The definitive guide to getting out of the office and getting into consulting Getting Started in Consulting, Fourth Edition is the acclaimed real-world blueprint to professional and financial freedom. For nearly two decades, this invaluable resource has helped thousands of people quit the daily grind and become their own boss. This practical and motivational guide provides the tools and knowledge to control your future and secure your fortune. From establishing goals and sorting out the legal and financial paperwork, to advanced marketing strategies and relationship building techniques, this indispensable book offers step-by-step instructions for you to establish and grow your own consultancy business. This extensively revised and updated fourth edition includes new and expanded coverage on topics including utilizing informal media, changes in legal and financial guidelines, key distinctions of wholesale and retail businesses, and much more. Author Alan Weiss delivers expert advice on how to combine minimal overhead with optimal organization to produce maximum income. Every step in the process is clearly explained, including financing, marketing, bookkeeping, establishing your fees, and more. This guide is a comprehensive, one-stop source for everything you need to prosper in the rapidly expanding world of private consultancy. Adopt a pragmatic and profitable strategy to achieve incredible results from your consultancy business Learn to identify and address the most commons issues facing your prospects and clients Leverage technology to reduce labor, maximize profitability, and increase discretionary time Access sample budgets, case studies, references and appendices, downloadable tools and forms, and online resources The modern business landscape presents unique opportunities for those willing to take the leap from corporate offices to home offices. Getting Started in Consulting, Fourth Edition is the must-have guide for anyone seeking to cut their own path to their own consulting business.

Get your idea off the ground. You've got a great idea that will increase revenue or boost productivity--but how do you get the buy-in you need to make it happen? By building a business case that clearly shows your idea's value. That's not always easy: Maybe you're not sure what kind of data your stakeholders will trust. Or perhaps you're intimidated by number crunching. The HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case, written by project management expert Raymond Sheen, gives you the guidance and tools you need to make a strong case. You'll learn how to: * Spell out the business need for your idea * Align your case with strategic goals * Build the right team to shape and test your idea * Calculate the return on investment * Analyze risks and opportunities * Present your case to stakeholders

Motions, rules, and procedures-all the problems of running a successful meeting smoothly and fairly-are covered in this special edition of a famous manual of parliamentary procedure. A clear presentation of the complex Procedure of Motions, clarifications of many technical points, explanatory charts and diagrams have been added to the original 1893 Robert's Rules of Orders to make it especially valuable to clubs, churches, and organizations, of every type and size. For this long-needed task, Rachel Vixman draws on half a century's experience in directing national organizations and teaching parliamentary law. Now President of the New York Metropolitan Chapter, American Institute of Parliamentarians, and Parliamentarian of the New York City Federation of Women's Clubs, she has taught and spoken all over the United States and Canada, and has presided as parliamentarian at many national and state conventions.

Strategic Communication at Work provides the reader with a practical approach to engaging in all types of communication-one-on-one, small group, and large group-to achieve intended results. The framework presented enables readers to make informed decisions that increase the effectiveness of their communication and enhance their credibility. Lennard presents the IMPACT Paradigm-Intending, Messaging, Presence, Attending, Connecting, and Together-in the first part of the book explaining the benefits of using a single framework for all strategic communication. The second part illustrates how to apply these principles and approach interactions with a purposeful mindset, express ideas congruently, and connect with others. The third part offers curated exercises for practicing communication skills, along with specific ways to integrate the paradigm into everyday communication interactions. The text's clear and practical approach will appeal to graduate students of business communication, as well as instructors and professionals interested in improving their communication skills.

Origins and Traditions of Organizational Communication provides a sophisticated overview of the fundamentals of organizational communication as a field of study, examining the field's foundations and providing an assessment of the field to date, explaining and demonstrating a communicational approach to the study of organization. It provides a set of literature reviews on focused topics written by experts in each area, and links organizational communication theory and research to practice. In reviewing foundational management theory, the book analyzes how early to mid-20th-century management theories shaped contemporary organizations, providing students both with background knowledge of these foundational theories and an understanding of their influence on our thinking and our organizational world. Written at an accessible level for early graduate students, yet still sophisticated enough for doctoral students, the book is ideal for students and teachers of organizational communication and communication history. Downloadable ancillary materials include chapter PowerPoints and a set of instructors' materials containing chapter abstracts, glossaries, discussion questions, annotated supplementary readings lists, and practitioners' corners. Please visit www.routledge.com/9781138570313.

Since its publication in 2007, Yes! has shown how small changes can make a big difference to everyone's powers of persuasion - both at work and at home.

Every day, we face the challenge of persuading others to do what we want. But what makes people say 'yes' to our requests? Based on decades of research into the psychology of persuasion, this book reveals many remarkable insights that will help you be more persuasive both at work and at home.

Co-written by the world's most quoted expert on influence, Professor Robert Cialdini, Yes! contains dozens of tips that you wouldn't want to miss out on - all of them scientifically proven to boost your powers of persuasion.

This special tenth Anniversary edition features ten new chapters of updated research and fresh secrets of persuasion. You will find out how to stop your listeners getting bored, what you can do on your commute to increase your influence, and why being second place is worse than being third. Whether you want someone to promote you, take their medicine, reduce their carbon footprint or even give you their vote, Yes! shows how small changes in your approach can have a dramatic effect on your success.

This book demonstrates the power of writing in informal and formal organizations in the past and the present. It shows how writing, despite long lasting criticisms that can be traced back to Plato, and in spite of its frequent definition as a mere recording medium is in fact a creative mode of communication that supports the expression of emotions, the developing knowledge, and the building of strong communities among faraway individuals. The first part of the book illustrates how this has been true historically. The focus on writing as a fundamental mode of communication - the other being speech or the oral mode - is still important in our technology-infused world, where writing seems to have been reduced to short cryptic text messages or tweets. Precisely because of their heavy reliance on technology, current practices are in need of a deeper understanding that focus on deep as opposed to surface features and unveil the four essential mechanisms - objectification, reflecting, specifying, and addressing - that give writing its creative powers. In the second part of the book, we use contemporary case studies and interviews to illustrate how shifting our focus from the media to the mode of communication and focusing on the mechanisms of writing allows us to go beyond current debates about the capabilities of various communication media and to understand better today's communicative practices. This book is an attempt to unveil the powers of writing as well as to highlight the implications for organizations of the potential loss of these powers in today's world where writing-based distributed collaborations, interpersonal relationships, and online communities are key sources of innovation and support for individuals and organizations.

In the fast moving world of the fourth industrial revolution not everyone needs to be a data scientist but everyone should be data literate, with the ability to read, analyze and communicate with data. It is not enough for a business to have the best data if those using it don't understand the right questions to ask or how to use the information generated to make decisions. Be Data Literate is the essential guide to developing the curiosity, creativity and critical thinking necessary to make anyone data literate, without retraining as a data scientist or statistician. With learnings to show development and real-world examples from industries implementing data literacy skills, this book explains how to confidently read and speak the 'language of data' in the modern business environment and everyday life. Be Data Literate is a practical guide to understanding the four levels of analytics, how to analyze data and the key steps to making smarter, data-informed decisions. Written by a founding pioneer and worldwide leading expert on data literacy, this book empowers professionals with the skills they need to succeed in the digital world.

Almost no one had heard of social media a decade ago, but today websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have more than 1 billion users and account for almost 25 percent of Internet use. Practically overnight, social media seems indispensable to our lives--from friendship and dating to news and business. What makes social media so different from traditional media? Answering that question is the key to making social media work for any business, argues Miko?aj Piskorski, one of the world's leading experts on the business of social media. In A Social Strategy, he provides the most convincing answer yet, one backed by original research, data, and case studies from companies such as Nike and American Express. Drawing on his analysis of proprietary data from social media sites, Piskorski argues that the secret of successful ones is that they allow people to fulfill social needs that either can't be met offline or can be met only at much greater cost. This insight provides the key to how companies can leverage social platforms to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies need to help people interact with each other before they will promote products to their friends or help companies in other ways. Done right, a company's social media should benefit customers and the firm. Piskorski calls this "a social strategy," and he describes how companies such as Yelp and Zynga have done it. Groundbreaking and important, A Social Strategy provides not only a story- and data-driven explanation for the explosion of social media but also an invaluable, concrete road map for any company that wants to tap the marketing potential of this remarkable phenomenon.

Networking for Nerds provides a step-by-step guide to understanding how to access hidden professional opportunities through networking. With an emphasis on practical advice on how and why to network, you will learn how to formulate and execute a strategic networking plan that is dynamic, multidimensional, and leverages social media platforms and other networking channels. An invaluable resource for both established and early-career scientists and engineers (as well as networking neophytes!), Networking for Nerds offers concrete insight on crafting professional networks that are mutually beneficial and support the advancement of both your career goals and your scholarly ambitions. Networking does not mean going to one reception or speaking with a few people at one conference, and never contacting them again. Rather, networking involves a spectrum of activities that engages both parties, ensures everyone s value is appropriately communicated, and allows for the exploration of a win-win collaboration of some kind. Written by award-winning entrepreneur and strategic career planning expert Alaina G. Levine, Networking for Nerds is an essential resource for anyone working in scientific and engineering fields looking to enhance their professional planning for a truly fulfilling, exciting, and stimulating career. professional planning for a truly fulfilling, exciting, and stimulating career.Networking for Nerds provides a step-by-step guide to understanding how to access hidden professional opportunities through networking. With an emphasis on practical advice on how and why to network, you will learn how to formulate and execute a strategic networking plan that is dynamic, multidimensional, and leverages social media platforms and other networking channels. An invaluable resource for both established and early-career scientists and engineers (as well as networking neophytes!), Networking for Nerds offers concrete insight on crafting professional networks that are mutually beneficial and support the advancement of both your career goals and your scholarly ambitions. Networking does not mean going to one reception or speaking with a few people at one conference, and never contacting them again. Rather, networking involves a spectrum of activities that engages both parties, ensures everyone s value is appropriately communicated, and allows for the exploration of a win-win collaboration of some kind. Written by award-winning entrepreneur and strategic career planning expert Alaina G. Levine, Networking for Nerds is an essential resource for anyone working in scientific and engineering fields looking to enhance their professional planning for a truly fulfilling, exciting, and stimulating career.

Managing Corporate Social Responsibility offers a strategic, communication-centred approach to integrating CSR into organizations. Drawing from a variety of disciplines and written in a highly accessible style, the book guides readers in a focused progression providing the key points they need to successfully navigate the benefits and implications of managing CSR. * Chapters are organized around a process model for CSR that outlines steps for researching, developing, implementing, and evaluating CSR initiatives * Emphasizes stakeholder engagement as a foundation throughout the CSR Process Model * Discusses ways to maximize the use of social media and traditional media throughout the process * Offers international examples drawn from a variety of industries including: The Forest Stewardship Council, Starbucks Coffee, and IKEA. * Draws upon theories grounded in various disciplines, including public relations, marketing, media, communication, and business

"Meeting Excellence" is a comprehensive resource that provides a wide range of ready-to-use tools that have been developed and tested by a meeting initiative within Novartis Pharmaceuticals. It is based on years of research observing team meetings, examining existing meeting documents, and conducting a number of intensive individual interviews in the U.S. and Europe. This important book offers the information and tools needed to prepare, facilitate, and follow up on all your meetings. Step by step, "Meeting Excellence" shows how to Create an action-focused meeting agenda Ensure that everyone participates in discussion Deal with disruptive and inattentive people Develop a climate of trust among meeting participants Create and deliver effective meeting presentations Stay on track to achieve your meeting goals Achieve clear communication during a multicultural meetingLiven up a dreary and unproductive meetingClose your meeting on an upbeat and positive noteGet action on team action items Improve meeting communications with line managementEvaluate your meeting quickly and effectivelyChoose among various web-based meeting tools

This book explains to those living and working in another country how to identify and develop their Cultural Intelligence, or CQ. Cultural intelligence is an outsider's natural ability to interpret and respond to unfamiliar cultural signals in an appropriate manner. CQ is distinguished by three core features: the head, or the ability to discover new information about a culture; the heart, or one's motivation and confidence in dealing with a culture; and the body, or the capability to adapt actions and behavior so that they are appropriate in a new culture. A manager with a high CQ can enter into new cultural settings-national, professional, organizational, regional-and immediately understand what is happening and why, confidently interact with people, and engage in the right actions. Filled with real-world examples and case studies, this book explains how to assess one's own skills and improve one's CQ.

Never go into an important conversation feeling unheard, unprepared, or uninformed again—apply the proven SISCO method for communication to become a master negotiator, trusted interviewer, and engaging conversationalist.

No matter the conversation, detecting honesty and persuading others to be honest are some of the most valuable skills you can learn. With these skills, you can master your daily conversations and interactions with others. The Strategic Interviewing Skills and Competencies (SISCO) Method will help you see the full picture, have all the facts, and make effective decisions.

Former Navy interrogator, Lena Sisco, created this method during challenging investigative and information-gathering interviews. Her 5-step program focuses human-to-human interaction. When you can gain someone’s trust you can get truth in any scenario. She teaches readers how to validate their gut feeling when they think someone is lying, unassumingly control a conversation, and persuade others to be honest.

These skills are not only applicable in an interrogation room, but they can be relevant in everyday life. In this book, you will learn how to:

• Apply the strategic interviewing skills behind the SISCO method to your everyday life to discover the information and the honest answers you need.
• Create an environment of trust that will facilitate the fact finding necessary to be more effective at your job while encouraging others to be more accountable.
• Control the signals you may or may not be inadvertently sending to others.
• Know the right words to say during a disagreement in order to de-escalate conflict, gain respect, and create a win-win situation

Not only does she teach you techniques and methods to negotiate and interview with confidence, she shares the neuroscience behind why they are effective. You will be able to interpret patterns of behavior and influence positive behaviors in others, as well as enhancing the effectiveness of your communication practices; both verbal and nonverbal.

Ask the right questions and get improved, sustained employee performance

Since technology has made it easy to access, share, and distribute company data, many managers avoid live interaction, instead relying on emails, text messages, Web-based seminars to manage their employees. But although technology has changed, people have not. There is still a need for effective face-to-face communication; managers need to have the ability to ask the right questions and use the answers to find solutions.

"Questions That Get Results" is an innovative, powerful resource that provides managers with the questions that lead to real answers for motivating employees, minimizing conflicting priorities, maximizing working relationships, building trust, holding the team accountable, coaching for greater performance, selling ideas, creating change, hiring the best candidates, and negotiating solutions to internal and external conflicts.Each chapter profiles a manager who is struggling to communicate, an otherwise successful leader who is simply missing an element in their managerial toolkitFollowing each profile are practical tools that will assist any manager faced with a similar situationTogether the authors train approximately 30,000 professionals per year

Increase your effectiveness and bring out the best in your employees by learning the "Questions That Get Results."

Understand content marketing best practice from a new perspective with exclusive insight and contributions from leading academics, experts, global thought leaders and influencers in the industry on key topics, to create a truly unique resource - including a foreword by Tom Goodwin and bonus online chapters. Marketers everywhere are talking about content, but not everyone is saying the same thing. Some professionals love content and believe it has revolutionized the practice of marketing. To others, it is mere hype: a new name for what marketers have always done. The Definitive Guide to Strategic Content Marketing brings together all these diverse perspectives, structuring them around useful key topics that provide insight into the multi-faceted nature of content marketing, weaving together different voices to present a balanced view of the subject. Grouping the discussion around relevant subjects such as content monetization, native advertising, visuals vs video, and the challenge of measuring results, this book allows readers to cherry-pick the most useful aspects of each discussion according to their interests and apply it to their own marketing initiatives. With a foreword written by Tom Goodwin (author of Digital Darwinism and EVP, Head of Innovation at Zenith USA) and containing contributions from brands such as GE, General Motors, HSBC, Football Association, Diageo and Pernod Ricard, plus agencies including Oglivy Group UK, Havas, Zenith, Vizeum, Accenture, this book is a truly unique resource. Insight and contributions from A-list industry professionals and influencers, include: Tim Lindsay, Bob Garfield, Bob Hoffman, Faris Yakob, Thomas Kolster, Rebecca Lieb, Tia Castagno, Scott Donaton, Rober Rose, David Berkowitz, Professors Mara Einstein, Mark Ritson and Douglas Rushkoff.

Most people find proposal writing to be tedious and time-consuming--and their documents show it, but proposal writing is about more than checking off boxes on a list of requirements. Writing a winning proposal is vital to getting a 'yes' on your next bid. That's why Tom Sant, a proposal consultant for Global 500 companies and the creator of widely used proposal automation systems, has spent his career providing hands-on guidance for crafting powerful proposals and RFPs. In Persuasive Business Proposals, he shares the same insights with you--teaching you what a good proposal is not and explaining the value of a proposal as an important and effective sales tool for driving business. You'll learn how to: attract prospects' attention and speak to their needs; ask essential questions for qualifying opportunities; "power up" cover letters and executive summaries; overcome "value paranoia"; incorporate proof into a proposal; and write winning renewal contracts. With clear instructions as well as before-and-after samples, the third edition of Persuasive Business Proposals takes you step-by-step through a highly effective process for writing customized packages that capture new business.

The nation's premier communications expert shares his wisdom on how the words we choose can change the course of business, of politics, and of life in this country In Words That Work, Luntz offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the tactical use of words and phrases affects what we buy, who we vote for, and even what we believe in. With chapters like "The Ten Rules of Successful Communication" and "The 21 Words and Phrases for the 21st Century," he examines how choosing the right words is essential. Nobody is in a better position to explain than Frank Luntz: He has used his knowledge of words to help more than two dozen Fortune 500 companies grow. Hell tell us why Rupert Murdoch's six-billion-dollar decision to buy DirectTV was smart because satellite was more cutting edge than "digital cable," and why pharmaceutical companies transitioned their message from "treatment" to "prevention" and "wellness." If you ever wanted to learn how to talk your way out of a traffic ticket or talk your way into a raise, this book's for you.

There is a growing interest in corporate whistleblowing, but no comprehensive research has yet focused on public relations practice. Drawing on extensive research on Fortune 1000 and Wilshire 5000 corporations, this book reveals executives' attitudes and relationships toward their organizations and their impact on whistleblowing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it reveals that wrongdoing in corporations and the privileges of power coexist. Top-ranking public relations executives, who are mostly white and male, are more likely to be aware of wrongdoing but no more likely to blow the whistle, fundamentally due to their positive relationship with their employers. Using the new lens of evolutionary theory, this study explains whistleblowing, retaliation, and relationships, and in the light of the connection between whistleblowing behavior and executives' attitudes, it proposes a new theory of the phenomenon of Golden Handcuffs. As public attitudes to corporations, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and transparency harden, these findings have serious implications for companies globally. Researchers, scholars, and advanced students in public relations, organizational communication, corporate communication, strategic communication, corporate reputation, and CSR will find this book full of revealing insights.

One of the biggest myths that plagues the business world today is that our ability to network depends on having the "gift-of-gab." You don't have to be outgoing to be successful at networking. You don't have to become a relentless self-promoter. In fact, you don't have to act like an extrovert at all. The truth is that when introverts are armed with a plan that lets them be their authentic selves, they make the best networkers. Matthew Pollard, an introvert himself, draws on over a decade of research and real-world examples to provide an actionable blueprint for introverted networking. A sequel to Pollard's international bestseller The Introvert's Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone, this book masterfully confronts the stigma around the so-called extroverted arena of networking. In The Introvert's Edge to Networking, you'll discover how to: Overcome your fear and discomfort when networking Turn networking into a repeatable system Leverage your innate introverted strengths Target and connect with top influencers Leverage the power of virtual and social networking The introvert's roadmap to success doesn't look like the extroverts, we're different and we should embrace that. Whether you're a small business owner struggling to make a living or a professional who's hit a career plateau, The Introvert's Edge to Networking is your path to a higher income and a rolodex of powerful connections.