The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully (Consulting Secrets Book 1)

Improvement is easier than perfection, and as the Chinese say, the best is the enemy of the good.

THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST REGRET: THE NINTH LAW OF PRICING Through discussions with Judy, I arrived at the principle by which I now set all fees in new situations. I call this Ninth Law of Pricing my Principle of Least Regret: Set the price so you won't regret it either way. When I set a fee, there are two possibilities: One is that the client will ac

Sparks's Law of Problem Solution: The chances of solving a problem decline the closer you get to finding out who was the cause of the problem.

Let's do a very rough calculation. If you allot one-quarter of your time to marketing and one-quarter to slack, your billable time is only half your actual time. Continuing with the calculation, figure that you'll spend about half of what you earn on administrative expenses, and that you'll need an additional twenty percent as a contingency reserve

"And it's the energy we put into preservation that makes the crisis worse?" "Exactly. You might say that's my final revelation." When you create an illusion, to prevent or soften change, the change becomes more likely—and harder to take. Rhonda's Third Revelation applies to all possible approaches a consultant might use to help

The Fourth Law of Trust: The trick of earning trust is to avoid all tricks.

review the pricing laws: 1. Pricing has many functions, only one of which is the exchange of money. 2. The more they pay you, the more they love you. The less they pay you, the less they respect you. 3. The money is usually the smallest part of the price. 4. Pricing is not a zero-sum game. 5. If you need the money, don't take the job. 6. If they do

Clients tend to overestimate negative factors that go unspoken. The best ghost-story writers never describe their monsters too explicitly, because the ghost you can see clearly is the ghost you can learn to live with. When my client and I put a name and a clear description on some potential loss, the irrational fear evaporates.

I must be an authority on law because consultants always ask me if they could sue a client for stealing one of their ideas. I always explain that although they can sue anybody they wish, the return on resources invested in new ideas is a thousand times greater than a similar investment in lawsuits.