Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.

How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services
272Overview
How Clients Buy is the much-needed guide to selling your services. If you're one of the millions of people whose skills are the 'product,' you know that you cannot be successful unless you bring in clients. The problem is, you're trained to do your job—not sell it. No matter how great you may be at your actual role, you likely feel a bit lost, hesitant, or 'behind' when it comes to courting clients, an unfamiliar territory where you're never quite sure of the line between under- and over-selling. This book comes to the rescue with real, practical advice for selling what you do. You'll have to unlearn everything you know about sales, but then you'll learn new skills that will help you make connections, develop rapport, create interest, earn trust, and turn prospects into clients.
Business development is critical to your personal success, and your skills in this area will dictate the course of your career. This invaluable guide gives you a set of real-world best practices that can help you become the rainmaker you want to be.
- Get the word out and make productive connections
- Drop the fear of self-promotion and advertise your accomplishments
- Earn potential clients' trust to build a lasting relationship
- Scrap the sales pitch in favor of honesty, positivity, and value
Working in the consulting and professional services fields comes with difficulties not encountered by those who sell tangible products. Services are often under-valued, and become among the first things to go when budgets get tight. It is now harder than ever to sell professional services, so your game must be on-point if you hope to out-compete the field. How Clients Buy shows you how to level up and start winning the client list of your dreams.
Related collections and offers
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781119434702 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Wiley |
Publication date: | 03/13/2018 |
Pages: | 272 |
Sales rank: | 1,017,251 |
Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
DOUG FLETCHER currently splits his time between speaking/writing/coaching on the topic of business development in consulting and professional services and teaching at the Jake Jabs College of Business & Entrepreneurship at Montana State University. He also serves on the Board of Directors of The Beacon Group, a growth strategy consulting firm headquartered in Portland, Maine. Prior to that, he was co-founder and CEO of North Star Consulting Group, a technology-enabled consulting firm that specialized in global web-survey projects. Earlier in his professional life, Doug served as a consultant with the management consultancy, A.T. Kearney, and was trained at General Electric in its leadership development program. He is a graduate of Clemson University and has an MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business Administration.
www.howclientsbuy.net
Read an Excerpt
Table of Contents
The Problem
1 A Curious Problem 3
2 Finders, Minders, and Grinders: The Business Development Imperative 14
Obstacles
3 Beyond Pixels: Selling a Service Is Different from Selling Things (and Harder) 27
4 Obstacle #1-What They Didn't Teach You in B-School: If I Am Supposed to Be the Expert, Why Do I Feel So Stupid about Sales? 37
5 Obstacle #2-But I Don't Want to Sell: Moving Past Willy Loman 45
6 Obstacle #3-Things Aren't What They Once Were: It Is Harder Than Ever to Sell Expert Services 56
7 Obstacle #4-A Blizzard of Bad Advice: Everything You Know about Sales Is Wrong 67
How Clients Buy
8 The Secret to Selling: Never Say Sell 83
9 Element 1-I Am Aware of You: What Was the Name of Your Firm Again? 95
10 Element 2-I Understand What You Do: You Do What? 112
11 Element 3-I Am Interested: These Are My Goals 127
12 Element 4-I Respect Your Work: You Have the Right Stuff to Help Me 138
13 Element 5-I Trust You: You Have My Best Interests at Heart 154
14 Element 6-I Am Able: I've Got Budget and Buy-In 168
15 Element 7-I Am Ready: The Timing Is Right 181
Putting the Seven Elements to Work
16 A Chain Is as Strong as Its Weakest Link: Using the Seven Elements as a Diagnostic Tool 197
17 Getting to Work: Learning to Think and Act Like a Rainmaker 212
18 All Business Is Local: From the Silk Road to the Information Superhighway 223
19 Our Vision of the Future: A Roadmap for Change 229
Notes and References 241
Acknowledgments 248
About the Authors 251
Index 253