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Title: Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully by Gerald M. Weinberg, Virginia Satir ISBN: 0-932633-01-3 Publisher: Dorset House Pub. Date: January, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.81 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: How to price consulting? This book told me how.
Comment: When I quit my day job, and struck out on my own, this book was invaluable. In fact, I re-read it now and then, to help my piece of mind. Weinberg's book describes several key aspects of consulting,
which a consultant needs to know for success. Trust of the client, pricing the consultant can live with, pitfalls to avoid are some topics. Though Weinberg describes general management consulting, his principles extend to other consulting fields. Best of all, I know when to say $100 an hour, and when to say $50, and to be happy with the result.
Yet the reading is light and enjoyable. Recommended especially for the self-employed consultant, or the downsized or dilbertized, who want to be self-employed.
Rating: 5
Summary: My favorite "get your head screwed on straight" biz book
Comment: I'm having to order another copy of Secrets of Consulting because I lent the last one to a friend, and it's never come back home. There's a reason for that. This is the kind of book that people borrow, but never want to part with again.
A lot of consulting books are filled with fluff, common sense advice that you already know, or only ONE good thought in 250 pages. In 17 years of consulting, however, I've never found a better guide to solving the REAL business problems that you'll encounter. (And it's useful for more than just consultants, too.) Weinberg gets his message across in simple, memorable anecdotes that I can recite perfectly, fifteen years after I first read the book: The Orange Juice Rule, Rudy's Rutabaga Rule.
Here's one fer-instance. A client says that he wants something special done in a project you've already budgeted and possibly already started. Do you tell her "no way!" and lose the business? Do you do the extra work, grumbling about it (and maybe losing money on the deal)? Or do you apply the Orange Juice Rule? (You don't think I'll give away the answer, do ya?) I can't tell you how often I've applied the Orange Juice Rule and saved my business relationship as well as my own budget.
Besides, this book is just plain fun to read. It's light enough to be entertaining, but his advice will help you run your business better... for several years.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the most important books for any consultant
Comment: This is a little book with some big messages. As the subtitle says, it's a book not only for those who give, or sell, their advice, but it's also for those who are taking or buying it. It's a book both for those who help to manage change, and for those undergoing change themselves. Many people should read it.
That said, the main focus of the book is on those who produce the advice and ideas. If you are a consultant as I am, this may be one of the most important books in your collection. I have read it cover to cover twice, and parts of it many other times.
The book is written with a light, humorous touch, illustrated both with many funny stories and some very apt cartoons and quotations. From each discussion he abstracts multiple "laws" and reminders, which on their own should prompt you to remember the key points he discusses.
Weinberg doesn't pull any of his punches. Consulting is hard, and the secrets are guides to improving your success and survival rate, not any set of "magic wands". He addresses ways in which you can fail just as much as ways to succeed.
In successive chapters, the book deals with the nature of consulting and the problems it can address, and how to develop your own mind so that your can see the problems and come up with possible solutions to them.
Throughout, Weinberg teaches us to focus on the "people" problems: cultural, political and psychological, which tend to be at the heart of any issue, assuming that, as he says, "it's always a people problem". If you can solve the people problems, the practical problems should be easy by comparison.
In later chapters, the book focuses specifically on how to make consultancy more effective: how to improve the impact of what you do, how to help make change happen, and the importance of things like setting the right price and marketing yourself.
This is an easy book to read, with lots of good advice very humorously presented. I can thoroughly recommend it to all consultants, would-be consultants, clients and would-be clients.
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Title: More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool Kit by Gerald M. Weinberg ISBN: 0932633528 Publisher: Dorset House Pub. Date: 15 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $33.95 |
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Title: Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is by Donald C. Gause, Gerald M. Weinberg ISBN: 0932633161 Publisher: Dorset House Pub. Date: March, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach by Gerald M. Weinberg ISBN: 0932633021 Publisher: Dorset House Pub. Date: September, 1986 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg ISBN: 0932633498 Publisher: Dorset House Pub. Date: 15 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $33.95 |
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Title: Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd Ed. by Tom Demarco, Timothy Lister, Timothy R. Lister ISBN: 0932633439 Publisher: Dorset House Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $33.95 |
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