Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants

From the Bookshelf

Here are two recent books that you might want to have a look at. The first focuses on managing a professional firm, while the second provides advice on becoming a thought leader.

When Professionals Have to Lead, by Thomas J. DeLong, John J. Gabarro, and Robert J. Lees

Leaders of professional services firms face a tricky balancing act: how to manage the sometimes conflicting needs of clients, practitioners, and partners. In their new book, When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance, the authors offer a compelling framework for managing the professional services firm.

Using examples from a range of firms, industry veterans DeLong, Gabarro, and Lees show how this framework functions to:

• Align a firm's culture with key organizational components
• Satisfy clients' needs without sacrificing essential managerial responsibilities
• Address matters of size, scale, and complexity.

The authors provide a creative approach to address the realities of managing a firm, while maintaining the qualities that make professional services firms unique.

The Expert's Edge, by Ken Lizotte

It's easy to say that the path to success in the consulting business lies in establishing a position as a thought leader. But how do you do that? In his new book, The Expert's Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time, Ken Lizotte lays out the details.

Using the "Five Pillars of Thoughtleading," Lizotte, the Chief Imaginative Officer of emerson consulting group, outlines the strategies any consultant can use to gain the expert's edge in the market.

Beyond Bullet Points

If you missed the first edition of Cliff Atkinson’s book, Beyond Bullet Points, be sure to check out the expanded second edition. Atkinson redefines how we use presentation software (Microsoft PowerPoint in his case), by offering an innovative approach to creating a persuasive presentation structure. He also shows readers precisely how to use his concepts with presentation software.

The new edition of Beyond Bullet Points includes seven new presentation examples, an expanded explanation of key concepts, and many new tips and techniques. The book also includes a companion CD, an updated Story Template and Storyboard Formatter, and PDF versions of ground rules and checklists.

You might also want to read our past interview with Atkinson:

Cliff Atkinson Goes Beyond Bullet Points

Should You Read Naked Conversations?

The short answer to that question is yes.

I’ve just read a pre-publication copy of Naked Conversations by unabashed blogging evangelists Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. Don’t miss this book even if you and/or your organization haven’t yet jumped into the blogosphere.

Scoble and Israel hammer home the point that blogging and other forms of social media are transforming how businesses communicate with customers, suppliers, and all their constituencies. And many would agree with them.

But this isn’t a one-sided, navel-gazing tome on the virtues of blogging. This book is full of hard-hitting advice from dozens of successful bloggers on what makes some blogs work and others flame out.

The book itself is like a blog on steroids, but with a natural thread through the topics that leads the reader easily from one subject to the next. It’s more of a conversation than a traditional book.

Throughout the case studies, the authors let the voices of the bloggers shine through, giving the reader a sense of the issues each company faced. When the authors agree or disagree with how a business handled a situation, they let you know—in a civilized way.

Scoble and Israel boil down their research and experience to help businesses understand the nuts and bolts of blogging without going geeky on the reader. They’ve got eleven tips for a successful blog, how to blog your way through a crisis, and an update of Scoble’s Corporate Weblog Manifesto.

Make no mistake—this is a business book. If you’re blogging now, read it for the hundreds of insights you’ll uncover. If your organization isn’t blogging, use this book as a discussion starter for deciding whether blogging is right for your company.

The book will hit the online bookstores in January 2006, but you can add it to your wish list now. You can find out more at the authors’ blog, Naked Conversations.

On Bullsh*t

Harry G. Franfurt, an emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, has penned a short book entitled On Bullshit. The book shot up the Amazon popularity chart (it's #18 as I write this post).

Frankfurt begins by noting that "One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit." In the businesses of consulting, law, PR, and other professional services, clients accuse service providers of slinging the bull, sometimes with abandon.

The fastest way to aliente clients is to try to bullsh*t them. And, according to Franfurt, that happens "whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about."

Anyone can reduce the level of BS in any client conversation by saying "I don't know" or "Let me get back to you on that."

Look through your Web site, marketing materials, and proposals. Is BS buried in your words? Everyone knows when they're listening to BS and nobody likes it. Has any of it slipped inadvertently into your work?   

Just when I thought I understood Franfurt's perspective on bullsh*t, he ends his book with this quote:

"Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial--notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit."

That's an uplifting thought, professor.

Has Your Paradigm Shifted Today?

Last Thursday, my friends at 800-CEO-READ let me host their blog for a day. Here are links to seven of my posts.

Has Your Paradigm Shifted Today?

Nine Books Every Consultant Must Read

What’s the Brain Got to Do with Business?

Should You Fire a Client?

Make It an Even Ten

Standing Out in the Crowd

Management of the Absurd

 

The Aim of Marketing

The number of business books that hit the shelves every month is staggering. If you want to pick one gem, tryThe Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done.

If anything, the book is like a harcover blog containing easy-to-read insights from Drucker's decades of work.

In his excerpt on marketing, Drucker reminds us that, "The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits her and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. We may be a long way from this ideal.  But consumerism is a clear indication that the right motto for business management should increasingly be, from selling to marketing."