Hello, All! I'm looking for recommendations on inspirational content for women leaders. I follow TEDWomen, many podcasts, and the Women's Conference among other sources. I'd love to hear a fresh perspective on business, trends, tech, marketing, equality in the workforce, etc. I'd love to learn something new. I'm at the VP level and have started a couple of companies, so nothing too junior, but open to many topics. Please share any speakers, books, webinars, or events that you may come across.
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.
Art of the deal
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