I read three books recently that I thought would be worth reviewing here. They fall into that category of “business” books that I basically never read. I came upon these three for different reasons, and although I’m not interested in adopting their primary points of view, there were tidbits that were worth the read (or a skim, in one case) in the end.
The first book, called “Made to Stick:Why Some Ideas Survive, and Others Die.” I picked it up by happenstance, I think because I had NOSI on my mind, and I was thinking about how to talk to people about open source and nonprofits. It’s an interesting book, with a basic premise. in order to get an idea to stick, the idea needs to be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, tug at Emotions, and tell a Story (their acronym is SUCCES). They do a good job of using examples for each of these things (like why Southwest Airlines is so successful, and why the Kidney Heist urban legend sticks so well, among other stories. It’s worth a read, I think, if you have a message to get across.
The second book, called “Elements of Persuasion” is a book that was sent to me for free - someone thought that I might want to review it on my blog. This was the book I skimmed, because, honestly, I was bored after the first chapter. It basically only focuses on the last “S” part of the first book: storytelling. It uses examples and such, but it is not anywhere near as engaging and readable as “Made to Stick.” There ae a few interesting and useful tips, but if you are only going to buy one book about getting your message across, buy the first one, not this one.
Although in most cases, these books are designed for people who want to get more business (the first book not so much - they have some good nonprofit examples.) The third book is in a bit of a different category - not about landing more business, per se, but making more money. It’s called “Value Based Fees.” It’s written by this guy, Alan Weiss, who has written the “Ultimate Consulting” series, which seems to be focused primarily on making a lot of money in consulting. I would never have bought this book if it didn’t come recommended by a colleague who I respected. I mean, the cover has all these dollar bills on it! To explain a bit - he does big money consulting with huge Fortune 500 companies, and does projects for hundreds of thousands of dollars that result in the companies saving, or making, millions. A very different context than I, or most people reading this work in, for sure.
All of that said, he had some very interesting perspectives. One of which is something I would love to talk with other consultants (and clients, too) about. He thinks that time-based billing is bad. His reasons are interesting. On one hand, he feels that consultants should base their fees on the value they bring to the consulting relationship, not the time spent. He feels that there is an inherent conflict of interest in working for time - it is in the consultants interest to spend more time on the project, regardless of the outcome. And he thinks that deliverables are also problematic. He thinks that ultimately, all consulting relationships should boil down to the ultimate results for the client. His examples are things like saving millions by reducing employee turnover, increasing profits by streamlining processes, etc. Not about how many hours you spent at the client office, or how many reports you wrote. Really, what he thinks is that these forms of billing reduce the fees you can charge.
It’s a little odd, because mainly what he’s interested in is making more money. But some of his ideas are interesting, especially the notion of setting the fees on the value you bring, rather than the time you spend. I’m not sure how to make the translation to nonprofit consuting, but I do find it interesting how blanket his rejection of time-based fees are. And I do, certainly see his point about conflict of interest - if we charge by the hour, we have an interest in spending more time.
My favorite consulting book is still “The Consultant’s Calling” which, in some ways is diametrically opposed to the values of this book. But, there are some useful ideas to mull over.
