Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
19 Techniques to Create Powerful Client Conversations
My newest (and ninth) book was released today in hardcover–It Starts with Clients: Your 100-Day Plan to Build Lifelong Relationships and Revenue. It’s already number 1 in Customer Relations and number 2 in Business Consulting categories on Amazon.com. It’s my “capstone” book on building clients for life as a trusted advisor–the culmination of 25 years […]
Read article
Six Advisor Mindsets that Change Everything
Most corporate training focuses on imparting knowledge, improving skills, and changing behaviors. But the most fundamental impact on your performance and success comes, arguably, from changing your mindset. Mindsets drive your outlook. They can bottle you up and restrict your freedom, or, they can free you to accomplish great things. I know some professionals, for […]
Read article
The Sale that Won’t Close: Mystery Solved
One of the most common laments from my clients is about sales that never close. “We don’t understand what’s really going on,” one executive told me, “but some of our people just can’t seem to close. They have lots of conversations with clients, but they never come to fruition. It’s a mystery.” Actually, there’s no […]
Read article
Eight Behaviors Clients Can’t Stand—Are You Guilty?
By Andrew Sobel During the past year, I’ve interviewed a broad cross-section of client executives about “relationship building from the client’s side of the desk.” I usually ask them about pet peeves–behaviors that irritate them or, even, that destroy their trust. I’m amazed at the stories I hear from these senior executives about the irksome […]
Read article
Eight Powerful Thinking Habits of Great Rainmakers
By Andrew Sobel The great essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “The ancestor to every action is a thought.” Clearly, if our thoughts are not organized and clear, our actions won’t be either. Taking Emerson’s idea even further, mastery is not just a function of learning some tools and techniques—it’s also learning to thinkproperly about […]
Read article
Eight Essential Things Clients Wish You Would Give Them
By Andrew Sobel Over the last 15 years I’ve interviewed over 1000 senior corporate executives about their most trusted advisors and strategic suppliers. I’ve asked them about who has earned a seat at the table with them, and how it was done. I’ve explored—from their side of the desk—the ingredients of great, long-term trusted partnerships […]
Read article
Your Most Powerful Differentiator –The Live Performance
By Andrew Sobel An extraordinary shift has occurred in the music business, and it holds an important lesson for us. Over the last decade, sales of recorded music have steadily declined. This includes all types of music in all formats—CDs, digital downloads, and so on. At the same time, concert ticket revenue for live pop […]
Read article
Eight Reasons Why You Lose Clients – And What To Do About It (Part II)
By Andrew Sobel Sometimes client relationships end for appropriate reasons. But you never want a good relationship to end avoidably. In Part I of this article I described four of the eight most common reasons why client relationships end. These were: 1. A reorganization or executive turnover 2. A one-off or temporary need for your services. 3. A […]
Read article