Professionals who work with clients or large accounts can create lifetime relationships based on these well-researched secrets. Based drawing from extensive interviews with client executives, Making Rain offers a series of provocative insights on how to shed the expert-for-hire label and develop long-term advisory relationships. Exploding the popular myth of the "Rainmaker," a dated and dysfunctional figure that clients no longer welcome, Andrew Sobel argues that any professional can learn to "make rain" on an ongoing basis with existing clients by developing a special set of skills, attitudes, and strategies. These innovative tips and techniques from a recognized leader in the field of professional services will enable any consultant, salesperson, or service professional to create enduring client loyalty. Sobel, a consultant, offers his approach to developing optimum client relationships with advice on how to break into a client's inner circle by becoming a trusted advisor. We learn that a rainmaker is one who snags big clients and closes big deals with skills to build deep client relationships for the long term by consistently adding value. Using stories, diagrams, and valuable insight, the author provides suggestions for becoming a trusted advisor, an intellectual partner, and hence a rainmaker. The author gives readers his views on how to move from the first relationship phase as an expert for hire to the role of steady supplier who is rewarded with repeat business. The next level, trusted advisor, is achieved through attributes, attitudes, and strategies that add value year after year and culminate in lifelong loyalty and insider status. Sobel concludes with an assessment tool to determine individual or organizational strengths and weaknesses by analyzing their relationships and the role they play with each client. Mary Whaley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Whether business leaders want a steady drizzle or an out-and-out monsoon, they can use Sobel's formula for landing and keeping customers - what he calls "making rain." Based on building relationships, it starts with the key components of knowledge, service and demonstrable value; these are the building blocks that attract clients, says business adviser Sobel (Clients for Life). In this straightforward manual, he gives practical strategies to help leaders of service firms and large corporations alike become indispensable advisers to their clients, thus cementing a long-term connection. The principles behind his tactics are simple: get to know your client, gain respect for your knowledge and win personal respect. Then, drive it home by delivering above and beyond, again and again. These ideas are old as dirt. Sobel reaches across centuries to dig up examples of their success, from Aristotle to Ben Franklin. He buffs up these ageless notions and places them within engaging anecdotes. Altl1Ough the lessons aren't strokes of genius, they should help professionals through most dry spells. ―Agent, Helen Rees. (Feb. 14) ( Publishers Weekly , February 2003) The grand visions of the new economy encouraged many consultants to adopt an impatient and dictatorial manner. With little regard for their clients' cultures or competencies, they often urged companies to adopt ambitious strategies and transform their organizations. But in this follow-up to Sobel's coauthored Clients for Life, we get a refreshing reminder that sheer brainpower and eloquence are less important than we might thing. Sobel tells his fellow consultants that to win repeat business, they should focus on building relationships with clients and leveraging the resources at hand. He regards relationship building not as a necessary chore but as the foundation for advancing all truly useful advice-only by gaining clients' complete trust, he insists, can consultants hope to have any influence. And he says that rather than driving new ideas, consultants should aim at adding sophistication and depth to clients' existing ideas and capabilities. To keep from dominating the conversation, he points out, consultants need to be secure with themselves about their necessarily limited role. While slavish adherence to this modest prescription could lead to organizational stagnation - and leave consultants vulnerable when companies change leaders - it's a sensible starting point in today's chastened economy. ( Harvard Business Review , March 2003) Learn to build client loyalty that lasts a lifetime In this provocative and insightful book, client relationship authority Andrew Sobel sets out a series of innovative, practical strategies that any service professional, sales executive, or marketer can use to develop lifelong client loyalty. Based on groundbreaking client research, Making Rain contains the secrets that will allow you to develop a steady stream of new business with your existing clients on a day-in, day-out basis. Clients are loyal to professionals who add value, b