Selling Your Expertise The Mindset, Strategies, and Tactics of Successful Rainmakers

Wall Street Journal bestseller

Build your book of business and sell more services with this expert guide for knowledge professionals

How do rainmakers consistently and continuously sell their ideas and grow their client base? What is the secret to their ongoing success? Whether they are in accounting, consulting, investment banking, law, or any other type of professional service, it’s not just their knowledge, experience, and unique services that set them apart. They succeed by adopting the mindset, mastering the strategies, and employing the tactics at the heart of rainmaking.

In Selling Your Expertise: The Mindset, Strategies, and Tactics of Successful Rainmakers, veteran communications, sales, and leadership consultant Robert Chen provides a practical guide to selling knowledge-based services in a market that demands credibility and subject-matter authority. Chen and his colleagues at Exec|Comm have helped hundreds of thousands of professionals learn to sell, influence, and negotiate more effectively. This book condenses Chen’s first-hand experience and over 40 years of Exec|Comm’s best sales advice, along with interviews featuring other successful rainmakers from a variety of professions and industries.

Whether you’re a national practice partner at a Big Four consulting firm or an independent attorney just starting out, this book equips you with the real-life knowledge you need to:

• Develop a client-focused mindset to help build a thriving book of business 
• Use effective strategies to find your ideal prospects and turn them into long-term clients, using concrete metrics to assess whether you’re on the right track 
• Apply practical tactics to build a trusted reputation, sharpen communication skills, manage the challenges of not having enough time to sell, and push beyond obstacles  

The perfect book for consultants, investment bankers, lawyers, research analysts, and accountants, Selling Your Expertise is an invaluable resource for any professional who makes a living by selling solutions to their clients’ most pressing needs.

ROBERT CHEN, MBA, is a Partner at Exec|Comm. He leverages his training in business and science and his management experience in the U.S. and China to help Fortune 500 business leaders and their teams communicate, sell, and lead more effectively. He teaches at The Wharton School and his ideas have been published in Fast Company and Training Magazine.

Visit www.exec-comm.com to learn more.

Foreword  

Introduction

Part I: Mindset

Chapter 1: Eagerly Dedicated

Chapter 2: Authentically Open

Chapter 3: Consistently Client-Focused

Chapter 4: Realistically Optimistic

Chapter 5: Confidently Humble

End of Part I

Part II: Strategies

Chapter 6: Mining for Gold: When You’re Searching for a Real Need

Chapter 7: Opportunity Knocks: When a Need Presents Itself

Chapter 8: Success Upon Success: When You’re Uncovering Additional Needs

End of Part II

Part III: Tactics

Chapter 9: Build a Trusted Reputation

Chapter 10: Communicate Care, Competence, Collaboration

Chapter 11: Drive the Process Forward

Chapter 12: Protect Your Rainmaking Time

Chapter 13: Stay Relevant

End of Part III

Conclusion

Recommended Resources

Acknowledgments 

About the Author  

Index

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