Million Dollar Consulting Toolkit E-Book

Alan Weiss

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 284

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

The practical toolbox for readers of Million Dollar Consulting This useful guide provides specific checklists, guidelines, templates, and actual examples for every step of the consulting process. It covers marketing, sales, meetings, implementation, follow-up, invoicing, practice management, insurance, equipment, subcontracting, and scores of other elements. Thousands of people have bought Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting and started their own consultancy. Now, this handy resource goes hand-in-hand to provide all the tools new consultants need to enact all the recommendations and ideas in Million Dollar Consulting. Alan Weiss, PhD (East Greenwich, RI), has consulted for hundreds of organizations around the world, including Mercedes-Benz, Hewlett-Packard, Merck, Chase, American Press Institute, and the Times-Mirror Group. He is the author of 12 books, including Getting Started in Consulting (0-471-47969-1) and Organizational Consulting (0-471-26378-8).

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Section 1: Office and Practice Management

Equipment

Client Files

Insurance

Professional Assistance

Time and Space Allocation

Section 2: Sales and Marketing

Web Site

E-Mail

Press Kit

Proposals

Cold Calling

Cold Call Letter

Meeting Preparation

Networking

Advertising and Listings

Fee Setting

Closing the Sale

Section 3: Self-Development

Reading Materials

Associations

Rebutting Objections

Learning from Setbacks

Section 4: Travel

Clubs

Transportation and Lodging

Road Warrior Support

Section 5: Project Delivery

Sponsors

Interviews

Focus Groups

On-Site Observations

Coaching

Debriefings

Reports

Section 6: Forms

Invoices

Expense Reimbursement

Overdue Payments

Writing an Article

Subcontracting

Follow-Up Letters

Section 7: Financial

Taxes

Investment

Retirement

Credit Lines

Bookkeeping

Payroll

Section 8: Legal

Incorporation

Trademarks, Service Marks, Registration

Copyright

Contracts

Section 9: Advanced Marketing

Publishing Articles and Columns

Publishing Books

Interviews

Professional Speaking

Newsletters

Forecasting

Referrals

Repeat Business

Passive Income

International Business

Alliances

Retainers

Section 10: Maximizing Success

Life Balance

Reinventing Yourself

Selling Your Firm

Appendix

Example of Trademark Registration

Example of Web Site Home Page

Bibliography

101 Questions for Any Sales Situation You’ll Ever Face

Sample Position Paper or White Paper

Index

About the Author

Other Works by Alan Weiss

Books

Best Laid Plans

Breaking Through Writer’s Block

Getting Started in Consulting (also in Chinese and Russian)

Good Enough Isn’t Enough (also in Spanish)

The Great Big Book of Process Visuals

Great Consulting Challenges

How to Acquire Clients

How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession

How to Market, Brand, and Sell Professional Services

How to Sell New Business and Expand Existing Business

How to Write a Proposal That’s Accepted Every Time

The Innovation Formula (with Mike Robert) (also in German and Italian)

Life Balance

Managing for Peak Performance (also in German)

Million Dollar Consulting (also in Chinese)

Money Talks (also in Chinese)

Organizational Consulting

Our Emperors Have No Clothes

Process Consulting

The Ultimate Consultant

The Unofficial Guide to Power Management

Value Based Fees

Booklets

Doing Well by Doing Right

How to Maximize Fees

Leadership Every Day

Raising the Bar

Rejoicing in Diversity

Audiocassettes, CDs, Albums

The Consultant’s Treasury

The Odd Couple® (with Patricia Fripp)

The One-Day MBA

The One-Day MBA Part II

Winning the Race to the Market

Newsletter

Balancing Act®

Copyright © 2006 by Alan Weiss, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN-13 978-0-471-74027-8 (pbk.)

For Koufax the white German Shepherd Dog and Buddy Beagle, more formally Sanford von Koufax of Ebbets and Buddy Beagle of Las Brisas, who embrace me in their unending joie de vivre.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My gratitude to all of those people who have participated in my Private Roster Mentor Program since its inception in 1996. As in any pursuit, you learn more as the teacher than as the student, and their grand array of professional and personal challenges, as well as their trust in and candor with me, have enabled me to constantly hone my craft and build my skills.

Sincere appreciation to my agent, Jeff Herman, who has placed a half-dozen of my books, including my two best sellers.

INTRODUCTION

During my 20-year career as a solo practitioner who works with major organizations, consulting firms, and other solo practitioners, I’ve been asked two questions far more than any others: How do I establish value-based fees, and how do I manage my time so that I build a seven-figure practice with no employees and plenty of leisure time?

The first question I’ve answered in several books and scores of articles and interviews. But the second has never been comprehensively treated until this Toolkit.

I’ve included herein, with my permission for you to appropriate and modify for your purposes (and a web site to visit to download whatever forms you need), checklists, forms, and templates that will save you an enormous amount of time (I estimate more than a month a year) and dramatically enhance your professionalism and productivity. You can read this like a book, or refer to it like a reference manual, or seek out methods to improve still further those areas in which you’re already proficient.

There is no particular sequence that’s important; the sections are not in any particular order, but instead serve to organize elements within common boundaries. I’ve tried to provide maximum support with minimum interference. Most elements have a brief narrative explaining the “why,” then a checklist, commentary, and one or more templates (where appropriate) to demonstrate the “what” and the “how.” The “when,” of course, is up to the reader’s needs, interests, and, frankly, discipline.

The commentary sections are my biases about what might make the best sense, and I have no financial connection to any of my recommendations (other than perhaps coincidentally owning stock in some of the companies). You needn’t follow my specific recommendations, but I think I owe you my best experiences.

My intent is that you use the checklists as appropriate for daily and short-term planning and quality assurance, and use the templates as needed for actual tactical implementation. For example, the templates for creating an article, a follow-up letter, or an invoice can save you hours of time every week.

I stipulate here that you may have some better ideas than I in some of these areas, or can think of additional areas that need treatment (and I urge you to write to me or the publisher so that we may consider these possibilities for future editions), but I believe that there are a dozen or more techniques here that you can use immediately to improve your business and your life. Hence, the goal is neither all-inclusiveness nor perfection, but merely success. Select those forms and checklists that improve your approaches, and your success will increase immediately.

Although this is a different type of book for me, that goal of success is a common theme through all of my work. People told me that I could never succeed as an independent consultant, much less make a million dollars and more working out of my home. I didn’t believe them, because they had no evidence that I couldn’t succeed, and I despise that kind of projected pessimism. They were wrong, but they would have been right if I hadn’t chosen to go my own way.

I’m here to tell you that you can succeed more than you ever anticipated—more than I have succeeded—if you simply apply those aspects of this book that for you, personally, represent immediate improvement. I’m happy to be on that journey with you, and wish you the same marvelous experiences I’ve enjoyed in this great profession.

Alan Weiss, PhD

East Greenwich, RI

June, 2005

SECTION 1

Office and Practice Management

The material in this section deals with the elements of running your home or remote office, support for your practice, and daily routine. You may choose to skip this part if you already have a lean, mean consulting machine in action, or you may choose to apply it as a quality control check. But if you’re just starting out, read carefully and slowly!

EQUIPMENT

The checklist describes the basic and advanced equipment required for a home or remote office. Whether you own, lease, or share some of this equipment is dependent on your personal situation and finances.

There are subcategories where the equipment can be further specified. As a rule, high technology demands ongoing upgrades and replacements, but not constantly, since you will use less than 25 percent of the capabilities of many devices (e.g., people using word processing extensively may not utilize graphics editing, and those with a personal digital assistant (PDA) device may use it to track expenses but not receive e-mail).

Prices are highly volatile, and I won’t make an attempt at a budget. However, if you are setting up an office for the first time, assume a $5,000 minimum investment. If you have an existing office, assume an annual $2,500 upgrade/addition cost, and an additional replace cost of about $5,000 every three to five years, depending on your need (or craving) for the latest technological breakthroughs.