Port Michael - Book yourself solid illustrated: the fastest, easiest, and most reliable system for getting more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling

Contents

Book Yourself Solid

Copyright 2011 by Michael Port. All rights reserved.

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

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Port, Michael, 1970

Book yourself solid : the fastest, easiest, and most reliable system for getting more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling / Michael Port2nd ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-64347-1 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-470-92544-7 (ebk); 978-0-470-92546-1 (ebk); 978-0-470-92685-7 (ebk)

1. Selling. 2. Marketing. 3. Strategic planning. I. Title.

HF5438.25.P67 2010

658.8dc22

2010024728

This book is a love story disguised as a business book, a love story between you and all the inspiring clients you will serve.

Foreword

Face ityoud rather be doing your lifes work than filling the sales funnel or getting the word out. Every day that you arent on a project is like an airplane seat that goes unsold. You picked up this book because you know that you can do better and grow stronger in your business acumen.

You will get out of this book only what you put into it. Dont just skim the pages to pick up pointers. Take the time to do each exercise. Take a few weeks to move through this book. Pretend you are in school and striving to be at the top of your class. Because you are . When you look at your calendar next year and you arent happy with all the white space, pick this book up and go through it again more slowly.

Readers are leaders, and I believe this is true with you. Read this book as a business owner and think about the suggestions as you build a culture for your company. Who knows how big your enterprise might get? You might be hatching the next Big Blue, and you will need a common set of values to guide your vision into the future.

I resonate with this books technology and its spirit. Most of Michaels advice comes from a point of view that can be summed up in two statements:

• Make yourself emotionally attractive.
• Live on the right side of the Law of Reciprocity.

Emotionally attractive people win the popularity contests that make up your life. Yes, you have experience, work ethic, and talent. But you still lose the business and see it floating to a competitor, and you know you are better than that competitor. Why? The emotional brain is two dozen times more powerful than the logical brain. The customer wants a great experience, not just good consulting or an effective process. The attention you pay to the emotional experience of working with your customers may be the best way to differentiate yourself and build a contagious brand.

Book Yourself Solid outlines practical ways to improve your ability to produce positive emotions in other peoplefrom how you serve them to how you network with them. Above all, the book gives you advice on building a consistent process in your business. And process is very likable to a customer.

The Law of Reciprocity must be respected to build a sustainable business of any kind. This law postulates that in almost every case people reciprocate, especially when it comes to energy or generosity. If your customers receive added value from you, they will add energy to your relationship. If you give them enough (either intangible or tangible), you will reach a tipping point at which they become loyal to you and start to market you to their sphere of influence.

Conversely, when you create an I-win-you-lose scenario for the customer, your business is cyclical. You get a job, finish it, and return to selling yourself. You have to slug out every business win. This is true even when you are the excellent provider who behaves like the Soup Nazi on the Seinfeld TV show.

Either you build a business that obeys this law or you dont. There is probably no in-between. Greed is too powerful and faith is too fragile. This book will guide you into a set of practices that always give your customer a reason to give back and wish you the best.

As I finished reading this book, I was reminded of an old saying that should send you deep between the lines as you read it:

Long after people forget what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel .

Tim Sanders

Author of The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Lifes Dreams

(Crown Publishing)

Acknowledgments

The first line of the acknowledgments section in virtually every book goes something like this: To list everyone I want to thank for their contributions to this book would be a book in itself. You really dont know how true that is until you write your own book.

So, to all the people who have shaped this book and have made my life and work as spectacular as it is today... thank you.

And, to my son Jake... the goodness in you is the fire that fuels me.

Authors Note

An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a mans entire existence.

Honor de Balzac

In early 2000 I was utterly dissatisfied and completely disillusioned with my work as the vice president of programming at an entertainment company. The environment felt like a prisonlong hours, unresponsive colleagues, and no personal engagement. Sound familiar? I decided to embark on a new career path as a professional business coach and consultant: a service professional. I secretly passed the time reading, researching, studying, and honing my coaching skills. After much planning, my freedom date was marked on every calendar in my apartment with a huge victorious smiley face. My resignation letter was signed, sealed, and ready for delivery. I could hardly keep my legs from sprinting out the door to follow my heart and head (both of which had checked out long ago).