Making Rain: The Secrets of Building Lifelong Client Loyalty - Hardcover

Sobel, Andrew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471264598 ISBN 13: 9780471264590

Publisher: Wiley, 2003

Synopsis

Professionals who work with clients or large accounts can create lifetime relationships based on these well-researched secrets. Based drawing from extensive interviews with client executives, Making Rain offers a series of provocative insights on how to shed the expert-for-hire label and develop long-term advisory relationships. Exploding the popular myth of the "Rainmaker," a dated and dysfunctional figure that clients no longer welcome, Andrew Sobel argues that any professional can learn to "make rain" on an ongoing basis with existing clients by developing a special set of skills, attitudes, and strategies. These innovative tips and techniques from a recognized leader in the field of professional services will enable any consultant, salesperson, or service professional to create enduring client loyalty.

About this title

About the Author

ANDREW SOBEL is a leading authority on the skills and strategies required to build enduring client relationships. A noted business strategist and popular speaker, his clients have included such prominent companies as Citigroup, Cox Communications, Fulbright & Jaworski, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Hewitt Associates. He is coauthor of the acclaimed book Clients for Life, as well as dozens of articles on relationship building and loyalty. Formerly a senior vice president of one of the world's largest management consulting firms, he is now President of Andrew Sobel Advisors, a strategy consulting and professional development firm. He earned his BA at Middlebury College and holds an MBA from Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.

From the Back Cover

MAKING RAIN

Learn to build client loyalty that lasts a lifetime

In this provocative and insightful book, client relationship authority Andrew Sobel sets out a series of innovative, practical strategies that any service professional, sales executive, or marketer can use to develop lifelong client loyalty. Based on groundbreaking client research, Making Rain contains the secrets that will allow you to develop a steady stream of new business with your existing clients on a day-in, day-out basis.

Clients are loyal to professionals who add value, build personal trust, and go the extra mile. Making Rain shows readers, step by step, how to deliver on these three ingredients of client loyalty at every major stage of the relationship. First, it illustrates how to break out of the expert-for-hire label and consistently win repeat business. You'll learn about the essential attributes of extraordinary client advisors; the six factors that create immediate personal rapport with a new client; and the nine breakthrough strategies that can distinguish you and your organization at the very start of a relationship.

Sobel then illustrates the growth strategies you'll need to break out of "steady supplier" relationships and truly become part of your client's inner circle. You'll understand, for example, why a singular focus on meeting client expectations is actually dangerous, and how to identify the next set of client needs. In the final section of Making Rain, you'll learn how to sustain your relationships over time and develop a true partnership with your clients; how to manage client relationships through turbulent times; and how to build an entire firm that consistently makes rain. Throughout, Sobel uses over 100 engaging and often humorous case histories and examples, and he offers fascinating profiles of leading historical figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, the Rothschild bankers, and Benjamin Franklin, who exemplified the ability to create a lifelong network of loyal clients and colleagues.

From the Inside Flap

Learn to build client loyalty that lasts a lifetime

In this provocative and insightful book, client relationship authority Andrew Sobel sets out a series of innovative, practical strategies that any service professional, sales executive, or marketer can use to develop lifelong client loyalty. Based on groundbreaking client research, Making Rain contains the secrets that will allow you to develop a steady stream of new business with your existing clients on a day-in, day-out basis.

Clients are loyal to professionals who add value, build personal trust, and go the extra mile. Making Rain shows readers, step by step, how to deliver on these three ingredients of client loyalty at every major stage of the relationship. First, it illustrates how to break out of the expert-for-hire label and consistently win repeat business. You'll learn about the essential attributes of extraordinary client advisors; the six factors that create immediate personal rapport with a new client; and the nine breakthrough strategies that can distinguish you and your organization at the very start of a relationship.

Sobel then illustrates the growth strategies you'll need to break out of "steady supplier" relationships and truly become part of your client's inner circle. You'll understand, for example, why a singular focus on meeting client expectations is actually dangerous, and how to identify the next set of client needs. In the final section of Making Rain, you'll learn how to sustain your relationships over time and develop a true partnership with your clients; how to manage client relationships through turbulent times; and how to build an entire firm that consistently makes rain. Throughout, Sobel uses over 100 engaging and often humorous case histories and examples, and he offers fascinating profiles of leading historical figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, the Rothschild bankers, and Benjamin Franklin, who exemplified the ability to create a lifelong network of loyal clients and colleagues.

Reviews

Whether business leaders want a steady drizzle or an out-and-out monsoon, they can use Sobel's formula for landing and keeping customers-what he calls "making rain." Based on building relationships, it starts with the key components of knowledge, service and demonstrable value; these are the building blocks that attract clients, says business adviser Sobel (Clients for Life). In this straightforward manual, he gives practical strategies to help leaders of service firms and large corporations alike become indispensable advisers to their clients, thus cementing a long-term connection. The principles behind his tactics are simple: get to know your client, gain respect for your knowledge and win personal respect. Then, drive it home by delivering above and beyond, again and again. These ideas are old as dirt. Sobel reaches across centuries to dig up examples of their success, from Aristotle to Ben Franklin. He buffs up these ageless notions and places them within engaging anecdotes. Although the lessons aren't strokes of genius, they should help professionals through most dry spells.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sobel, a consultant, offers his approach to developing optimum client relationships with advice on how to break into a client's inner circle by becoming a trusted advisor. We learn that a rainmaker is one who snags big clients and closes big deals with skills to build deep client relationships for the long term by consistently adding value. Using stories, diagrams, and valuable insight, the author provides suggestions for becoming a trusted advisor, an intellectual partner, and hence a rainmaker. The author gives readers his views on how to move from the first relationship phase as an expert for hire to the role of steady supplier who is rewarded with repeat business. The next level, trusted advisor, is achieved through attributes, attitudes, and strategies that add value year after year and culminate in lifelong loyalty and insider status. Sobel concludes with an assessment tool to determine individual or organizational strengths and weaknesses by analyzing their relationships and the role they play with each client. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0471264598
• ISBN 13: 9780471264590
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240