Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing

by Michael Port

Book Overview

Book Yourself Solid- now in paperback-is a complete instructional guide for startingn and growing a successful service business. It gives you simple, yet effective techniques for creating relentless demand and endless leads. It includes more than 200 proven marketing strategies for attracting new clients, earning more referrals, and building profitable, long-lasting professional relationships. If you want to take your service business to the next...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471783935
• ISBN13: 9780471783930
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

How to "let" a client find you

The owners and employees of client-based businesses often end up doing it all, providing the service or product, managing the office, and handling sales and marketing - often the entrepreneur's least favorite chore. Now, you can learn to love it or at least to do it well with less pain. Author Michael Port cites many applicable marketing activities that you probably already know about, but he pulls them together in an organized manner supported by lists of questions and answers. He begins with the foundation of your business, including your motivation and area of specialization. Then he teaches you how to build credibility with clients. Next, he covers marketing and outreach, including tactics for promoting yourself. The book's concepts are easy to grasp and implement, including advice for conquering online marketing. You may already be carrying out some of these strategies, but this book can take you to the next level. We recommend it to those who want new clients badly enough to make sales and marketing a regular part of their jobs for a few hours a week. If you are a new entrepreneur, this resource will help you learn the art of rainmaking.

One idea is worth the cost of a year's income

The idea Michael Port puts forth about integrity is eye opening. He teaches that, if you work for people whom you cannot serve with your full ability, you lack integrity. In other words, if you have clients who sap you of energy because they are not "your" kind of clients, you cannot do as good a job for them. This is enlightening - even if you don't fully agree with it, it makes you think about your clients and work in a different way. Some of his ideas are available elsewhere, but I haven't seen a gathering of these ideas together into a system as well structured as this. I really believe this book is the best you can get if you're a service professional. I'm beginning to restructure some of my own marketing plans based on the lessons taught in the book. As a final thought, the idea of attracting clients with a no-cost-of-entry offer that leads to a low-cost-of-entry offer that leads the client deeper into your solutions and offerings is worth the cost of the book times ten thousand. If you are a service professional selling your own services, you have to read this book this summer! Tom Carpenter, Author: Wireless# Certification Official Study Guide and CWSP Certification Official Study Guide

Get Ready for Growing Your Business

Book Yourself Solid is a primer in building a professional services business. Michael takes you through his client-tested approach to grow your business step-by-step. He doesn't make any get-rich-quick promises. Just the opposite. Through a systematic do-a-little everyday approach you'll see how 90, 180, 360 days from now your business will be booked solid. Michael's chapter on becoming "known for what you know" is some of the best advice I've received. The chapter reads like your sitting with your business coach. Make an investment in yourself and your clients. Get on the Book Yourself Solid program.

The Top Marketing Experts are Correct - Book Yourself Solid is Remarkable and Loaded with Value

After seeing the last review, I must ask: Did We Read the Same Book Yourself Solid??? I not only have a marketing and sales background, but I have read almost all the books on getting clients for service professionals, including CJ Hayden's book and the works of Harry Beckwith. Not to mention Seth Godin, Michael E. Gerber, Robert Middleton and other marketing experts. Obviously, Michael's style is remarkable - and that unique approach prompted the support of Tim Sanders, Michael Gerber and Seth Godin. Taking a unique and novel approach will always attract some scoffers, yet that does not speak to the work itself, but about the preferences of each individual reader. Book Yourself Solid has transformed my business and the businesses of my clients. Why? It helps service professionals get it right from the start - by building a strong foundation, a core message and a clear picture of the clients they want to serve. And, unlike many marketing books out there, Michael has demystified what it means to market your services. As a business coach, I have observed that the large majority of coaches and consultants despise the idea of having to market and sell their services. After discovering Michael's Book Yourself Solid principles, my whole perspective shifted. Now, marketing and selling is something I truly enjoy - because it means that I am reaching out to the clients I am meant to serve. Book Yourself Solid not only teaches you the marketing strategies every successful business owner knows, but it invites you to pursue you true calling by standing in the service of others.

Jump-start your life!

Book Yourself Solid gave me all the tools I needed to take a leap out of the corporate world and into my own business. Michael talks to the reader in a voice so friendly you think you've known him forever, and his enthusiasm never flags. You don't have to know anything about marketing and selling to follow his excellent written exercises and action steps. I've read the book and now I'm ready to work through the exercises with confidence about my ability to find ideal clients and book my time as solid as I want it to be. I especially appreciate the variety of strategies for promoting myself, everything from how to network to how to keep in touch. Michael makes it clear that you don't have to adopt every strategy--just the ones that are aligned with your own strengths. And his approach steps your though the stages of building a clientele. You can follow these stages whether you're new to self-employment or are needing to build your practice. And here's what makes this book different from all the others I've read about marketing and selling: Michael's method is built on trust and personal integrity. The point of Book Yourself Solid is to let other people know how you can help them, how you can partner with them in a mutual relationship of trust. This book is not about manipulating but about honoring your gifts in the way you approach future ideal clients. I recommend it to anyone just starting out or anyone who needs a different approach to finding and keeping ideal clients.