Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
Week 4 Challenge: Hold a Great First Conversation
In Week 4 of this challenge, you’re going to improve your effectiveness at holding first meetings–for right now, let’s call them “first conversations” since you will most likely be meeting by phone or on a video conference. Be sure to read Week 4 of It Starts with Clients, as it provides an in-depth overview of the […]
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Is Virtual Selling Really Different? Here are the Facts
By Andrew Sobel In the last few weeks my inbox has been bombarded with articles about how you need to dramatically change your business development approach in order to sell in a virtual environment. Puzzling Headlines I’m actually a little puzzled by all these headlines. My own client development strategy is based on two pillars: […]
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Finding New Opportunities in a Shrinking Market (It Starts with Clients–Part 3)
In most areas of the economy, fundamental demand has shrunk. Some markets have actually grown (videoconferencing and eLearning, anyone?), and a few large ones have evaporated (retail, travel). Are you doomed to sink to the level of the average decline (or worse), or can you find or create new opportunities to help your clients and […]
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Week 3 Challenge: Gain Access and Set up Meetings
In Week 3 of this challenge, you’re going to begin a systematic outreach to your clients and prospects. What do I mean by outreach (singular)? An “outreach” is when you communicate with an executive to learn more about their agenda, build trust in you/your firm’s ability to help them with their most urgent problems and […]
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Week 2 Challenge: Get Recognized
Which comes first–recognition for being really good at something, or relationships that lead to your being recognized? In 1969, a 19-year old James Taylor landed in London. His original band had collapsed, he was broke, and he was trying to break a fearsome drug addiction that had gripped him. He played his guitar for friends and even busked […]
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Empathy Costs Nothing but Is Priceless
Are you really listening, or just waiting until YOU can talk? We need empathy more than ever Empathy is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, and also imagine what they are thinking and feeling. It’s a fundamental skill that enables us to walk in the other person’s shoes.
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Now Is the Time to Build Your Level 3 Relationships
The current environment is stressing many types of relationships. Clients are being forced to postpone contracts with long-standing providers. Parents and adult children are living under the same roof for the first time in years, at times uneasily. Loved ones are separated from each other because of stay-at-home orders.
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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 […]
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