The Rainmaker's Toolkit: Power Strategies for Finding, Keeping, and Growing Profitable Clients

At 285 pages, this is one of the most densely-packed business books you'll ever own. Much of the information is delivered to you in the form of steps, lists, bullet points...author Harry Mills wastes no time on sweet-talking you into doing these things. There's an assumption that you're reading the book because you want to make rain, period. Some of the things won't happen overnight. Some of them might not happen at all. Example: the sections on publishing. With focus and determination, you can start your own blog, get articles published on the Web, and approach your local newspapers. But when you get to page 48 and read about how "it's not uncommon for a busy professional to pay skilled host writers more than $100,000 to transform their ideas into readable prose" and "A successful book can turn you into a celebrity and launch a high profit speaking career. Getting a book on the New York Times bestseller list typically allows an author to charge $15,000 to $25,000 a day as a celebrity speaker," understand this: The odds are stacked against you, especially in the modern era of publishing, that you are going to be one of those authors or that you will be pulling down $25K per day as a "celebrity speaker." If you pour 110% of your energy and focus into that goal, 24/7, you're still facing a big "maybe." So...as with every business book that's currently available to you...the challenge with this book will be selecting the items you can turn into action today, the ones that will move you forward today, while slowly chipping away at the bigger long-term goals. That's where a lot of people make a fatal mistake, fail, get discouraged, and quit. There's more information in this book than most people would conceivably turn into action items. There's a winning mix for you, but you must read the book, pick the items you are willing to commit yourself to, form a plan, work the plan, and stay focused. Otherwise you'll join the ranks of people who bought a book, read it, put it back on the shelf, and returned to all of the things they were doing before they read the book.

Comprehensive, well-organised guide for creating better results in a business -- not just professional services. I enjoyed his clear writing style and the easy-to-follow layout. A good read that stands out in a crowded field.

I read this book hoping to pick up a few practical tips on how to win more profitable clients. As a result, The Rainmaker's Toolkit far exceeded my expectations. Within it is a revolutionary seven step marketing system on how to build a successful and profitable business. I then passed the name of the book onto several of my colleagues whom then went out, bought a copy and found it to be equally impressive. I highly recommend this for anyone wishing to find a road-map that outlines how to create profitable growth. I highly recommend this book! Harry Mills is a superb writer.

Professional service firms are notoriously poor at marketing.The odd dynamics of partnerships as a business model coupled with the idiosyncracies of individuals within them make marketing hardwork. How do you get all partners to buy-in? What strategies do you use to make everyone an effective contributor? Harry Mills latest book cuts straight to the chase. Straight forward practical procedures. We are using them and they are working.As the principal of a mid-sized responsible for marketing I highly recommend this book to other lawyers and professional service firms.

This book logically and simply explains how to trasform a practice into a performance tuned engine. The Rainmaker's Toolkit is like finding "Nirvana" in the plethora of text dedicated to growing and maintaining a professional firm. The templates and tools provide a process which we've used to build a business like no other. Top Marks!