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It also demonstrates the importance in understanding that a "salesy" approach can undermine your ability to build trust with potential clients.A real gem that will connect with professional service firms and providers.Selling the Fuzzy Widget: Secrets of Selling Professional Services In particular, he gives a great overview of how the services selling process is a "soft" sell that requires patience and skillful dialog. Anyone in a professional services firm looking for sales resources has experienced what I experienced in my 15 years in sales and sales management - Many of the sales resources available on the market focus on closing techniques and processes more applicable to high-pressure product-based selling. You find yourself constantly reading and filtering out content that you know is not relevant.Maister lays out a blueprint written from a law firm's perspective but broadly applicable to service industries.
And the title might suggest a management audience, but the content is important for all associated professionals, including new associates. This reviewer set out to list several of the articles which they consider to be above and beyond the rest, but it was difficult to include all but just a small minority of the chapters. The content that Maister provides here is practical and very accessible, and consists mainly of articles published separately over a 10-year time period within such publications as "Sloan Management Review", the "Journal of Management Consulting", "International Accounting Bulletin", and "The American Lawyer".
The foundation of this book is the simplified mission statement that Maister indicates is the same, with varying refinements, for most professional service firms: "To deliver outstanding client service; to provide fulfilling careers and professional satisfaction for our people; and to achieve financial success so that we can reward ourselves and grow". The strength of the content is slightly skewed toward the first half of the book, but strong articles persist throughout the 7 sections covering basic matters such as balancing company composition and profitability, client matters such as listening and marketing to clients, people matters such as motivation and scheduling, management matters such as strategy, partnership matters such as performance and compensation, and multisite matters. Probably no coverage of this book can quite deliver justice to its quality.
This text is a classic resource on the professional service firm, and as a consultant this reviewer appreciates the accumulated wealth of knowledge the author graciously decided to share. There is no other book quite like "Managing the Professional Service Firm", even though it has been over 15 years since its first appearance (1993) and a host of other texts have entered this space, especially after the late-1990s boom in consulting. Highly recommended.
While most of these articles refer to professional service firms as partnerships, the vast majority of the material is still applicable to other types of firms, including the limited liability company (LLC). Because this book is so well written, this reviewer also recommends a reading by those considering work in this field, either those still studying at the university or those contemplating a professional transition.
This gives me a good framework to make decisions and communicate information. It also provided good leadership thoughts. I highly recommend it. I was recently elected as managing partner of a law firm. I found much of the book very helpful, especially the information about leverage and under-delegation.
This books should be required reading for those wanting to become partners. While the book lacked some of the details I was looking for, it has excellent information on running a service firm.
It is imperative that everyone understands the power of building authentic relationships with your clients and the negative impact of the hard sell. I have read David's book 3-4 times over the 9 year evolution of our firm and each time, I have "caught" a potential error and taken advantage of other perspectives and practice. Other key concepts include how to market and develop business, develop and leverage talent within your organization, and consulting protocols that dictate your perception of value to your clients. People work with you because they trust you and have confidence in your work. We practice in the evolving Change Implementation Consulting field, and, we have used many of David's concepts to define and differentiate ourselves in our market. Before you bother to build or "scale" a professional services firm, you must read this book.
Specifically, I used the "brains, grey hair, and masses" model to help me understand and commit to the right business model and level of service delivery for my line of business. You cannot substitute for experience and I am positive that I will read it again.Additionally, I recommend David's famous book, The Trusted Advisor, for all constituents of the firm. One of my mentors recommended this book to me in 1995 and it was a "must read" then. By bringing the art of the "process for organizational change" together with the science of hard core business process redesign and integration, we have found the recipe for delivering tangible business results that last. This book lays out many of the components and practices of this "art". David's experience and "real talk" about the basics and then the art of building a services firm saved me many nights of lost sleep.
Now, my firm, Performance Change Initiatives, Inc., is steadily growing and expanding because of the solid foundation beneath it.
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