How To Grow Your Professional Practice

Influence + Integrity: Mastering The Keys To Success

Preface

Motivation, Leadership and Marketing

Motivation – Doing The Right Thing

Extensive research shows that successful business people:

1. Keep themselves motivated by focusing on meaningful personal goals.
2. Build authentic business relationships with customers.
3. Discover and solve customer needs.
4. Get customers to commit to buy.
5. Find or build the right management structure to keep them at their best.

Of these five areas, focused self-motivation is the key. Invariably, the most successful business people are very strongly motivated. This is the power of intention, because without it, none of your other goals can be achieved.

Leadership – Being Yourself

The research also shows that successful business people are authentic. They do not try to force themselves to achieve their goals. Instead they harness their natural strengths to accomplish the tasks at hand. They identify and understand their unique talents in areas such as leadership, creativity, action, discipline, analysis, decision-making, and relating to others.

Of these qualities, leadership is the key, because without it, your other talents are not fully expressed.

Marketing – Having A Business

Business operations include functions such as manufacturing, managing, marketing, administration, and finance. All of these areas, with the exception of marketing, are under your direct control.

Marketing is not about control, it is about influence – how you get customers to buy. Marketing is how you grow your business. And marketing is the key, because without marketing, you do not have customers, and if you do not have customers, you do not have a business.

Being, Doing and Having

As we explained in our first book, How To Lead and Still Have a Life, begin by learning to be yourself. You can only be you, at your authentic best. When you harness your unique talents with the right system, you will get the results you want, and have the business of your dreams.

The Book That Had Not Yet Been Written

Effective marketing methods keep changing. Marketing is about adapting to the needs of your customers, the nature of your business, and the changing conditions of society.

When I began my consulting practice, it did not grow quickly, despite my years of experience in sales and business. And researching the extensive marketing literature for help provided inadequate solutions based on 20 th century conditions and values. I was looking for an effective way to grow my business in a rapidly changing 21 st century society, but the book that I was seeking had not yet been written. In the end, I had to write a new book for my clients and myself; Marketing Solutions is the result.

Your Talents + The Collaboration Marketing Method = Successful Business Results

The First Edition of Marketing Solutions went to press in November of 2004, and it has been read by hundreds of students during its first year in print. Readers found that Marketing Solutions was just what they needed to inspire them to take on the challenges of building their own professional practice. Many said that its biggest benefit was helping them to get past ‘business reluctance’ and look forward to enjoying their professional life.

Marketing Solutions is for professional business owners who want to grow their practice. You will be pleased to know that this book does not attempt to make you into a salesperson or be anything other than who you are. Instead, it shows you how to make the most of your natural talents by using the Collaboration Marketing Method to achieve the results you want in a way that fits with your values.

The Second Edition is now ready. It includes minor corrections and a new chapter about Focusing, Planning and Scheduling. This was added in response to requests from readers who wanted more information about starting a professional practice.

The Road Map For Your Journey

Marketing Solutions focuses on helping you to understand the customer’s buying process, and learning how to enjoy helping them to buy. The Introduction and Chapter 1 describe traditional sales and marketing methods, and explain why you, as a service professional living in a 21 st century society, need a different way of working.

Chapter 2 gives an overview of the Collaboration Marketing Method. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 describe in detail how to develop relationships that help you gain customers and grow your business. Chapter 6 is devoted to explaining how you can influence with integrity and gain commitment to buying. Chapter 7 is about using your collaboration skills to make your marketing method more effective. In Chapter 8 the leadership issue is addressed, and Chapter 9 provides a description of the business structure you must learn to manage. Chapter 10 is about how to organize effectively, and includes specific checklists for getting clear about what to do and when to do it.

The book ends with a Glossary and Bibliography, together with instructions about how you can find more resources at www.we-q.net, the web site of We-Q Consulting Services.

You can find more resources, workbooks and support materials for different professions or you can buy your copy here..

Enjoy your adventure!

Doctor I. Johnson
Author, Speaker, Consultant
for more about Ian, click here