How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession

As an experienced consultant, you'll find this unique book an invaluable aid in establishing the leverage needed to bring highly-qualified prospects and new business to your doorstep. Written by Alan Weiss--an internationally recognized expert in consulting and marketing--this essential resource, the second book in The Ultimate Consultant Series, will help you develop the skills you need to achieve valuable brand recognition quickly and effectively.

How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession will help you create a brand that will make you "Number One" in your particular areas of excellence, no matter how broad or narrow. And, perhaps worth the price alone, the book offers a glimpse into the important trends that are shaping the future of branding.

"Alan Weiss should be branded as The Consultant's Consultant! His new book, How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession, is another proof of the value of his insights into the marketing and strategy of the consulting profession. He's right on the mark in terms of what consultants typically don't do and certainly need to do to succeed."
--William C. Byham, chairman and CEO, Development Dimensions International, Inc. (DDI)

Die Consultingbranche wächst in rasantem Tempo, und das ironischerweise sogar unabhängig von der jeweiligen wirtschaftlichen Lage. Dieses Buch ist das 2. in der 'Ultimate Consultant'-Reihe. Es ist ein praktischer Leitfaden, der eine Fülle von Informationen, Methoden und Verfahren vermittelt, von denen jeder selbständig tätige Consultant sofort profitieren kann. Autor Alan Weiss von der Summit Consulting Group, Inc. ist ein international anerkannter Consultant und darüber hinaus Autor von mehr als 10 Top-Businessbüchern. Hier stellt er 12 Techniken vor, die - wenn sie richtig eingesetzt werden - dem Consultant, einen echten Marketing- und Wettbewerbsvorteil verschaffen können. Der erste und wichtigste Schritt für den Erfolg eines Consultingbüros besteht darin, eine unverwechselbare Marke aufzubauen. Die Zauberformel hierfür heisst positives Branding. Weiss erläutert detailliert, wie man mit Hilfe von Referenzen auf sich aufmerksam macht und Börsengänge von Unternehmen dazu nutzt, um die eigenen Geschäfte voranzutreiben. Ein unverzichtbarer und praktischer Ratgeber für eine erfolgreiche Consultingtätigkeit.

Introduction xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Chapter 1 A Brand by Any Other Name: Why Consultants Desperately Need Brands to Thrive (Survival Isn't Enough) 1

Marque My Words: Perception Is Reality 3

Real World Lessons 4

Positioning a Brand so that the Brand Positions You 8

Why Consultants Need to Get Their Hands Dirty in the Branding Business 11

The Payoff of a Strong Brand in Consulting 13

The Ultimate Secret of Branding 14

Brand New Lessons 18

Chapter 2 You Don't Start at the Beginning: You Have the Makings of a Brand at Hand 21

Identifying the Ingredients of Your Brands 21

Recipe: Finding the Right Raw Materials and Mixtures 22

Magnifying Your Existing Repute 26

Re-Energizing Your Brand for Maximum Impact 32

Five Ways to Ensure Brand Freshness 35

The Critical Case for Strategic Branding 36

Brand New Lessons 39

Chapter 3 The Gravity of Brands: Creating Irresistible Attraction: Using Brands to Draw Buyers to You 41

The Elements That Create Gravitational Attraction 44

Brand New Lessons 70

Chapter 4 How to Write a Book, Even If You've Never Written Your Mother: The Best Branding Technique of Them All 71

Early Preparation Is Better Than the Best Editor 73

Creating and Selling a Brilliant Proposal 77

Writing a Book and Living to Tell About It 81

Marketing Your Book Because the Publisher Really Won't 84

Some Other Very Important Issues 86

Brand New Lessons 88

Chapter 5 How to Conquer the Lecture Circuit: Using the Platform to Raise Your Brand 89

Why Professional Speaking Is Brand-Effective (the "Reach" of the Speech) 90

Preparing Your Message: Insider Tips on Outstanding Speaking 91

The Elements of a Powerful Delivery 97

Turbo-Marketing Your Speaking Efforts 100

The Magic of Setting High Fees (the Good Stuff) 104

Exploiting Success 106

Brand New Lessons 108

Chapter 6 The Twelve Myths of 21st Century Branding: I Didn't Walk in Here and I'm Not Leaving 109

The Myths 110

Brand New Lessons 127

Chapter 7 Publicizing Your Brand Within Your "Environment": Expanding Fifteen Minutes of Fame into a Month of Sundays 129

Understanding the Brand Environment 130

Creating the New Environment 133

Ten Guidelines for Influencing the Environment 136

Twenty-Five Ways to Foster Publicity in Any Environment 139

Brand New Lessons 147

Chapter 8 Creating Products to Boost Your Brand: The Wonderful Combination of Passive Income and Active Promotion 149

The Ironclad Case for Products in the Consulting Profession 151

Alan's Favorite Methods to Boost Your Brand 154

Brand New Lessons 166

Chapter 9 Where Are We Heading and How Do We Capitalize?: A Dozen Trends That Close the Case for Branding 169

The Trends 170

Brand New Lessons 186

Chapter 10 Leapfrogging: How to Take Your Brands and Your Plans to New Heights 187

Multiple Brands 188

Abandoning Brands 190

Protecting your Brands: The Principle of Adaptive Uniqueness 193

Keeping Brands Revitalized 197

Final Thoughts 200

Action Checklist 201

Index 205

Alan Weiss-author, international consultant, highly-sought keynote speaker-is the founder and president of Summit Consulting Group. His clients have included Hewlett-Packard, State Street Corp., Fleet Bank, Coldwell Banker, Merrill Lynch, American Press Institute, Chase, Mercedes-Benz, GE, American Institute of Architects, and Arthur Andersen. He is the author of The Ultimate Consultant (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001) and Getting Started in Consulting (John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Weiss resides with his wife, Maria, in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. As an experienced consultant, you'll find this unique book an invaluable aid in establishing the leverage needed to bring highly-qualified prospects and new business to your doorstep. Written by Alan Weiss-an internationally recognized expert in consulting and marketing and author of the best-selling book, Million Dollar Consulting—this essential resource, the second book in The Ultimate Consultant Series, will help you develop the skills you need to achieve valuable brand recognition quickly and effectively.

In his typical pragmatic, no-nonsense, and highly-entertaining style, Weiss outlines ten critical branding lessons including

• Branding is about passion, emotion, and visceral impulse-not about cold, hard facts.
• The action that must be generated by the brand association is a purchase.
• Identify exactly which buyer you want to appeal to.
• A brand must serve as a template for future actions and present conduct.
• A powerful brand can repel as many people as it attracts. Aim to attract your buyer and repel non-buyers.
• Effective brands are selective and elite and are accessible only to those with superior taste/ability/circumstance/intelligence. Such branding doesn't actually discriminate, but merely creates the perception of elitism.
• A brand by any other name would not smell (or sound) as sweet.
• There are times when a name says it all.

How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession will help you create a brand that will make you "Number One" in your particular areas of excellence, no matter how broad or narrow. And, perhaps worth the price alone, the book offers a glimpse into the important trends that are shaping the future of branding.