Alan Weiss - Million Dollar Consulting: The Professionals Guide to Growing a Practice

Copyright 2016 by Alan Weiss. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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For all of you who, since 1992, have read my books, attended my events, participated in my experiences, and been coached or mentored in my communities.
I always learn more than anyone else. Thank you.

CHAPTER 1
What Is a Consultant, Anyway? Is It Someone Who Comes to Study a Problem and Remains to Become a Part of It?

CHAPTER 2
Build It and They Will Come: But Only if You Let Them Know That Youve Built It!

INTERLUDE I
The Yin and Yang of Clients and Prospects

CHAPTER 3
The Relationship Business: Learning How to Sell Yourself

CHAPTER 4
How to Maximize Fees: Money Left on the Table Isnt There in the Morning

CHAPTER 5
Proposals: Never Negotiation, Always Summation

INTERLUDE II
The Concept of Value

CHAPTER 6
The Estimable Consultant: How to Build Your Practice by Building Your Esteem

CHAPTER 7
The Cyberspace Consultant: Houston, Lets Not Have a Problem

CHAPTER 8
Delivering the Goods: Taking the Express Lane

CHAPTER 9
Thought Leadership: Its Fine to Stand Out in a Crowd So Long as You Look Good Standing There

CHAPTER 10
The Ethical Consultant: How to Do Well by Doing Right

CHAPTER 11
The Global Community: The World Is Next Door

CHAPTER 12
Designing Your Own Future: Taking Control of Your Fate

CHAPTER 13
Creating a Company: But What Kind?

CHAPTER 14
Leverage: More Output for Less Input

CHAPTER 15
Creating and Sustaining Your Endeavor: Cathedrals Last for Hundreds of Years

B ETSY BROWN was the senior editor at McGraw-Hill in 1991 when my agent, Jeff Herman, presented the idea for this book to her. Just before production was to start she said to me in her office, We need a final titleyour current one doesnt work.

Betsy, I said, its simply a book about how to make a million dollars consulting.

There it is, she said, and my life was changed.

My continuing gratitude to Betsy, Jeff, and the wonderful people at McGraw-Hill over these past 25 years.

I N 1990 I wrote a proposal for what would have been my fourth book, entitled Confessions of a Consultant. The premise was to alert corporate executives about what was going wrong unbeknownst to them, and what combination of internal and external resources was needed to become more effective. After all, I was an organization development consultant, working with Fortune 1000 firms.

That book idea was rejected by 15 publishers. Then one day my agent called on my brand-new car phone, hardwired to the dashboard, and said, Im at McGraw-Hill. I was ecstatiche was at one of the premier publishers on the planet. They like the book idea? I shouted.

No, they hate it.

Jeff, I said, do you know what this call is costing me?

They want to know, he said calmly, if you can write a book about how you can make seven figures a year as a solo consultant.

I can do that in six minutes, I said.