It Starts With Clients

It Starts With Clients

by Andrew Sobel
Released March 2020
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119619109

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Book description

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.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Day 1: The Star of Your Show
    1. This is your playbook
    2. It starts with clients
    3. The mindset shift that yields remarkable results
    4. When clients are just friends
    5. The essential combination
  3. Week 1: Choose Your Target
    1. Know your value proposition
    2. Screen for strategic fit
    3. Screen for relational fit
    4. Screen for your ability to have an impact
    5. The magic word
  4. Week 2: Get Recognized
    1. You need recognition and renown to attract clients
    2. Climbing the recognition ladder
    3. If you can't write it, can you really think it?
    4. Typical challenges you may encounter
    5. It's not just about meeting the right people
  5. Week 3: Find Your Clients
    1. Turn conversations into relationships and revenue
    2. The hierarchy of client calls
  6. Week 4: Master the First Meeting
    1. The first meeting formula
    2. Pre-meeting: Prepare smartly
    3. Objective one: Build rapport
    4. Objective two: Establish your credibility
    5. Objective three: Understand their issues
    6. Objective four: Go deep and add value
    7. Objective five: Get a next step
    8. What clients say about first meetings
  7. Week 5: From Contact to Contract
    1. Two simple rules to sequence your sales conversations
    2. Identifying and managing the key stakeholders
    3. Moving from contact to contract
    4. Wait! Don't submit that proposal just yet
  8. Week 6: Free Up a Stuck Sale
    1. The five preconditions to a sale
    2. When the preconditions are missing
    3. The four archetypal objections
    4. Five real client scenarios you will face
  9. Week 7: Anticipate and Agenda Set
    1. Do you really understand your client's agenda?
    2. Don't be a walking cliché
    3. How agenda setting works
  10. Week 8: Reframe for Maximum Impact
    1. Using the compass method for incremental reframing
    2. Radical reframing strategies
    3. Two tools for reframing
  11. Week 9: Grow Your Relationships: The 10-Minute Plan
    1. The power of focus
    2. Eight essential questions
    3. No plan survives contact with the client
  12. Week 10: Use Power Questions
    1. What separates good questions from mediocre ones?
    2. Four types of power questions
    3. More power questions
    4. Questions you should never ask
    5. Ask, don't tell
  13. Week 11: Be a Brilliant Big-Picture Thinker
    1. What is big-picture thinking?
    2. Ten strategies for generating new ideas
    3. Using big-picture thinking with your clients
  14. Week 12: Get Clients to Root for You
    1. Are you creating personal promoters?
    2. The loyalty sequence
  15. Week 13: Build Senior Executive Relationships
    1. Gaining access to the C-suite
    2. Add value for time
    3. Developing an ongoing relationship
  16. Week 14: Become an Irresistible Person of Interest
    1. What you know
    2. Who you know
    3. Who you are
    4. Strategies to become a person of interest
    5. Getting even better at what you do
  17. Day 100: Keep Your Clients for Life
    1. The beauty of staying in touch
    2. Treating old clients like brand new ones
    3. Get rid of “me”
    4. The final secret
  18. About the Author
  19. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: It Starts With Clients
  • Author(s): Andrew Sobel
  • Release date: March 2020
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119619109