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What Clients Love: A Field Guide to Growing Your Business
Harry Beckwith is the author of Selling the Invisible and The Invisible Touch, both marketing classics. Now he applies his unparalleled clarity, insight, humor, and expertise to a new age of mass communication and mass confusion. What Clients Love will help you stand out from the crowd-and sell anything to anyone. From making a pitch to building a brand, from designing a logo to closing a sale, this is a field guide to take with you to the front lines of today's business battles. Filled with real tales of success and failure, it shows you how * Fly a Jefferson Airplane. Everyone knows there's a Jefferson Monument, but a Jefferson Airplane? A brilliant, attention-grabbing name often includes the unexpected and the absurd. * Strike with a Velvet Sledgehammer. It's not a hard sell. It's not exactly soft. Selling well means finding the fine line between modesty and bragging, and driving the message home. * Speak to the Frenchman on the Street. A French mathematician believed that no theory was complete until you could explain it to the first person you meet on the street. Marketers, ecoutez! * Dress Julia Roberts. Why one scene from Pretty Woman can enlighten you more than a full year of study at a top business school. What Clients Love will help you get focused, stay focused, and follow the essential rules to success-by doing the little things right and the big things even better.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
45 people are currently reading
568 people want to read
About the author
Harry Beckwith
34 books68 followersHarry Beckwith heads Beckwith Partners, a marketing firm that advises twenty-three Fortune 200 clients and dozens of venture-capitalized start-ups on branding and positioning. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford, Beckwith is an internationally acclaimed speaker. He is the bestselling author of five books, which, collectively, have been translated into twenty-three languages.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 11, 2017
"What Clients Love" offers and delivers exactly what is promised to us, where Harry Beckwith has followed a no-nonsense approach and provides us insights into how to appease our clients and build relationships with them. In this global market of high competition, the only way to standout is by offering superior service to the customers and ensuring that they are always satisfied. Unfortunately, this book was published in 2003 and the best examples the author could come up with were Yahoo!, Google, etc. and not companies like Amazon, Apple who always go the extra mile to "WOW" their customers.
While the book manages to keep the points short and simple with anecdotes and analogies, it is a bit outdated in terms of the designing and brand development part where the author thinks companies should focus more on the logos and the taglines. Present day designers and marketing experts think otherwise and believe in simplicity of the brand and design.
The key takeaways are:
1. Clients/customers love to be given importance and that is exactly what a company should strive to do. It should develop a culture where customer service should be the distinguishing factor.
2. Admit your weaknesses, even if it is to your customer and shore up that weakness. One must always strive to develop a long-standing relationship with their clients by following a straight forward approach.
3. Always Soft-sell. Hard-Selling damages your reputation in the long run. Once again Harry re-iterates the importance of building trust with your customers/target audience and selling by using subtle language and non-aggressive techniques rather than bludgeoning your targets into submission.
While the book manages to keep the points short and simple with anecdotes and analogies, it is a bit outdated in terms of the designing and brand development part where the author thinks companies should focus more on the logos and the taglines. Present day designers and marketing experts think otherwise and believe in simplicity of the brand and design.
The key takeaways are:
1. Clients/customers love to be given importance and that is exactly what a company should strive to do. It should develop a culture where customer service should be the distinguishing factor.
2. Admit your weaknesses, even if it is to your customer and shore up that weakness. One must always strive to develop a long-standing relationship with their clients by following a straight forward approach.
3. Always Soft-sell. Hard-Selling damages your reputation in the long run. Once again Harry re-iterates the importance of building trust with your customers/target audience and selling by using subtle language and non-aggressive techniques rather than bludgeoning your targets into submission.
January 2, 2021
Concise tips for improving business practices and client relationships.
February 28, 2013
Не очень понравилось :( Немного про нейминг и позиционирование, немного про клиентоориентацию, немного про качество услуг.
Книга явно послабее, чем "Продавая незримое". Написано очень "лирично", т.е. избыток воды.
Маркетинговых идей из книги нарыть можно, но... все равно как-то всё вторично, и, пожалуй, уже и не оригинально :(
Книга явно послабее, чем "Продавая незримое". Написано очень "лирично", т.е. избыток воды.
Маркетинговых идей из книги нарыть можно, но... все равно как-то всё вторично, и, пожалуй, уже и не оригинально :(
November 16, 2017
An insightful look at what clients love about service providers. It touches on marketing, sales, service, and client relations. Few (if any) studies are cited, so it seems most of the assertions are based on Beckwith's experience and opinions. It's more disjointed and meandering than logically organized. It isn't as astute as Selling the Invisible, which I highly recommend.
Drawing Your Blueprints
"Clients feel about a service the way they feel about the provider."
Ask yourself, "If I ran a competing firm, how would I beat ours? Which weakness would I attack? What would I do to distinguish this firm?" Then eliminate that weakness.
Ask yourself, "If we were starting from scratch, what would we do differently?" Do that.
Perceptions create expectations, and those influence the experience. Use marketing to shape expectations. Create the expectation that you're skilled, reliable, trustworthy, etc. through everything that touches prospects.
"First impressions are eternal." They become self-fulfilling prophecies. Stereotypes about you and your industry become lasting opinions. Avoid using labels and descriptions that play into negative stereotypes, and use ones that play into better stereotypes.
Prospects "hear from bad companies, and hear about good ones." "Advertising comforts prospects; they assume the company must be at least good." "Advertising warms every marketing and sales effort that follows."
Word-of-mouth is overrated. It's often PR or advertising that deserves the credit, because people refer those about whom they've heard through PR or advertising.
Clear Communication. Trend: Option and Information Overload
Don't thank a publication for running your article, because it sounds like they did you a favor. Instead, praise them for their help.
Testimonials work when they're from a person with special authority and credibility. They also work if they're on video, so the viewer can evaluate sincerity, passion, credibility. In all other cases, testimonials don't work. People assume anonymous testimonials are false.
Americans assume that people with an uncommon, scholarly mastery of a subject lack common sense and a common touch. Find a common way to communicate your uncommon skill.
Americans don't associate academic credentials, awards, or the expert's conviction and confidence with expertise. The expert's ability to communicate clearly is the strongest evidence.
When a publication accepts your article, try to dominate the publication by being published at least 4 times a year, and advertise in other months.
Offer evidence instead of words. Offer compelling stories - case studies, awards, business growth, and achievements. Replace every adjective like "excellent" with proof.
People who reveal something negative about their service win more business. People assume that those who reveal weaknesses are truthful and trustworthy. Revealing weakness also charms and disarms, helping establish relationships.
What the best salespeople sell (in order): Themselves. Their company. Their service or product. Price. Ordinary salespeople sell the reverse.
If your marketing isn't warming every sales call, fix it. Until then, call only prospects you've already warmed.
The key in presenting isn't presenting your ideas well, it's presenting your people well.
When presenting, look people in the eyes, where relationships are made.
Don't say anything negative or critical, or you'll be branded as negative. You're selling a feeling, and you need the audience to feel good.
A Compelling Story. Trend: The Decline of Trust
By having an impressive office, you give clients the sense that they've arrived. They feel they belong, and feel important. Your office reminds your clients how special they are.
Create a community of your clients, online or offline. Connecting them helps connect them to you.
Build more into your service - warmth, connection, friendship, rest, status, and community. People pay extra for these. Americans pay extra for status, to feel special.
Clients take customer service mistakes personally. In their minds, you didn't care about them. Reassure your clients that they're important - every chance you get.
Loyalty comes not from marketing, but from personal sacrifice. Don't mass-mail or bribe; serve. Identify your key 20% of clients who provide 80% of your revenue, and make them feel appreciated.
It's the time required to communicate that matters; not the note, email or call, itself.
The first 5 seconds - the greeting, welcome, receptionist's answer - influence customer satisfaction more than any other act. Clients love feeling welcome.
4 Rules for Choosing Clients
• "Trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, it will be."
• "Bad clients don't produce minimal returns; they produce losses."
• "If a prospect is most interested in cost, you will never be happy and always be vulnerable"
• "You cannot cut a bad deal with a good person or a good deal with a bad person."
Don't attack your industry in your marketing. It makes buyers less likely to buy from you too.
The top reason clients remain loyal is comfort. With so many messages and choices they can't see or inspect, and with trust declining, clients feel uncomfortable.
To make clients comfortable
• Have a familiar name and brand
• Look and sound expert (through appearance and publishing)
• Be clear about who you are and why they should choose you
• Have integrity; be predictable
• Express genuine interest
• Show passion
A Reassuring Brand. Trend: The Rise of Invisibles and Intangibles
Optimists prosper because they're positive, even when they're wrong, which is the way of improvement.
Drawing Your Blueprints
"Clients feel about a service the way they feel about the provider."
Ask yourself, "If I ran a competing firm, how would I beat ours? Which weakness would I attack? What would I do to distinguish this firm?" Then eliminate that weakness.
Ask yourself, "If we were starting from scratch, what would we do differently?" Do that.
Perceptions create expectations, and those influence the experience. Use marketing to shape expectations. Create the expectation that you're skilled, reliable, trustworthy, etc. through everything that touches prospects.
"First impressions are eternal." They become self-fulfilling prophecies. Stereotypes about you and your industry become lasting opinions. Avoid using labels and descriptions that play into negative stereotypes, and use ones that play into better stereotypes.
Prospects "hear from bad companies, and hear about good ones." "Advertising comforts prospects; they assume the company must be at least good." "Advertising warms every marketing and sales effort that follows."
Word-of-mouth is overrated. It's often PR or advertising that deserves the credit, because people refer those about whom they've heard through PR or advertising.
Clear Communication. Trend: Option and Information Overload
Don't thank a publication for running your article, because it sounds like they did you a favor. Instead, praise them for their help.
Testimonials work when they're from a person with special authority and credibility. They also work if they're on video, so the viewer can evaluate sincerity, passion, credibility. In all other cases, testimonials don't work. People assume anonymous testimonials are false.
Americans assume that people with an uncommon, scholarly mastery of a subject lack common sense and a common touch. Find a common way to communicate your uncommon skill.
Americans don't associate academic credentials, awards, or the expert's conviction and confidence with expertise. The expert's ability to communicate clearly is the strongest evidence.
When a publication accepts your article, try to dominate the publication by being published at least 4 times a year, and advertise in other months.
Offer evidence instead of words. Offer compelling stories - case studies, awards, business growth, and achievements. Replace every adjective like "excellent" with proof.
People who reveal something negative about their service win more business. People assume that those who reveal weaknesses are truthful and trustworthy. Revealing weakness also charms and disarms, helping establish relationships.
What the best salespeople sell (in order): Themselves. Their company. Their service or product. Price. Ordinary salespeople sell the reverse.
If your marketing isn't warming every sales call, fix it. Until then, call only prospects you've already warmed.
The key in presenting isn't presenting your ideas well, it's presenting your people well.
When presenting, look people in the eyes, where relationships are made.
Don't say anything negative or critical, or you'll be branded as negative. You're selling a feeling, and you need the audience to feel good.
A Compelling Story. Trend: The Decline of Trust
By having an impressive office, you give clients the sense that they've arrived. They feel they belong, and feel important. Your office reminds your clients how special they are.
Create a community of your clients, online or offline. Connecting them helps connect them to you.
Build more into your service - warmth, connection, friendship, rest, status, and community. People pay extra for these. Americans pay extra for status, to feel special.
Clients take customer service mistakes personally. In their minds, you didn't care about them. Reassure your clients that they're important - every chance you get.
Loyalty comes not from marketing, but from personal sacrifice. Don't mass-mail or bribe; serve. Identify your key 20% of clients who provide 80% of your revenue, and make them feel appreciated.
It's the time required to communicate that matters; not the note, email or call, itself.
The first 5 seconds - the greeting, welcome, receptionist's answer - influence customer satisfaction more than any other act. Clients love feeling welcome.
4 Rules for Choosing Clients
• "Trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, it will be."
• "Bad clients don't produce minimal returns; they produce losses."
• "If a prospect is most interested in cost, you will never be happy and always be vulnerable"
• "You cannot cut a bad deal with a good person or a good deal with a bad person."
Don't attack your industry in your marketing. It makes buyers less likely to buy from you too.
The top reason clients remain loyal is comfort. With so many messages and choices they can't see or inspect, and with trust declining, clients feel uncomfortable.
To make clients comfortable
• Have a familiar name and brand
• Look and sound expert (through appearance and publishing)
• Be clear about who you are and why they should choose you
• Have integrity; be predictable
• Express genuine interest
• Show passion
A Reassuring Brand. Trend: The Rise of Invisibles and Intangibles
Optimists prosper because they're positive, even when they're wrong, which is the way of improvement.
December 9, 2021
Buen libro de vendas, de esta lectura me gustaría destacar la importancia de las relaciones humanas como interactuamos, como nos posicionamos y cuáles són nuestros objetivos.
Debemos saber tratar con respeto y saber escuchar a nuestros interlocutores y el mercado para alcanzar logros de la forma más eficiente.
La lectura nos sirve para ver que pueden variar muchas cosas pero los fundamentos de las relaciones humanas y lo que la gente quiere para sentirse valorado sigue siendo en la mayoría de los aspectos lo mismo.
Debemos saber tratar con respeto y saber escuchar a nuestros interlocutores y el mercado para alcanzar logros de la forma más eficiente.
La lectura nos sirve para ver que pueden variar muchas cosas pero los fundamentos de las relaciones humanas y lo que la gente quiere para sentirse valorado sigue siendo en la mayoría de los aspectos lo mismo.
June 22, 2019
This book is a must read for all entrepreneurs and service industry professionals. If you provide services to clients and customers, you will get great insights from this book as to how to take your offering to a higher level than your competitors. I also read You, Inc. by this author. This was much better.
December 18, 2023
Anyone with a business needs to read this.
August 26, 2008
It was a good read while Photoshop or Lightroom was batching photos, or my MacBook was just running plain slow. It asks a lot of questions, prodding the reader to be honest with how one is running their business.
How do we want our lives, at work and outside of it, to be different?
Never mind what we have done or others have done: What is possible?
What would clients think was remarkable?
If we were starting from scratch today, what would we do differently?
How would we organize ourselves to better serve clients?
What would we add?
What would we eliminate?
If we were competing against us, where would we attack us?
How do we shore up that weakness?
Which ten or twelve clients, friends, industry insiders or other individuals can give us the most insight about improving our business?
Is our brand unique? Is it vivid? Is it simple?
Does it communicate a clear and powerful message, in the way we most want and need to communicate?
I need a mentor/friend to keep me to task on fulfilling all my answers to these questions.
And, finally,
10 Rules Of Business Manners
1. Always wait a split second after a person finishes talking before you speak.
2. Listen with your entire body.
3. Be positive.
4. Speak well of others.
5. Memorize names.
6. Never try to impress. The effort always shows, and it diminishes you.
7. Never make your conversations - particularly on cell phones - public.
8. Praise but never flatter. Praise makes people feel good; flattery makes them feel manipulated.
9. A simple rule whenever you are in doubt: Be kind.
How do we want our lives, at work and outside of it, to be different?
Never mind what we have done or others have done: What is possible?
What would clients think was remarkable?
If we were starting from scratch today, what would we do differently?
How would we organize ourselves to better serve clients?
What would we add?
What would we eliminate?
If we were competing against us, where would we attack us?
How do we shore up that weakness?
Which ten or twelve clients, friends, industry insiders or other individuals can give us the most insight about improving our business?
Is our brand unique? Is it vivid? Is it simple?
Does it communicate a clear and powerful message, in the way we most want and need to communicate?
I need a mentor/friend to keep me to task on fulfilling all my answers to these questions.
And, finally,
10 Rules Of Business Manners
1. Always wait a split second after a person finishes talking before you speak.
2. Listen with your entire body.
3. Be positive.
4. Speak well of others.
5. Memorize names.
6. Never try to impress. The effort always shows, and it diminishes you.
7. Never make your conversations - particularly on cell phones - public.
8. Praise but never flatter. Praise makes people feel good; flattery makes them feel manipulated.
9. A simple rule whenever you are in doubt: Be kind.
August 29, 2014
As a fan of Malcolm Gladwell, and after my friend Hugh extolled the virtues of Powells Bookstore in Portland, I knew I was on to a find when Beckwith mentioned both Gladwell and Powells in the first four pages of his latest contribution to business strategy.
I'd been overwhelmed by the sheer number of savvy practical insights and tips he offered in Selling the Invisible {recommended to me several years ago by that unerring arbiter of quality, Linda Levy}. Maintaining such an intensity of fresh information in a follow-up volume is no mean feat, but Beckwith delivers in spades.
Perhaps I just have a bias for attorneys who defected from the legal profession to craft alternate creative careers. Bias or not, anyone required to please and satisfy clients will find foundation strategies for relationship development, canny solutions to current client expectations, and valuable business-building checklists in this worthwhile book.
I'd been overwhelmed by the sheer number of savvy practical insights and tips he offered in Selling the Invisible {recommended to me several years ago by that unerring arbiter of quality, Linda Levy}. Maintaining such an intensity of fresh information in a follow-up volume is no mean feat, but Beckwith delivers in spades.
Perhaps I just have a bias for attorneys who defected from the legal profession to craft alternate creative careers. Bias or not, anyone required to please and satisfy clients will find foundation strategies for relationship development, canny solutions to current client expectations, and valuable business-building checklists in this worthwhile book.
November 29, 2015
Initially, I was put off by the structure of this book - short 1-2 page anecdotes ending in an aphorism on business. After a while, though, I found the combined wisdom to be very in line with my experience in business, and the advice to be clearly written and insightful. This would be a great business book for someone just starting out. I wish I had read it years ago.
July 13, 2008
What a snoozer. I tried to stay with this, but I couldn't do it. I was listening to the audiobook, and the author himself was narrating. Perhapsy because of his annoying voice, that also didn't help. It just seemed to "pie in the sky" when he calls it a "Field Guide". I don't think so.
November 17, 2008
An awesome book for business
Read
September 14, 2010AWESOME book on what servicing clients means. Written in bit-sized memorable anecdotes. One of those book you should read every other year to stay on top of what service means.
August 5, 2016
I'm a fan of Selling The Invisible and The Invisible Touch, two of Harry Beckwith's other titles. Unfortunately, What Clients Love just doesn't match up to either of those books.
July 23, 2012
Useful, but I preferred Beckwith's You, Inc.
October 4, 2014
Short bytes on selling and marketing of services. Good for people in business who need quick reminders.
March 17, 2013
Read this after Selling The Invisible. Here Harry shares lessons he learned since that book.
March 30, 2013
A should-read book on customer services for knowledge workers, managers, executives, and entrepreneurs.
October 1, 2013
Reading the book a second time ten years after the first in 2003 shows the premise is well founded, still relevant and highly recommend if you are in any kind of business.
September 7, 2015
Great stuff with good tips and a quick read. Interesting that when I called Beckwith's office, his staff did not handle my call as he advocates in his books.
June 29, 2025
This book discusses a multitude of client topics. The writing is lucid and the thoughts are practical. As a busy person, I appreciate the lack of writing fluff.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews