Hiya! I was wondering if anyone here has any good recommendations in terms of books or learning material that I can pick up to learn about sales and marketing relevant to the consulting industry?

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Highly recommend reading Andrew Sobel. He’s written two great books—Clients for Life, and Power Questions—that really speak to how business development works. It is much more focused on relationships with senior executives than marketing or selling techniques. Most of the "sales” books you’ll read are oriented more toward products, software, etc. Those approaches don’t fly perfectly well, because in our business the account team and the product are highly entangled.

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Art of the deal

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Also, couldn’t hurt to speak with some senior marketing folks (at your firm).

Also, I’m not sure I answered your question precisely. You said “marketing”, which at my firm is non company-specific brand building activity. It’s not focused on closing a discrete opportunity at a specific client/target...that’s “sales”. My answer was focused more on the latter...if you really meant marketing, then there may be better sources out there.

@AP1 - Nah, your recommendations were what I was looking for! Thank you very much 🙏

Solid advice by AP1. I would focus on relationships. You may also look into HBR - there are lot of articles and materials that are very easy reads and I think subscription is only $99.

Thanks P1! I’ll certainly look into the magazine archives and explore some articles to see if I’d be interested in purchasing a subscription.

David Maister has a couple of excellent books about managing professional services firms. Not specifically about BD but a lot of relevant material.

Agree on David Maister — the best

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