenge me to think outside the box and push me to get outside of my comfort zone in ways that always still focused on my strengths.  I am now running the business development efforts at my 11-lawyer law firm and almost weekly get a kick out of the fact that I am now using with my current colleagues some of the strategies and practices that Mary shared with me years ago.”

Ryan Patterson, Partner, Thorpe Shwer, P.C.

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