- ISBN13: 9780470372319
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The Consultant’s Quick Start Guide offers a practical approach to setting up a consulting business. Throughout the guide, Elaine Biech–author of the best-selling The Business of Consulting–shares both her own secrets as well as those of numerous other successful consultants. With a focus on the business side of consulting, Biech takes you through a painless, fill-in-the-blanks, step-by-step process for setting up your consulting firm. New sections include: … More >>
The Consultant’s Quick Start Guide: An Action Planfor Your First Year in Business
Tags: Action, Business, business side, Consultants, consulting business, consulting firm, elaine biech, fill in the blanks, First, Guide, new sections, Planfor, Quick, remainder mark, Start, Year
#1 by D. Robbins on April 22, 2010 - 7:52 pm
I would avoid this book. If you want a boiler plate book that covers the equivalent of a first year introductory class in marketing, this is it. If you are seriously thinking of going into consulting for a living, your time would be better spent elsewhere. I purchased Rasputin for Hire and found it very helpful. Rasputin for Hire: An Inside Look at Management Consulting Between Jobs or as a Second Career. Helpful note to the author: Elaine, why don’t you write a book about how to publish low-value quick start guides? I think that’s where you can give better advice.
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by Jeff Lippincott on April 22, 2010 - 8:36 pm
Not a book I highly recommend. Sorry. It’s a second edition, the first was written back in 2001. See The Consultant’s Quick Start Guide: An Action Plan for Your First Year in Business. Both have a Search Inside feature at Amazon. So you can compare the Table of Contents for each. They appear to be almost identical to me. But I’ve only read the Second Edition.
The author is a consultant’s consultant in the same way that Alan Weiss seems to be. They both write lots of books to promote their consulting and training practices. And both seem to be highly respected in the consulting field. I have read or skimmed a few books written by each. I generally like Weiss’ stuff. I generally don’t like Biech’s. The difference is that Weiss writes books that sound like they are coming from someone who has been there and done that. Biech’s books come across as though she’s just a professional writer. I cannot determine if she has in fact been there and done that after reading her stuff.
The instant book is supposed to be a “go-to” book for all new and aspiring consultants. And it is written kind of like a workbook, but I’m not sure it does a good job at that. I suppose if it had been more like “16 Weeks to Your Dream Business” (ISBN: 9780071588362), then I might have a bit more praise for this book. But even the sequence of the chapters was off for me.
Consultants are typically expert on some topic or skill. Thus they should know who their potential customers would be, AND who their current competitors are. Knowing this information will help the wanta-be consultant know his pricing, his expenses, and how he might go from internal job to external consultant status. If this is so, then this book did not really need chapters 1-4 and 6. (See the Search Inside feature at Amazon for chapter titles.) And this would actually start the book where it should: Business Plans! Unfortunately I found the chapter on business plans lacking much. The author says one only needs to be 5-10 pages. That sounds more like a simple memo to do something rather than a roadmap to success.
And the last time I checked, a marketing plan was a subset of a business plan. This book seems to treat it as a separate freestanding document. I was hoping there would be some real good content in chapters 8 and 9 regarding marketing. But, no, not much there. We certainly did not hear about how the author primarily markets her consulting practice – writing books. And we didn’t hear much about the importance or method of doing Internet Marketing besides maybe having a Web site. I figured there would at least be some marketing help in Appendix A (Reading List), but that list only had two books listed: “Marketing Your Consulting Services” (Biech), and “How to Become a Rainmaker” (Fox). Neither of these books particular impressed me when I gave them a quick skim some time ago. Yes, one is written in 2003 and the other in 2000.
If you plan to go out on your own and make a living as an independent consultant, then you need a business plan that is 25-35 pages long in written form. You will need to investigate and study your competitors in order to write the plan. And by doing that investigation you will learn what the best marketing tools and techniques are in your field and practice. Without becoming expert in marketing and having a solid marketing plan you will starve as a consultant. And that point is not made clear in the instant book being reviewed. Also, too much focus was placed on the wanta-be consultant in this book. There was not enough emphasis about the importance of knowing how other people do things so you can copy those things that are successful.
If you want to be successful as a consultant then consider becoming an expert at Internet Marketing. Also, consider writing a book or books to help promote yourself – create an online platform for yourself. One book that might be a good lead-in for you on this matter would be “eBoot Camp” (ISBN: 9780470411599). I just read it and posted a book review on Amazon for it. And another book would be “The IndieAuthor Guide” (ISBN: 1434857689). 2 stars!
Rating: 2 / 5