Sole Practitioner Reading

Sole Practitioner Reading

CJ Hayden’s Get Clients Now is a great “how to” book featuring a 28-day plan to win new clients and grow your business. It covers the key aspects of the business development pipeline: filling the pipeline, following-up, getting presentations, closing sales and getting referrals. For each stage it identifies effective tactics and when it’s appropriate to use them. The philosophy of [em]Get Clients Now[/em] is very practical: “focus where you’re stuck” and for many sole practitioners this could be the only book they ever need.

In addition to having a fantastic title, and a fantastically long subtitle, Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid is another excellent book for the sole practitioner. The book has more of an “internet entrepreneur” feel than Get Clients Now and has more of a focus on topics like internet marketing and the use of Information Products for passive income. It has a refreshing “new age philosophy” side to it and a focus on self-fulfilment as a professional.

When I took time off over in Hong Kong before setting up my own consulting practice, Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Consulting was the book I read day-in, day-out (and made a huge pile of notes on index cards from). Weiss has a clear voice and a clear point of view. I don’t always agree with quite everything he says – but I learnt immensely from this book. It’s also a good introduction to the concepts of value based fees which he discusses in more detail in other works too and which is such a vital topic for consultants but not really covered by other authors. If you’re a consultant and you just want to read one book about setting up a practice and winning business, then this is probably the one.

Robert Middleton’s Infoguru Manual is, for me, the best pound-for-pound guide to marketing and selling your services for Independent Professionals/Sole Practitioners. It’s far more pricey than the others – but worth every penny. The package includes the manual and workbooks, a number of audio resources, and membership of the Infoguru forum. Listening to Robert’s audios has given me more “damn it, you’re right” and thumping-the-steering-wheel moments than anything else I’ve listened to. If you thoroughly digest this material and work throught all the exercises and recommendations you absolutely will put yourself into the top 5% of professional service marketers. In fact the only thing I don’t like about this package is the “Infoguru” name – I feel it has connotations of someone whose primary business is information products – whereas it’s far, far more than that.