[.ca] Selling Your Services: Proven Strategies For Getting ... (ISBN 0805020411)

A Must-Read for Small Business Owners:
I discovered how informative this book was last spring when I took a class called Starting a Small Home Business. The instructor recommended 'Selling Your Services' as an excellent resource for small business owners and I must agree. Not only did I learn how to counteract objections of prospective clients, I also learned easy ways to promote, structure, and grow my business. This book proved to be an asset in the creation of my small business. Besides being chock full of great ideas, it's also an easy read for anyone who does not hold an MBA and would like to start their own service-oriented business.

maxed my income potential:
this book taught me some great things that will help me max my income potential. it had a lot of accompanying material that you might have read somewhere else. but if not this would all be useful and if you had read it it would be a good review. there is enough that i never found anywhere else to justify buying this book just for that. indeed, it was the special material i found when browsing at the bookstore that convinced me to buy it. this book is for all of us who are not yet in the top tier with bob bly, jeffrey lant, ted nicholas, jerry buchanan, et al. ordinary self employed consultants and free lance types should read this book. it is worth the time and the money. reread it every few years to keep the material in mind for active usage. unless you like making less than you are worth you need this book.

Excellent Reference:
Although I'm a graphic designer and not a writer, I found this book extremely helpful. Most sales books come from the perspective of selling a product - very different from selling a service. Bob has an excellent way of translating the sales process for those of us who depend on repeat business. He also includes very relevant cautions. Relationship selling requires good chemistry and common sense, as opposed to a product sale where numbers are the only concern. I would (and have often) recommend this to anyone who has a service to sell.

Don't Bother. What a Waste!:
I'm an average person who happens to know that a period goes at the end of a sentence and a question mark goes...well, you get the idea. Unless you speak Mandarin Chinese and have never heard of the phrase "write like you talk," then this just isn't the book for you. It's drab, lifeless, boring, and a little too familiar. The book itself is nothing more than a cleverly disguised sales pitch that motivates you to do.... nothing actually, because he never comes right out and tells you exactly anything. Very vague, very smooth, very good "happy and exciting" writer. If this is how you want to IMPACT your skills, go for it. Personally, you'd get more tips by reading the ingredients label on a candy bar wrapper. No thanks!

A well developed, easy to follow resource for professionals:
For over 10 years I've provided management consulting to executives, and now I feel ten times more confident about selling my own services. As with many experts, I know my craft, but before "Selling Your Services" I wasn't clear on how to sell me. This book has an easy to follow table of contents and is very well thought out. Everything is modeled around a 5 step strategy to sell your services, and covers the differences between product and service provider selling. Methods shared are clear and easy to understand, applicable for any professional services from lone landscaper selling to consumers through professional business-to-business firms like my own. While some of the materials were review, I appreciate the great emphasis on building strong mutually beneficial relationships that grow over the long-term. A very important point that makes this book useful even to executives not directly involved in selling.