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Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice
“What’s so compelling about Mr. Baker is that he’s an expert on being an expert.” —Carl Richards, New York Times
The Business of Expertise, David’s previous book, set the stage by suggesting a narrow focus and then capitalizing on the patterns that emerge from repeated application of your expertise. This book builds on that work by suggesting how to craft a consulting practice with those insights.
Rather than a broad philosophical treatise, this book is a very practical how-to that meets practitioners in the field. It’s a handbook on the nuts and bolts of application in the actual world of helping your clients in a sustainable way.
Essentially, it’s a field manual that helps you build a $1M+ per person consulting practice.
The Business of Expertise, David’s previous book, set the stage by suggesting a narrow focus and then capitalizing on the patterns that emerge from repeated application of your expertise. This book builds on that work by suggesting how to craft a consulting practice with those insights.
Rather than a broad philosophical treatise, this book is a very practical how-to that meets practitioners in the field. It’s a handbook on the nuts and bolts of application in the actual world of helping your clients in a sustainable way.
Essentially, it’s a field manual that helps you build a $1M+ per person consulting practice.
187 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 10, 2023
342 people are currently reading
236 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 14, 2024
Nekoliko odličnih poglavlja, ali i dosta fillera za ovako kratku knjigu.
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June 10, 2024"The consulting life is a constant challenge. You're standing naked in front of people who've tried their best to figure it out but are stuck. You are with them, but you are pushing them upstream into uncomfortable places. You're a human with all your own challenges, but you have let them feed off your own (sometimes contrived) confidence.
What a life it is to get paid to think and talk and write. I hope yo realize how fortunate you are" (viii).
"Seven things are always true:
-The expert has a point of view (or perspective).
-The expert is concise.
-The expert is believable.
-The expert can answer follow-up questions without choking.
-The expert seems confident.
-The expert holds many principles subject to later modifications.
-The expert - in a work setting - believes the "how" is just as important as the "what" (2).
"The goal is to secure more opportunity than you have capacity to serve, because the delta between the two represents your ability to say 'no' an maintain more control over your client base" (9).
"If you lose your confidence for longer than brief intermittent periods, you are doomed as an advisor. Clients want to listen to advisors who have a provisional POV and not advisors who are too hesitant with a declared perspective. This requires a certain degree of mental health" (15).
"You must care a little less about winning the business than the prospect wants you to take him on as a client" (25).
"The more insight you publish for free, the less you need to invest in the sale" (25).
"The better your positioning, the easier it is to give insight away" (26).
"No middle ground: free to prospects... or high fees to clients" (26).
"Don't care more than the client cares, even though it will pain you to do so" (86).
"Clients can't be fully invested in the process-and they're definitely not going to learn what they should-if you step in and do everything for them. They need to demonstrate the initiative, learn how to make better decisions, and experience the ramifications of those, which includes success an failure" (134).
What a life it is to get paid to think and talk and write. I hope yo realize how fortunate you are" (viii).
"Seven things are always true:
-The expert has a point of view (or perspective).
-The expert is concise.
-The expert is believable.
-The expert can answer follow-up questions without choking.
-The expert seems confident.
-The expert holds many principles subject to later modifications.
-The expert - in a work setting - believes the "how" is just as important as the "what" (2).
"The goal is to secure more opportunity than you have capacity to serve, because the delta between the two represents your ability to say 'no' an maintain more control over your client base" (9).
"If you lose your confidence for longer than brief intermittent periods, you are doomed as an advisor. Clients want to listen to advisors who have a provisional POV and not advisors who are too hesitant with a declared perspective. This requires a certain degree of mental health" (15).
"You must care a little less about winning the business than the prospect wants you to take him on as a client" (25).
"The more insight you publish for free, the less you need to invest in the sale" (25).
"The better your positioning, the easier it is to give insight away" (26).
"No middle ground: free to prospects... or high fees to clients" (26).
"Don't care more than the client cares, even though it will pain you to do so" (86).
"Clients can't be fully invested in the process-and they're definitely not going to learn what they should-if you step in and do everything for them. They need to demonstrate the initiative, learn how to make better decisions, and experience the ramifications of those, which includes success an failure" (134).
May 22, 2023
David Baker is an expert on expertise, and I enjoy his work. He writes in the introduction: “I want you to be like the physician who (hesitantly) hurts patients in pursuit of making them well.” He also wants to curb the “malpractice so prevalent in consulting.” I especially agree with these aspects of being an expert:
"You care more about doing the right thing than about making everybody love you all the time. You’re terrified of irrelevance and so are always trying to reinvent yourself. To you,
Future-proofing is like mowing the lawn in that it’s never quite done for good.
You can stare the prospect of losing everything and starting over in the face without flinching."
I also loved this:
"First, it’s hard to be that present in a client relationship and retain your objectivity. The longer you are around, the more you are part of the problem and not the solution.mSecond, clients will not pay a premium for ongoing presence, long term. They will only pay a premium for episodic presence."
I found this insight particularly relevant:
"Maintaining relevance doesn’t necessarily mean that you are consistently relevant to the same people. …you may need a different audience if you want to remain relevant to anybody. …you will even lose part of your audience in that process. Just be sure it’s because they can’t keep up and not because they quit learning from you. This is one of the larger tensions I have struggled to navigate."
I struggle with this as well.
He quotes Peter Drucker: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” But I’m not convinced Drucker ever said or wrote that. His view was far more nuanced. After all, he’s the one that wrote profoundly about the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. I have some other quibbles, such as I think there’s too much focus on scope of work and not transformations, which is what customers are really buying from experts. But these points are marginal and don’t detract from Baker’s many insights. I recommend this book to any knowledge worker, especially business advisors.
"You care more about doing the right thing than about making everybody love you all the time. You’re terrified of irrelevance and so are always trying to reinvent yourself. To you,
Future-proofing is like mowing the lawn in that it’s never quite done for good.
You can stare the prospect of losing everything and starting over in the face without flinching."
I also loved this:
"First, it’s hard to be that present in a client relationship and retain your objectivity. The longer you are around, the more you are part of the problem and not the solution.mSecond, clients will not pay a premium for ongoing presence, long term. They will only pay a premium for episodic presence."
I found this insight particularly relevant:
"Maintaining relevance doesn’t necessarily mean that you are consistently relevant to the same people. …you may need a different audience if you want to remain relevant to anybody. …you will even lose part of your audience in that process. Just be sure it’s because they can’t keep up and not because they quit learning from you. This is one of the larger tensions I have struggled to navigate."
I struggle with this as well.
He quotes Peter Drucker: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” But I’m not convinced Drucker ever said or wrote that. His view was far more nuanced. After all, he’s the one that wrote profoundly about the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. I have some other quibbles, such as I think there’s too much focus on scope of work and not transformations, which is what customers are really buying from experts. But these points are marginal and don’t detract from Baker’s many insights. I recommend this book to any knowledge worker, especially business advisors.
April 24, 2023
Another fantastic bit of perspective from one of the most respected advisors in the business. I've been following Baker for years through his newsletter and his 2Bobs podcast and despite my familiarity with his thinking and his work, I still found something new and valuable here.
I don't think of myself as an advisor first, but it's a piece of what my team and I do, so this is relevant stuff. As of now, a few days removed from finishing the book for the first time, these are my takeaways:
- An expert is simply someone who is paid for their knowledge.
- He repeats his positioning logic, which is that you should have somewhere between 10 and 200 competitors and 2,000-10,000 potential clients.
- Insight (saleable advice) comes from repeatedly encountering and solving the same problems. That's why you can't always do new work and must build a position.
- There's great value in generating some kind of proprietary research or IP that can be sold. This should be rooted in your unique POV as an expert.
- Prepayment makes for better-aligned incentives. Consider holding prepayment in escrow.
- There's a danger to caring too much, and especially caring more than the client themselves care.
- Sometimes you'll need to annoy or even anger your clients. That's part of what you're paid for.
- If you do too much implementation, you end up losing your outsider perspective and can't give the best advice anymore.
- Client education is a really big deal and should be thought of as the start of the engagement.
- Productizing services can help because they are easier to sell, easier to succeed, and gathers insights and data across engagements which can lead to those research products/IP.
I don't think of myself as an advisor first, but it's a piece of what my team and I do, so this is relevant stuff. As of now, a few days removed from finishing the book for the first time, these are my takeaways:
- An expert is simply someone who is paid for their knowledge.
- He repeats his positioning logic, which is that you should have somewhere between 10 and 200 competitors and 2,000-10,000 potential clients.
- Insight (saleable advice) comes from repeatedly encountering and solving the same problems. That's why you can't always do new work and must build a position.
- There's great value in generating some kind of proprietary research or IP that can be sold. This should be rooted in your unique POV as an expert.
- Prepayment makes for better-aligned incentives. Consider holding prepayment in escrow.
- There's a danger to caring too much, and especially caring more than the client themselves care.
- Sometimes you'll need to annoy or even anger your clients. That's part of what you're paid for.
- If you do too much implementation, you end up losing your outsider perspective and can't give the best advice anymore.
- Client education is a really big deal and should be thought of as the start of the engagement.
- Productizing services can help because they are easier to sell, easier to succeed, and gathers insights and data across engagements which can lead to those research products/IP.
September 16, 2023
At this point, I think I would read anything that David C. Baker authored...a cookbook, a furniture assembly manual, anything. I read his book The Business of Expertise last year and was immediately a fan of his in-depth analysis of being an expert. Who else has written a book on being an expert and actually known what they were talking about?
I am a CPA who is trying to build and add a consulting practice to my firm. I started this book when I was too busy to finish it quickly and recently picked it back up again. This book hit me right between the eyes with some amazing information, so much so that I will very likely start reading it again in the coming days. David's roadmap to offering expertise to the best fitting customers, finding interesting ways to communicate results to them, and also making sure to charge what you're worth all resonated with me. If you're already an expert and you're trying to get noticed, or if you want to build an exciting knowledge business from scratch, order this book right now. Your future self will thank you!
I am a CPA who is trying to build and add a consulting practice to my firm. I started this book when I was too busy to finish it quickly and recently picked it back up again. This book hit me right between the eyes with some amazing information, so much so that I will very likely start reading it again in the coming days. David's roadmap to offering expertise to the best fitting customers, finding interesting ways to communicate results to them, and also making sure to charge what you're worth all resonated with me. If you're already an expert and you're trying to get noticed, or if you want to build an exciting knowledge business from scratch, order this book right now. Your future self will thank you!
March 29, 2023
The consulting life is a constant challenge. You’re standing naked in front of people who’ve tried their best to figure it out but are stuck. You are with them, but you are pushing them upstream into uncomfortable places. You’re a human with all your own challenges, but you have to let them feed off your own (sometimes contrived) confidence. What a life it is to get paid to think and talk and write. I hope you realize how fortunate you are.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 23, 2024
The title is a bit cheesy, but the book is full of good advise, despite being quite short.
I enjoyed the tips on positioning and lead generation. I also found really insightful the suggestion to divide your week into 3 types of days:
- 3-4 days for preparation (i.e. work chores)
- 1-2 days for contribution (i.e. doing the actual work)
- weekend for perspective (i.e. relax and think about what you accomplished during the week)
I enjoyed the tips on positioning and lead generation. I also found really insightful the suggestion to divide your week into 3 types of days:
- 3-4 days for preparation (i.e. work chores)
- 1-2 days for contribution (i.e. doing the actual work)
- weekend for perspective (i.e. relax and think about what you accomplished during the week)
July 26, 2024
To become a good advisor, invest in and grow yourself
You can’t be a good advisor in business without being a good and confident human being with a unique point of view to offer others, not just business clients, but the people around you in your life.
This book is about how to develop and cultivate those qualities.
You can’t be a good advisor in business without being a good and confident human being with a unique point of view to offer others, not just business clients, but the people around you in your life.
This book is about how to develop and cultivate those qualities.
January 22, 2023
David always delivers straightforward expertise
A quick read, full of solid experience and guidance. Even with 20+ years as a successful consultant selling unique expertise, there are gems in here that continue to help me polish my craft.
A quick read, full of solid experience and guidance. Even with 20+ years as a successful consultant selling unique expertise, there are gems in here that continue to help me polish my craft.
March 9, 2023
David consistently delivers brilliant insights in a straightforward way. I valued what I learned from this book. However, I appreciated even more being reminded of key behaviors around being a true expert advisor.
January 12, 2024
Very good book, really insightful ideas even for an experienced advisor. An excellent outline of what "good looks like".
Could benefit from more engaging storytelling, sometimes difficult to follow the client situations the author is describing, in my perspective.
Could benefit from more engaging storytelling, sometimes difficult to follow the client situations the author is describing, in my perspective.
May 2, 2023
Always good sage advice from the great thought leader David Baker.
July 22, 2023
Excellent
Mr. Baker looks you in the eye and tells you exactly how to be a legitimate one person advisor/consultant. I for one will be using his advice in my practice.
Mr. Baker looks you in the eye and tells you exactly how to be a legitimate one person advisor/consultant. I for one will be using his advice in my practice.
June 23, 2024
For any indie consultancy this book is a goldmine.
January 16, 2025
This book is required reading for anyone in the knowledge business. Coach, advisor, consultant, guide? Read this book.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews