How To Acquire Clients »

Alan Weiss-author, international consultant, highly sought keynote speaker-is the founder and president of Summit Consulting Group. His clients have included Hewlett-Packard, State Street Corp., Fleet Bank, Coldwell Banker, Merrill Lynch, American Press Institute, Chase, Mercedes-Benz, GE, American Institute of Architects, and Arthur Andersen. He is the author of The Ultimate Consultant (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001) and Getting Started in Consulting (John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Weiss resides with his wife Maria in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

Alan Weiss, expert consultant and author of the best-selling book Million Dollar Consulting has written this, the fourth book in The Ultimate Consultant Series, to help refresh, revitalize, and reawaken successful consultants (and those who want to be successful) to the need to continually seek more and better business. "Better" business also means a higher-quality business that successful consultants accrue once they've paid the dues and taken the risks: higher fees for less labor-intensive work, passive income, alliances which drive your business, and selective and appealing instances and locales that combine personal goals with business improvement.
Topics in the book include

• Identifying opportunities
• Preparing for success
• Gaining market share
• Guaranteeing repeat business
• Selective acquisition
• And much more

Each chapter includes four "success models," three of which are contributed by other, successful practitioners:

• "Best Practices" shares highly successful techniques.
• "The One That Got Away" offers insights gained from failure.
• "The Twilight Zone" demonstrates the unlikely and unimaginable in client acquisition.
• "Who Could Make This Up," contributed by the author himself, provides some of the ironies and peculiarities of the wonderful but odd profession we're all a part of.

Booknews

Weiss writes for successful consultants because they often fall into the success trap in which they forget why it is that business keeps coming in, and mistake horizontal movement for improvement. Experienced consultants who have paid the dues and taken the risks, he says, should charge higher fees for less labor-intensive work, receive passive income, make alliances, and choose settings that fulfill personal as well as business goals. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

	Introduction	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xv
Chapter 1	Identifying Targets of Opportunity: You Seldom Awake in the Morning with People Waving Money in Your Face	1
	Three Conditions Essential to Successful Selling	2
	Generalizing and Specializing: The View from Contrarian Land	7
	Customized Assaults: When There Is a Single Target Too Appealing to Resist	12
	Strategies for Isolating and Hitting New Targets of Opportunity	14
	From My Time in the Trenches	17
Chapter 2	How to Prepare for Success in Acquiring New Business: The Allies Didn't Simply Decide to Take a Trip Across the English Channel One Morning	19
	The Frontal Attack	20
	The Flanking Maneuver	25
	Infiltration	27
	When the Buyer Comes to You (Build It, and They Will Come)	32
	From My Time in the Trenches	34
Chapter 3	How to Build Relationships with Economic Buyers: Most Consultants Don't Stop "Selling" Long Enogh to Really Make a Sale	35
	Behavioral Predispositions: Funny Things That Buyers Do	36
	Controlling the Discussion (Killing Me Softly with His Song...)	43
	Emotional Targeting	48
	Drawing a Line in the Sand for Unacceptable Behaviors	50
	From My Time in the Trenches	51
Chapter 4	Rebutting Objections Once and for All: If You Hear a New Objection, Then You Haven't Been Listening in the Past	53
	The Four Major Areas of Objections	55
	Rebutting Arguments in the Four Basic Areas	57
	Visualizing the Future	65
	Sample Objections and Rebuttals	66
	From My Time in the Trenches	69
Chapter 5	Sixteen Great Acquisition Sources: Why Go Around the Block to Get Next Door?	71
	The First Four	73
	The Second Four	78
	The Third Four	83
	The Fourth Four	86
	From My Time in the Trenches	90
Chapter 6	Winning Friends and Influencing People: How to Build Support from Those Who Loathe Your Arrival	91
	Providing Value Early and for Free	92
	Building Momentum Among Key Advisors	95
	Dealing with Committees	97
	Overcoming "Threat" Factors	101
	From My Time in the Trenches	107
Chapter 7	Gaining Market Share from Others: Stealing Is Legal in the Sales Business	109
	Harvesting "Low Hanging Fruit"	111
	Creating High Visibility	114
	Waiting for Someone Else's Bad News	117
	More Techniques to Trespass on Others' Property	120
	From My Time in the Trenches	125
Chapter 8	Guaranteeing the Ultimate Business: Repeat Business: How to Think of the Fourth Sale First	127
	What Is the Fourth Sale?	128
	The Three Keys to Cementing Relationships Rather Than Selling Business	131
	Developing Trust Through Pushback	133
	The Present-Value Discount Principle in Action	138
	From My Time in the Trenches	143
Chapter 9	A Dozen New Sources of Clients: The World Is Changing and So Are Your Prospects	145
1.	Global Alliances	147
2.	Remote Learning	147
3.	Entrepreneurs	149
4.	Universities and Higher Education	150
5.	The Professions: Medical, Legal, Accounting	151
6.	Mature High-Tech	152
7.	The Retired, the Recreating, the Hobbyist	153
8.	Behavior Modification	155
9.	Life Balance	156
10.	Sales Skills	157
11.	Cultural Accommodation	159
12.	Knowledge Assimilation/Management Application	160
	From My Time in the Trenches	161
Chapter 10	The Process of Selective Acquisition: How to Reject and Abandon Business in Order to Grow	163
	The Ten Very Good Reasons for Rejecting Prospective Business	164
	The Five Very Good Reasons for Pulling the Plug on Existing Business	168
	Managing New Business Potential and Profit	171
	The Mercedes-Benz Syndrome	175
	From My Time in the Trenches: Chapter 10	179
	From My Time in the Trenches: The Book	180
	Index	183