How to Acquire Clients

Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner

Alan Weiss

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2002 , 189 pages

ISBN: 0-7879-5514-0

Synopsis:

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Follow the expert advice in this book — the fourth in The Ultimate Consultant Series — and you won't fall victim to the success plateau that undermines many consultants. If you feel that your work has become easier, it may be that you're not climbing "up" but rather moving laterally. And sooner or later, your plateau will begin to erode, and you'll find yourself on a decline. In How to Acquire Clients, Alan Weiss, internationally recognized consultant and author of the best-selling Million Dollar Consulting, shows you how to continue to move "up the mountain".

Table of Contents:

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• Chapter 1: Identifying Targets of Opportunity
  You Seldom Awake in the Morning with People Waving Money in Your Face
  • Three conditions Essential to Successful Selling
  • Generalizing and Specializing: The View from Contrarian Land
  • Customized Assaults: When There Is a Single Target Too Appealing to Resist
  • Strategies for Isolating and Hitting New Targets of Opportunity
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 2: How to Prepare for Success in Acquiring New Business
  The Allies Didn't Simply Decide to Take a Trip Across the English Channel One Morning
  • The Frontal Attack
  • The Flanking Maneuver
  • Infiltration
  • When the Buyer Comes to You (Build It, and They Will Come)
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 3: How to Build Relationships with Economic Buyers
  Most Consultant Don't Stop "Selling" Long Enough to Really Make a Sale
  • Behavioral Predispositions: Funny Things That Buyers Do
  • Controlling the Discussion (Killing Me Softly with His Song...)
  • Emotional Targeting
  • Drawing a Line in the Sand for Unacceptable Behaviors
  • From My Time inthe Trenches
• Chapter 4: Rebutting Objections Once and for All
  If You Hear a New Objection, Then You Haven't Been Listening in the Past
  • The Four Major Areas of Objections
  • Rebutting Arguments in the Four Basic Areas
  • Visualizing the Future
  • Sample Objections and Rebuttals
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 5: Sixteen Great Acquisition Sources
  Why Go Around the Block to Get Next Door?
  • The First Four
  • The Second Four
  • The Third Four
  • The Fourth Four
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 6: Winning Friends and Influencing People
  How to Build Support from Those Who Loathe Your Arrival
  • Providing Value Early and for Free
  • Building Momentum Among Key Advisors
  • Dealing with Committees
  • Overcoming "Threat" Factors
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 7: Gaining Market Share from Others
  Stealing Is Legal in the Sales Business
  • Harvesting "Low Hanging Fruit"
  • Creating High Visibility
  • Waiting for Someone Else's Bad News
  • More Techniques to Trespass on Others' Property
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 8: Guaranteeing the Ultimate Business: Repeat Business
  How to Think of the Fourth Sale First
  • What Is the Fourth Sale?
  • The Three Keys to Cementing Relatiosnhips Rather Than Selling Business
  • Developing Trust Through Pushback
  • The Present-Value Discount Principle in Action
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 9: A Dozen New Sources of Clients
  The World Is Changing and So Are Your Prospects
  1. Global Alliances
  2. Remote Learning
  3. Entrepreneurs
  4. Universities and Higher Education
  5. The Professions: Medical, Legal, Accounting
  6. Mature High-Tech
  7. The Retired, the Recreating, the Hobbyist
  8. Behavior Modification
  9. Life Balance
  10. Sales Skills
  11. Cultural Accommodation
  12. Knowledge Assimilation/Management Application
  • From My Time in the Trenches
• Chapter 10: The Process of Selective Acquisition
  How to reject and Abandon Business in Order to grow
  • The Ten Very Good Reason for Rejecting Prospective Business
  • The Five Very Good Reasons for Pulling  the Plug on Existing Business
  • Managing New Business Potential and Profit
  • The Mercedes-Benz Syndrome
  • From My Time in the Trenches: Chapter 10
  • From My Time in the Trenches: The Book