How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services Kindle Edition

I'm one of those people who reflexively recoil at the idea of selling - even though my success depends on serving clients. Tom McMakin and Doug Fletcher have helped me better understand my dilemma. Among us consultants and professional service providers, selling connotes persuasion - even an element of coercion. We understand that sustainable and profitable relationships are built on a foundation of trust and mutual respect. The hard sell approach is antithetical to such relationships. Consequently, we need to understand the conditions under which clients are prepared to buy. The authors spell these conditions out in grounded, actionable ways."How Clients Buy" is an antidote to the linear, seller-centered, personality-infatuated approach that is pervasive in the genre.

Over the years, I’ve read quite a few business books about selling one’s wares and finding clients. Each of them have been helpful, on some level, because they have at least a few useful nuggets of information or pearls of wisdom. The trouble is that the key takeaways and guidelines that one wants to get from these books are often lost in a sea of unnecessary information or “filler” that seems to be there just to round out the book. That makes them a bit frustrating to get through.Consequently, I was pleasantly surprised with “How Clients Buy”- a book that I found just by a search on Amazon. It’s a manageable size, which can be read quickly, and most of the text is germane and illustrative of the points being made. The tone that the writers use is (a bit too) friendly, but their information and insights are to-the-point and effective.I’ve been providing professional architectural services for over 30 years, and over that time, I’ve accrued a fair bit of knowledge about how to find and retain clients. But even with that experience, I’ve found that one can get too casual with some of the fundamentals and not be as diligent as one should be in pursuing new clients (or maintaining old ones). This book is a very good reminder of what really matters and what works.I like the fact that the book is geared towards the professional services industries, and that it offers a well-organized approach with a very good set of guidelines and to-do’s for how to focus one’s efforts and be more effective. I found that it’s a very useful read for anyone, like me, who’s trying to build relationships and pursue new business - more so than many other books of its kind that I’ve read to date.

McMakin and Fletcher have written an excellent guide for how consultants can secure clients. They start from the assumption that selling consultant services is different than selling products and that typical sales techniques do not apply here and may be counterproductive. They then explain how client’s buy professional services and steps that are essential to secure the trust that is the foundation of that relationship. They explain the seven elements in a client’s decision journey to purchasing services, and go through each element in detail offering insights and tactics to help you through each step of the process. All their key points are backed up with evidence from interviews they have down with leading professionals in the field, citations from existing literature and research, and their own extensive experience in the industry.The authors note that there is often a feeling among consultants that selling conflicts with professional ethics which puts them at a disadvantage. They debunk the myth that you need to have a sales personality to be successful in this domain and they help you focus your efforts in a way that will improve your chances of success and keep the time invested in business development a manageable part of your business.The book is a pretty easy read, well written, well laid out, and they often make their case with interesting stories of people they interviewed or from history. What I like best about the book is that it is logically organized in a way that makes it easy for you to refer back to points or steps that they have explained. If you are the rainmaker for your firm or aspire to be one, this book is worth your time. My own experience is that even if you are good at promoting services and securing clients, you know that you can always improve and this book offers a systematic approach to do just that.

For the past 20 years I have operated a consulting business providing leadership training and coaching and prior to that worked for many years in general management positions in manufacturing operations ... so I have exposure to both sides of this business development process. From my perspective, Tom and Doug have done a great job of capturing the dramatic differences between cultivating new business in professional services vs. sales and marketing in traditional businesses. Their 7-step framework accurately lays out the key elements in a straight forward, easily understood way. Practical application insights and techniques are then provided for each of these steps. Examples and stories scattered throughout make it an enjoyable read. I nodded my head in agreement as I read, so many of these ideas are not new to experienced service providers. But what is new is having these key elements laid out in a clear framework. This book will be particularly helpful to those who are just getting started in professional services ... or to those coaching other service providers in business development. It's also a great reminder for those who may know these things but don't always practice them.In summary, this book does a great job of explaining the keys to successful business development for professional services and then provides a helpful framework with practical suggestions to allow any service provider to implement these concepts. I found it so helpful and useful that I am giving copies to my family and friends who provide professional services. As part of my job, I read a lot of business books and this is one of the most useful I have read.

This was a very enjoyable book to read. The authors have interspersed lots of interviews with leaders in professional services firms, both big and small, which give great insight.The key focus is, of course, on shifting the sales conversation to one where you help clients to buy rather than actively chase them for a sale. It's an important change of perspective.The book introduces a really useful framework called: The Seven Elements of the Client journey. This is a great framework around which to develop your marketing and sales strategy.Finally, there are tons of nuggets of wisdom in this book and I highly recommend it to any owners and leaders of consulting and professional services firms.

Great book, lots of insight.

Very well written book

La mayoría de los libros de ventas y marketing se basan en productos. Si tienes un negocio de servicios profesionales, te habrás dado cuenta que no se pueden promocionar de la misma manera. Este libro me dio justo la información que estaba buscando.

My brother asked me for this book a while ago and he loved it!