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COVER DESIGN: PAUL MCCARTHY
COVER ART: © GETTY IMAGES | SECRET AGENT MIKE
Dedicated to the heroic people in our police and fire departments and all first responders, whose value will always exceed anything any of us could ever afford to pay.
For the Third Edition
My global coaching clients, both executives and entrepreneurs, have provided me with continuing “finger-on-the-pulse” wisdom from both sides of the desk. It's been my pleasure to work with them and to earn their trust.
I'm also thankful to the successful thought leaders who constantly exemplify generosity, which I've tried to emulate, though not as successfully as they have. So I happily thank Chip Bell, Dan Gilbert. Bob Cialdini, Dan Pink, Chip Heath, Jonah Berger, James Carville, Marty Seligman, Marshall Goldsmith, and Lou Heckler for their contributions to me and my global community.
Introduction to the First Edition
The Ultimate Consultant Series is intended for successful practitioners who are seeking to scale still loftier heights. I'm happy to be among them.
This book is probably on the topic most eagerly anticipated of any I've written about in consulting. For the first time, I've recorded everything I know about the techniques that have worked best for me in raising fees, obtaining fees from unlikely sources, and supporting continuing fees. Yet this is by no means a mercenary book.
I believe in two aspects of consulting very strongly. First, you can't help others until you help yourself. Consequently, unless you're at least comfortable and secure financially, it's difficult to engage in pro bono work, to contribute to charities, and to help others to achieve their goals. Second, the basis for any successful client relationship is a win-win dynamic, the “good deal” you'll read about throughout this book. Therefore, you have to be treated well financially, and the client has to appreciate your value.
And when you come right down to it, there's a third aspect: Clients truly believe that they get what they pay for. No buyer ever bragged about being successful in capturing the cheapest consultant available, someone sitting by the phone with no business who took on the assignment in return for food. No, buyers—and their egos—revel in telling people that they snagged a consultant impossible to obtain, had to pay dearly, and expect everyone to listen closely.
After I worked on a project for a total of about six hours, the CEO asked his top officers what they would have charged had they been I. They guessed about $2,000 or less, having multiplied and divided by the $150 or $200 hourly rate that they charged.
“Well,” said the CEO, “he's charging us $18,000, so listen up!”
Dizzy Dean said once, “If you can do it, it ain't braggin.'” As you read on, you might want to listen up.
Alan Weiss, Ph.D.
East Greenwich, Rhode Island
November 2001
Introduction to the Third Edition
We speak today of “disruption” and “volatility.” With the original version of this book over a decade ago, nearly 20 years ago, I disrupted the consulting profession with the concept of billing for value and not time.
Today, professional services organizations, from law firms to accountants, from architects to professional organizers, are evolving toward value-based fees (though some are mammals and some are still dinosaurs).
In volatile times, your value is your value. It doesn't matter whether you're on Zoom, or Skype, or you're a holograph levitating in a virtual meeting room. Value is not “presence,” and certainly not physical presence in the traditional sense. In fact, the benefits of meeting without travel, without the expenses of lodging and transport and food, and without the vagaries of rescheduling and postponing at great cost due to uncontrollable factors, make for even greater value in remote interactions.
The $18,000 cited in the introduction to the earlier edition would be $50,000 today. Our value is greater than ever, but it does face that toughest of all sales.
The first sale is always to yourself.
Read on, and let me assist you in closing the deal.
Alan Weiss, Ph.D.
East Greenwich, RI
March 2021
Acknowledgments
My thanks go to the people who have made the fees possible, the wonderful clients with whom I've had the good fortune to work over the past two decades. I immodestly think that they're better off, and I know that I am. They are wonderful people.
Who says that nice guys finish last?
Here's to the most enduring clients: Dr. William Winter, Keith Darcy, George Rizk, Art Strohmer, Jarvis Coffin, Marilyn Martiny, Wayne Cooper, Lowell Anderson, Roseann Strichnoth, and Jerry Arbarbanal.
Deep appreciation goes to the wonderful editors at Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, headed by Kathleen Dolan Davies, the only human who speaks even faster than I do. It has been a joy to work with them all.
My thanks also go to Matt Davis for suggesting and assisting in the second edition.
Once again to L.T. Weiss, my love and affection—I know you hear me.
About the Author
Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, as president of Festival Ballet Providence, and chaired the Newport International Film Festival.
His speaking typically includes 20 keynotes a year at major conferences, and he has been a visiting faculty member at Case Western Reserve University, Boston College, Tufts, St. John's, the University of Illinois, the Institute of Management Studies, UC Berkeley, and the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business. He has held an appointment as adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rhode Island, where he taught courses on advanced management and consulting skills. He once held the record for selling out the highest priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City's Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He has served on the Board of Governors of Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and the Media.
He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1 percent of professional speakers in the world. He has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, one of only two people in history holding both those designations.
His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill). His newest is Legacy