"The Rainmaker's Toolkit" by Harry Mills, 2004

I am really focused on practical.  I find conceptual or theoretical books very hard to concentrate on.  Business theory is all well and good but without practical implementation, the effect for the vast majority of advisers, owners, managers and readers is lost.  So, a Rainmaker's TOOLKIT holds some promise.

This book is aimed at advisers - lawyers (in particular), accountants, some financial planners, some bankers, some consultants, some B2B sales.  It's about high-end selling, either to large clients or with technical advice.  It's also very focused on the individual rather than the business - these are strategies for individual advisers to follow to win business, not for the larger firm to implement and drive leads.  So if you are a lawyer, accountant or (high-end/corporate) finance professional, then you are the target market.  If you aren't, then you might be better off looking elsewhere.

What follows in the book is, indeed, a toolkit.  The book focuses on 8 "rainmaking" drivers which all conveniently start with R - Retention, Referrals, Rainmaking, Related Sales (hmmmm?) and so on.  Each chapter consists of 5-10 "tips" or "strategies" which are discussed with some sort of implementation process.  You can expect a lot of checklists, graphs, tables, diagrams, examples, templates, etc... There is also an excellent discussion of why most professional advisers need to change their approach (up the value/price tree) to succeed, backed by a LOT of empirical research.

The tips and strategies themselves are good, although not ground-breaking.  It's sales and relationship management 101 for the most part, but it's well explained and there is a lot of assistance in the implementation.

This book would be great for those lawyers and accountants (among others) with a strong technical background, but some uncertainty about sales.  Maybe you have been recently promoted to a client facing or income generating role.  Maybe you have always struggled to find new clients, but do enjoy servicing existing clients.  Maybe you want to improve your sales skills, but shy away from (typically American) direct sales tactics.  If that sounds like you, then this is a great book for you.  HEAPS of stuff to get you started.

But if you are relatively experienced and looking for new ideas, you may want to look elsewhere...although this might be a good book to coach your own staff.  Recommended for the target audience.

Order from Fishpond.com.au in Australia...

Order from Amazon.com in the US...