It Starts With Clients

World-renowned client relationship authority shows you how to dramatically grow your business by mastering fourteen critical client development challenges Andrew Sobel, author of the international bestsellers Clients for Life and Power Questions, offers a proven,100-day plan for conquering 14 tough client development challenges and growing your client base in any market conditions. He’s encapsulated 25 years of unique research, including personal interviews with over 8000 top executives and successful rainmakers, into a practical roadmap for winning more new clients and growing your existing relationships. You’ll learn specific strategies to move confidently and predictably from a first meeting to a signed contract, and discover the agenda-setting techniques that create a steady stream of sole-source business. You’ll master the art of reframing client requests, leading to broader, higher-impact engagements. You’ll dramatically sharpen your ability to ask the powerful questions that can transform your client relationships. And, you’ll learn to develop advisory relationships with influential C-suite executives. Andrew illustrates each weekly challenge with real-life examples drawn from thousands of executive meetings. He shares success strategies from having grown and led three highly successful professional service businesses. Andrew has taught these strategies to over 50,000 professionals around the world, and they’re now available to you in this highly readable, portable masterclass. Whether you are early in your career and need a comprehensive guide to grow your client base from the ground up or are a seasoned practitioner who wants to accelerate your business growth, It Starts With Clients will take you to the next level.

Finally, the book that all professionals frustrated with fleeting client loyalty and relentless price pressure have waited for -- the first in-depth, client-tested guide to developing lasting business relationships. What separates extraordinary professionals from ordinary ones? Why are some professionals always drawn into their clients' inner circle of advisers, while others are employed on a one-shot basis and treated like vendors? Based on groundbreaking research, Clients for Life sets forth a comprehensive framework for how professionals in all fields can develop breakthrough relationships with their clients and enjoy enduring client loyalty. Drawing on insights from extensive interviews with both leading CEOs and today's most prominent client advisers, Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel debunk the conventional wisdom about professional success -- "find a specialty, do good work" -- as hopelessly inadequate in a world where clients have unlimited access to information and expertise. The authors replace these tired conventions with an innovative blueprint, supported by over one hundred case studies and examples drawn from consulting, financial services, law, technology, and other fields, for how you can evolve from an expert for hire -- a commodity -- to an extraordinary adviser. Riveting portraits of both exceptional contemporary professionals and legendary advisers such as Aristotle, Thomas More, Niccolò Machiavelli, and J. P. Morgan reveal how great client relationships are achieved in practice. Readers will learn, for example, to develop selfless independence, which tempers complete emotional, intellectual, and financial independence with a powerful commitment to client needs; to become deep generalists and overcome the narrow perspective caused by specialization; to systematically build lifelong trust; and to cultivate the power of synthesis -- big-picture thinking -- that is so highly valued by clients. Acclaimed by leading management thinkers, Clients for Life clearly illustrates the most important attributes and strategies of extraordinary client advisers and shows how you can use them to enrich your own relationships. It provides sophisticated professionals with the tools and insights they need to reap the rewards of lifetime client loyalty.

World-renowned client relationship authority shows you how to dramatically grow your business by mastering fourteen critical client development challenges Andrew Sobel, author of the international bestsellers Clients for Life and Power Questions, offers a proven,100-day plan for conquering 14 tough client development challenges and growing your client base in any market conditions. He’s encapsulated 25 years of unique research, including personal interviews with over 8000 top executives and successful rainmakers, into a practical roadmap for winning more new clients and growing your existing relationships. You’ll learn specific strategies to move confidently and predictably from a first meeting to a signed contract, and discover the agenda-setting techniques that create a steady stream of sole-source business. You’ll master the art of reframing client requests, leading to broader, higher-impact engagements. You’ll dramatically sharpen your ability to ask the powerful questions that can transform your client relationships. And, you’ll learn to develop advisory relationships with influential C-suite executives. Andrew illustrates each weekly challenge with real-life examples drawn from thousands of executive meetings. He shares success strategies from having grown and led three highly successful professional service businesses. Andrew has taught these strategies to over 50,000 professionals around the world, and they’re now available to you in this highly readable, portable masterclass. Whether you are early in your career and need a comprehensive guide to grow your client base from the ground up or are a seasoned practitioner who wants to accelerate your business growth, It Starts With Clients will take you to the next level.

CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS Finding some clients difficult to understand? Confused when they say one thing but mean another? Need better, more useful feedback? Sometimes feel on the back-foot? Have trouble managing client expectations? Wonder why they seem impossible to please? Concerned about being blind-sided by unexpected client loss? THIS BOOK IS YOUR LIFELINE Connecting with Clients contains new ideas derived from the world’s leading relationship experts Insights from over 500,000 pieces of client feedback worldwide With tips and guidance from an adman, organisational change agent, couples’ counsellor and co-founder of The Client Relationship Consultancy Dip into short chapters and discover a valuable insight on every page REJUVENATE YOUR CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS With the help of this book, you will be able to: Evaluate your client relationships and diagnose issues Recognise your part in a problem Obtain useful and clear feedback Understand, relate to and communicate with your clients Manage yourself and your team members Get the best from your clients so that they get the best from you CONNECTING WITH CLIENTS WILL SAVE YOU TIME, EFFORT AND MONEY AND MAKE LIFE MORE ENJOYABLE.

This deeply insightful guide to understanding what clients really want is “an indispensable resource for consultants” (Keith Ferrazzi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Never Eat Alone). Independent consulting is a potentially lucrative enterprise—but the reality seldom matches the dream. Most solo consultants and boutique consulting firms are perpetually within six months of bankruptcy due to the sputtering unreliability of their new business engines. The problem, according to international consulting expert David A. Fields, is twofold: 1) lack of a consistent, proven plan, and 2) fundamental misunderstanding about what clients want in a consultant. Fields, who has helped hundreds of consultants and boutique firms worldwide build profitable, sustainable practices, replaces the typical consultant’s mindset of emphasizing expertise and differentiated processes with a focus on building relationships, engendering trust, and solving clients’ existing problems. In The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients, Fields synthesizes his decades of experience into a step-by-step approach to winning more projects from more clients at higher fees. From nuts-and-bolts business advice and tactics to a deeply insightful breakdown of the human side of a very human profession, Fields, named one of Advertising Age magazine’s “Marketing Top 100,” delivers a comprehensive guidebook that is at once highly approachable and satisfyingly detailed. “If I could have just one book on client strategy, this book would be it.” —Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Triggers

The real-world guide to selling your services and bringing in business 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.

The Relationship Laws that Drive Success There are powerful but invisible laws that determine whether your relationships —with your clients, colleagues, and friends—will thrive or wither. These relationship laws are ever-present. When you align with them, the results are dramatic. Your network will grow rapidly. You’ll be seen by clients as a trusted partner rather than an expense to be managed. And you’ll find the people around you eager to help you succeed. When you ignore the laws, however, your efforts will falter. Relationship building will seem like very hard work. Power Relationships gives readers a unique, entertaining guide to relationship success at work and in life. Each of the 26 laws is illustrated and explained using a compelling, real-life story that shows how to implement it. The second section of the book presents 16 common relationship challenges with specific solutions. You’ll read about: The top Citigroup executive whose relationship with a CEO was changed forever on a business trip that exploded into chaos, and how you can use the same principle to deepen your own relationships. The philanthropist who, on the verge of being mugged in a dark parking lot, learns how his actions have had an unimaginable ripple effect across several generations How one of the authors flew halfway around the world and used Law 18—“Make them curious”—to turn a make-or-break, five-minute meeting with a top executive into a long-term relationship. The chance encounter on an airplane with a famous actor that revealed a simple but profound truth. It’s Law 25: “Build your network before you need it.” Sobel (author of Clients for Life, All for One, and Power Questions (with Panas)) and Panas (author of Asking and Supremely Successful Selling) have sold over half a million books and are the leading authorities in their field. Power Relationships is a unique, road-tested guide to relationship success.

An arsenal of powerful questions that will transform every conversation Skillfully redefine problems. Make an immediate connection with anyone. Rapidly determine if a client is ready to buy. Access the deepest dreams of others. Power Questions sets out a series of strategic questions that will help you win new business and dramatically deepen your professional and personal relationships. The book showcases thirty-five riveting, real conversations with CEOs, billionaires, clients, colleagues, and friends. Each story illustrates the extraordinary power and impact of a thought-provoking, incisive power question. To help readers navigate a variety of professional challenges, over 200 additional, thought-provoking questions are also summarized at the end of the book. In Power Questions you’ll discover: The question that stopped an angry executive in his tracks The sales question CEOs expect you to ask versus the questions they want you to ask The question that will radically refocus any meeting The penetrating question that can transform a friend or colleague’s life A simple question that helped restore a marriage When you use power questions, you magnify your professional and personal influence, create intimate connections with others, and drive to the true heart of the issue every time.