Consulting: The Business That Generates Mega Dollars and Puts You in Control of Your Financial Future

Marc Kramer has written a book that can change your life. There are not many of those out there! What made this book worth reading is the step by step process for starting your own business, taking control of your life, and having a guide to help profitably make it all happen. Marc Kramer is the author of six books, project faculty at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, a serial entrepreneur, and has had his own consulting business and personally lived the advice he offers in his newest book Consulting-- The Business That Generates Mega Dollars and Puts You in Control of Your Financial Future. Has some unappreciative, un-loyal employer been in control of your life far to long, then buy, read, and study Marc's book! Why? For the questions you will be able to ask yourself and others as you establish your business. If a bank asks you for a three year business plan how do you respond? How about "there is no use planning more than a year in advance (in fact, Marc Kramer has found that he is updating and changing his strategy every six months because of market changes)". Makes absolute sense--does it not? As Marc suggests why not find out if the bank you pursue for your business loan will network for its customers and helps them grow? Why should the bank interview be one sided? Isn't this an excellent question to ask--an excellent question to research? How do you plan for real success--how about an advisory board consisting of respected business and civic leaders you have established and built relationships with over the years? What business problems do you solve? (Question to ask yourself) Questions to ask a prospect: What do you like least about what you do? Do you have any projects that are taking longer than they should? The first question Marc suggests you answer helps you define your businesses reason for being. The second two questions will help you get business. The better questions you ask the better results you will get. If all you did was look in Marc's book for the innovative questions he teaches you to ask, you would get a return on the purchase of this book many times over its cover price. I'll stop with the questions--but only after I give you a few more examples: "Where can you find the most economical health care plan? Should you buy personal liability insurance, and if so, how much should one buy? There are many more examples but you already get the idea. Buy this book! Jeff Koser is the Founder and CEO of Selling to Zebras, LLC and the co-author of the USA Business News Award winning book Selling to Zebras: How to Close 90% of the Business You Pursue Faster, More Easily, and More Profitably.

This book is an excellent resource. Marc Kramer does an excellent job from beginning to end. He explains the consulting business and the opportunities that exist. This book is a must read for anyone thinking about starting a consulting business and great tool for existing consultants to grow their current business.

When I first saw this book on the bookshelf I was skeptical. "The Business that Generates Mega Dollars..." is the kind of phrase that lets you know you are in for a real story. However upon flipping through to see the chapter titles I felt a little differently about it. After bringing the book home and reading it, I found that every page had advice that even the smallest consulting startup could use, no matter what the field of expertise may be. I have just started this year in the spring a very small consulting business that will most likely never return "mega dollars" but it fills a market niche that is not yet tapped and I dearly enjoy what I do for my clients. So when I found information that readily applied even to my situation in every chapter it was very compelling indeed. Mr. Kramer does an excellent job of expressing examples, philosophy and the real world. Most "You can do it too" books are chock-full of "pump-me-up" suggestions and ideology that is either not entirely realistic for the average Joe Consultant to put into effect, or is something that is just way too far out there for a real life person to get a grip on. Not so in this book. The examples are real life examples and they hit home right on the bullseye.Mr. Kramer uses his own successes, and especially interesting to see is his failures written there right before our very eyes. He is not afraid to cut straight to the core when talking about clients or associates who failed to listen to his advice, then failed in business. I am sure that those clients whom he referred to as "difficult clients or bad debts" regarding, hiring, firing, etc. know exactly who they are. He hides nothing but the identity of the client. I wonder if they picked up a copy of Mr. Kramer's book? I highly recommend this book to those of you who want to know what it is like for a real (successful) consultant who is not just pumping himself up for the sake of giving himself a good name. Mr. Kramer provides us with all the information in detail (not just philosophy) that is easily implemented so that we can get going with designing our business plans, marketing plans, sales (ad)ventures, and so forth ASAP. This is a rare find for a business book; something that you can ACTUALLY SINKYOUR TEETH INTO AND USE in the real world. I am very glad I bought this book. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5 because unfortunately nothing in the real world can ever be 100% (except maybe Mom's cooking), although it can come very close. I like it so much in fact that I have ordered a second copy and plan to send it to another associate in the US who is starting up a consulting firm for providing Expat Services. He should find Mr. Kramer's book even more rewarding than I did, and be able to apply even more of the theory and reality in this book. Thank you, Mr. Kramer for a book well authored.

You could easily make a fortune just by reading this book, just as the sub-title implies. I loved this book and found it to be awesome, a real gold mine for anyone in the consulting business. You will be reminded of classics in the genre such as Peter Block's Flawless Consulting, but Kramer has truly added to the literature of success by giving so many tools and techniques and recipes for consulting that you would have to be really hard-headed not to make a go of it after reading this. There are even entire recipes and complete formats for doing a competitive analysis on a web site! That template alone is worth a lot of money. The author interviewed me for the book after reading mine, How to Mind Read Your Customers (Amacom, 2001) and I was blown away by the amount of useful information he had packed into it when I read my gift copy. I learned more in the first two hours of reading it than I have learned from any other book in recent memory. My advice is this-if you want to quadruple your income as a consultant, buy this book and memorize it. It's that simple.

If you are thinking about going it on your own, this is the book for you. I was struck by the depth of practical, hands on advice. Mr. Kramer brings tremendous insight in the process of helping you identify if consulting is right for you, and, if it is, how to do it right.This will be my blueprint!