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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Toolkit For Professionals, June 25, 2001
There is not that much in print about marketing professional services, and much of what exists is warmed-over nonsense. Not so with this book, which focuses with deadly precision on what today's professional must do to market well and prosper."Though a buyer of manufactured goods seldom thinks about those who produced them," Harding writes, "one who buys professional services almost always does. Unable to try out or even look at a service before buying it, the buyer does the next best thing by assessing what it would be like to work with the professional who delivers it. This means that, sooner or later, all professionals must market if they want to advance their careers and grow their firms." Harding's book is designed as a self-help guide for professionals who want to stay employed and keep their careers from plateauing. Reviewing time-tested strategies for positioning and visibility, such as writing, speaking, networking, and media exposure, he repeatedly cautions that the professional must take time to do these things as a matter of survival even if time is tight and the firm is not offering much support for these efforts. "It is always better to be doing some marketing than none," Harding states. "Making progress on marketing is as urgent as making progress on a client's project." Every one of the specific topics, such as writing, making presentations, getting publicity, and so on, has been written about in entire books that can obviously devote far more time to those topics. Yet Harding does a remarkable job of condensing savvy ideas into the space available, and keying them specifically to professional services. The book contains numerous guides, checklists, and samples to help get each idea off the ground. If the rest of the book were not already enough of a wake-up call for professionals to expand their focus on marketing, Chapter 17, entitled "Self-Marketing: Experts Make Themselves" should do the trick. Harding made a list of the people he knew well who were most successful in marketing their professional services, and sought to identify the qualities that set them apart. Here's what he found: 1. The stars were universally high producers early in their careers. 2. The stars showed an intense interest in marketing early in their careers. 3. They took great care to credential themselves. 4. All found ways to improve their firms' services. 5. They became specialists. Against this background, Harding invites the reader to complete a self-evaluation that will help identify strengths and gaps along a four-point track of Skills, Experience, Knowledge, and Expertise. Armed with this information, the reader will be able to take steps to fill in gaps and formulate a suitable personal marketing plan. Much of this may not be good news to professionals who feel that the quality of their work and devotion to clients should be its own best marketing. ("You probably did not become a professional in order to market," Harding drily observes.) Yet few can deny that the professional career path is littered with the remains of those who didn't "get" the necessity of marketing. "Many professionals make the transition to marketing slowly," Harding writes, "and others never make it at all, at great cost to their own careers and their firms' bottom lines. The fact is, having professional skills and training just isn't enough to advance in today's world. To succeed you must learn to market and sell." This book is an excellent start down that path.
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by Mark M. Maraia
