Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice

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McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

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Build a thriving 21st-century consultancy with an all-new edition of the classic bestseller

In a world of rapidly evolving technologies and business paradigms, your consulting business needs to radically adapt its techniques and models. Taking full measure of these changes, Alan Weiss, the "Rock Star of Consulting," will guide you through the process with a revised and completely updated sixth edition of his authoritative guide to consulting success.

Weiss updates his time-tested model for creating a flourishing consulting business, while showing you the many dynamic changes in solo and boutique consulting, coaching, and entrepreneurship. In addition, he offers you invaluable guidance on raising capital, attracting clients, and creating an airtight marketing strategy.

This new edition is packed with step-by-step advice on how to:

• Use volatility and disruption as offensive weapons
• Maximize fees by adopting a "value mindset"
• Build a successful model for marketing remotely
• Master cutting-edge technology to reach the broadest audience
• Form powerful alliances to increase reach and impact
• Think branding-and think global
• Generate six-figure projects, six-figure retainers, and seven-figure incomes

Million Dollar Consulting has been the go-to classic for consultants for nearly 25 years. With cutting-edge new content, Alan Weiss will show you how to grow your business into a seven-figure firm today.

Contenu

PART I
PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER 1
The Twenty-First Century Expert
Consulting is now about expertise and the varying ways to provide it to clients.
And that expertise has to be around processes and not content.
. Expertise Is a State of Being
. Providing Direction Depends on the Destination
. The Process/Content Chasm
. The Thought Leader Continuum

CHAPTER 2
Build It and Tell Them You've Built It,
and THEN They Will Come
This is the marketing business, and expertise without clients makes the
tree falling with no one to hear it louder by comparison.
. Selling Is Dead
. What Brands Are Really About
. When They Do Come, What Then?
. Unified Field Theory of Marketing

CHAPTER 3
The Power of the Assertive Expert
Humility is misunderstood. No one yells for a
"humble heart surgeon." Good enough isn't enough.
. Providing Free Value Continually
. Why Being Plagiarized Pays
. Copyright
. Making Predictions
. Peter Drucker Wasn't Amiable
INTERLUDE I
The Yin and Yang of Clients and Prospects

PART 2
VALUE
CHAPTER 4
Maximizing Fees
Equitable compensation means just that. You should be
paid based on your value, not your time, not your presence.
The value mindset trumps the money mindset.
. Why Base Fees on Value
. Fee Formulas
. Collaborative, Referral, and Subcontractor Formulas
. Seventy Ways to Increase Fees

CHAPTER 5
How to Write a Proposal That's Accepted Every Time
A proposal is neither a negotiation nor an exploration. It is a summation of
conceptual agreement. The sale is made prior to the proposal.
. The Role of Conceptual Agreement
. The Nine Components of a Proposal
. Total Days to Cash (TDTC)
INTERLUDE II
The Concept of Value

PART 3
EXECUTION
CHAPTER 6
The Attack of the Esteem Monsters
Success is undermined by low esteem, which is caused by fear.
And the fear is entirely removable if we have the courage of our talent.
. No One Is Shooting at You
. Esteem and Efficacy
. The Power of Questions over Answers
. Maybe There Was Something Under the Bed

CHAPTER 7
The Reality of Technology
You don't need a drill. You need a hole.
No one gets wealthy by having four backups.
. The Utter Fallacy of Social Media
. The Retail Market
. How to Hire IT Help Without Becoming Helpless
. Standing in the Public Square

CHAPTER 8
The Trusted Advisor
How to provide maximum value with minimum labor and
build the life of your dreams.
. Coaching Isn't Consulting, and Advising Isn't Coaching
. The Art of the Retainer
. How to Position the Advisor Role:
An Example Letter of Agreement
. The Concierge Consultant
INTERLUDE III
What's Your Worth?

PART 4
MEANING

CHAPTER 9
The Ethics of the Expert
What you shouldn't do even if you can, and what you should do
even if you think you can't. The law is not about morality.
. Time-Based Fees Are All Unethical
. When to Hold 'em and When to Fold 'em
. Just Because It's Legal Doesn't Mean It's Right
. The Power of Pro Bono

C H A P T E R 10
Options for Growth
Building a company, forming alliances, strategies for
increasing impact, if you want them.
. Boutique Is Such a Strange Word
. Feeding Chicks
. Valuation: Can You Sell What You've Created?
. The Power of Solo

C H A P T E R 11
Leverage: More Output for Less Input
You can build a solo practice with arm's-length
relationships if you're careful about your arm.
. Leverage: Using Something to Maximum Advantage
. Alliances
. Subcontracting
. Outsourcing

C H A P T E R 12
Crisis Consulting
Pandemics, natural disasters, local wars, economic roller coasters:
your talent and value are needed. Walt Disney started
operations during the Great Depression.
. Thriving in Ambiguity
. Offering Help
. Remote Marketing
. Remote Delivery

C H A P T E R 13
Legacy 213
Your legacy is daily, and it's the creation of meaning, not a search for meaning.
Are you writing a new page, or is it blank, or the same one
over and over? Or is someone else writing it?
. Who's Pushing Your Buttons?
. Creating Evergreen Intellectual Property
. Who Do You Want to Be?
EPILOGUE
The Best Practices for Creating and
Sustaining Your Endeavor
Cathedrals last for hundreds of years.
. Logistical, Financial, Legal, Unusual
. Advisory Board
. Destinies and Eventualities
. Threats and Responses

APPENDIX A
Tips from the Million Dollar
Consulting Community
APPENDIX B
101 Questions for Any Sales
Situation You'll Ever Face
Index