The Consultant's Quick Start Guide: An Action Plan for Your First Year in Business
Author: Elaine Biech
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0787956678
Publisher: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer (09 May, 2001)
Sales Rank: 3,444
Average Customer Rating: 4.79 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Another Terrific Book for Consultants from Elaine Biech
Elaine Biech shares her infinite wisdom from her highly successful consulting business by providing practical guidance and advice to those considering a career in consulting. This Guide helps you decide if consulting is the profession for you. Just how much ambuiguity can you handle? Can you manage the balance between personal and professional responsibilities with ease? How do you structure a business...run an efficient office...develop a business plan...find new clients..transition from your current occupation..and survive the first year.A very user-friendly guide that will help you save time and money!
Rating: 5 out of 5
How to Quick Start any business - Not just Consulting
Once again Elaine Biech has developed a step-by-step process that enables the reader to gain insight into their own "wants and desires". But it doesn't stop there. The book provides sound steps one can take to make their dreams a reality. I read this book not as a future consultant, but as a consultant that moved out of the field and started a totally different kind of business. The book read the same! The thought provoking questions guided me in finding out more about my wants and abilities and reaffirmed the choices I have made. The practical steps for starting a business are steps I have taken and they work. I wish I had read this book before I started my business.
Rating: 2 out of 5
You could find better...
Ok, so I wasn't impressed... This book is definately good at one thing: it makes you think about some important issues of starting your own practice, and it has lots of assignments that I think may be useful. That earns it two stars.
However, what makes this book less useful than, say, "getting started in consulting" (A. Weiss), is the fact that there is no emphasis on creating value for your customer(and setting your fees based upon that value). What Biech is saying is actually that you should divide what you think you should earn in a year by the days you expect to work etc. So whether you help a client gain $50000 or $500000 added value should make no difference on your paycheck... Being value- oriented would help you wether we're talking about gaining clients, getting your fair pay or establishing business relationships. This book hardly touches the issue, even though it's important in so many areas of the business.
What I'm saying boils down to this: There being so many better books on the subject, I see no reason to buy this one. I did, and I'd rather have spent my money on something else.
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Book Index