Creating Rainmakers : The Manager's Guide To Training Professionals To Attract New Clients (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Based on over 100 interviews with principals in professional firms, including many of today's preeminent rainmakers, Creating Rainmakers shows readers how to turn a professional staff into a powerful team of sales winners. The book cover generating leads, building s strong network of contacts, mastering a variety of sales techniques, and plenty more.

From the Inside Flap

Rainmakers can be defined as professionals who consistently do two things very well—they generate leads to gain new business and then they use their selling skills to turn a portion of those leads into new business. Unfortunately, rainmakers are hard to find, and the efforts of professional firms to end this shortage have been largely ineffective.

As every manager of a professional firm realizes, generating leads and landing new clients are critical components of any successful business venture. But transforming accountants, architects, attorneys, consultants, engineers, and other professionals into client-generators is not always easy to do. There is no magic bullet to rainmaking success, but with Creating Rainmakers: The Manager's Guide to Training Professionals to Attract New Clients, you'll be introduced to a variety of strategies and techniques that will help you build a reliable, sales-driven team.

Based on interviews with more than 100 preeminent rainmakers and people who have watched them in action, Creating Rainmakers outlines all the necessary steps you should take to turn your professional staff into a powerful team of sales winners. It also details specific elements of the rainmaking process and defines exactly what successful rainmakers do to stay on top of their game.

Divided into two comprehensive parts—The Rainmaker Model and The Elements of Rainmaking—this book will show you how to:

• Generate leads through several different strategies, including cold calling, publicity, speaking engagements, trade association activity, direct mail, and relationship marketing
• Build a strong network of contacts through established clients and new associations
• Master a variety of sales techniques, including listening, value-based selling, and anecdotal selling
• Develop capable successors, so that your firm can survive if a rainmaker decides to leave
• And much more

A firm that can consistently develop and retain rainmakers will have a strategic advantage over competitors. It will grow more rapidly, earn greater profits, attract the best young talent, and provide well for the retirement of its partners. Engaging and informative, this unique guide will help you create the environment necessary for the development of rainmakers and show you what specific things can be done to cultivate those rainmaking skills. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558508465
• ISBN-13: 978-1558508460
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #329,650 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Rainmakers" is the Business Developer's Handbook, December 1, 1998

By	Perry Brissette (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

As a business developer in the IT services industry, I can recommend this book wholeheartedly. It is by far the best, most coherent book on the subject I've found anywhere.

Ford Harding has only managed to do even better than his first book, "Rain Making -- The Professional's Guide to Attracting New Clients" (a book I picked up back in 1996 when I first started out in the discipline, and which I have re-read again since purchasing Harding's lastest work).

This book does much to dispell many of the buiness development myths or common fatal mistakes perpetuated by many sales and marketing managers. Most businesses approach account development either by the seat of their pants, if at all, or they place all their eggs in one basket, building heightened, unrealistic expectations from that all-important, one-shot-take-all telemarketing or direct mail campaign. A common mistake I have witnessed firms making is that they don't treat business development and lead generation as an ongoing, continuous system -- a plan, a network, a philosophy. By revealing business development as a system, Ford Harding's "Creating Rainmakers" helps to shine a big light on a big problem in today's world of business marketing, especially in the profesional services disciplines.

This book clearly outlines all the many components of a comprehensive, ongoing system for continuous lead generation, beyond mere "networking." The service sector, particularly hi-tech services, continues to thrive and grow as a vital part of our "knowledge economy." And business development, or effective Rainmaking, will only become more critical as we enter the 21st century.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bible for the training of business development staff., November 6, 1999

By	"monnieb" (San Juan Capistrano, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I used this book in the planning of a training program for business development activities at the engineering/surveying firm, Psomas and Associates. We needed a training program for every level of staff from principals to marketing support staff. This book was amazing! It made the job sooooooo much easier! The information in this book was nothing short of inspiring and the success we are having in the program is testimony to the quality of the ideas and programs described in the book. I recommend it very, very highly!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ONE Guide to Read, June 17, 2002

By	Gale Crosley "Consultant to CPA firms" (Atlanta, Ga United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Of all the books available on business development in the professions, this is the best of the best. Concise, practical yet never simplistic, Ford Harding hits the strategic issues of business development, then ties the issues to solid implementable actions. As an advisor to CPA and law firms, I consider this book to be the "course textbook" for learning the subject matter quickly. Professionals don't have time for volumes of thick how-to manuals. Give it to them straight and quickly. This book does that. Every page unlocks another important concept in business development. When finished the reader not only knows the subject, but knows what to do next. Instead of throwing the book in a cabinet, it should be kept in a handy place, and as the professional becomes more experienced, it can take him/her to the next level of understanding, and to the highest reaches of successful rainmaking. A must read for any professional who wants to grow their practice.