Inside the Technical Consulting Business or Investment Banking

Inside the Technical Consulting Business: Launching and Building Your Independent Practice

Author: Harvey Kay

Join the thousands of professionals who have already gotten Inside the Technical Consulting Business — and discover how to channel your technical know-how into an exciting career as an independent consultant. This Third Edition of Harvey Kaye's bestselling guide gives you the focused, no-nonsense help you need to start and run your own consulting practice in today's ultracompetitive environment. What's inside: Setting up your consulting business. The lowdown on finances, record-keeping, office space, taxes, and choosing the form of business organization that's right for you.

Insider's guide to proposals and contracts. Gives plenty of examples to use in your own consulting practice.

Marketing secrets your boss never told you. Tips on creating demand for your services and keeping your clients coming back for repeat business.

PLUS ALL-NEW MATERIAL ON:

• Creating your personal strategic marketing plan. A step-by-step guide to developing and maintaining your competitive edge.
• Learn from the pros. "Meet the Pros" interviews show how successful consultants handled some of the very problems you're likely to encounter.
• Building successful client relationships. The inside scoop on keeping clients happy while protecting your own professional interests.
• The technical challenges of consulting. A consultant's primer on problem-solving, coping with the information explosion, and organizing for maximum productivity.

Booknews

A guide for engineers who want to off someone else's treadmill and start their own. Explores marketing, contracts, billing, taxes, office space, planning and evaluation, and some strategies. Emphasizes that the idea is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but a way of reshaping an engineer's professional career. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kaye

"Inside The Technical Consulting Business" gave me the information I needed to step out on my own after being told (at 55 years of age) that there weren't any projects for my talents, which wasn't true. Your book helped boost my confidence that I could make it as an independent consultant. --Lawrence King, letter "Inside The Technical Consulting Business" is an outstanding book for anyone who is thinking of going into consulting. Harvey Kaye shares his experience as a practicing consultant in what works and what doesn't. This book will save the novice much time and grief on the way to a successful practice. --James A. Lacy, P.E., letter I have just finished reading--no, studying--your book. It is by far the most useful of many materials which I have been devouring recently. --Mike Lockwood, letter The book is a good read because it is transparently honest and leaves little unsaid about the problems which are universal in setting up a consultancy. --Sir Frederick Warner, Review in The Chemical Engineer (Great Britain) It is refreshing to find a book with as many clear and practical hints that can benefit consultants and non-consultants alike. --Clifford Sellie, Review in Industrial Engineering Kaye's practical down-to-earth advice is presented in a very readable style. He explains his points well, using analogies, humor, and personal experience to illustrate. --Karen Olander, Review in PV Voice Magazine

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	Acknowledgments
1	How to Leave Your Career Problems Behind	1
2	Defining Your Own Business Identity	11
3	Who Becomes a Consultant?	20
4	Three Fundamental Truths of Technical Marketing	31
5	Marketing Secrets Other Consultants Won't Tell You	42
6	Your Blueprint for Marketing Success	69
7	The Sales Meeting	92
8	Proposals and Contracts	126
9	Billing Rates	154
10	Projecting a Professional Image	169
11	Dealing with the Client	181
12	Financing a New Consulting Practice	198
13	Setting Up Your Business	214
14	Office Space and Stationery Needs	243
15	Goals and Planning for the Future	261
16	The Technical Challenges of Consulting	280
17	Decision Making	298
18	Making the Transition	308
19	Playing Your Game	320
	Epilogue	339
	Appendix: Case Study	343
	Suggested Reading List	353
	Index	361

New interesting book: How to Read a French Fry or Remembrance of Things Paris

Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law

Author: Alan D Morrison

Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law provides an economic rationale for the dominant role of investment banks in the capital markets, and uses it to explain both the historical evolution of the investment banking industry and also recent changes to its organization. Although investment decisions rely upon price-relevant information, it is impossible to establish property rights over it and hence it is very hard to coordinate its exchange. The authors argue that investment banks help to resolve this problem by managing "information marketplaces," within which extra-legal institutions support the production and dissemination of information that is important to investors. Reputations and relationships are more important in fulfilling this role than financial capital.
The authors substantiate their theory with reference to the industry's evolution during the last three centuries. They show how investment banking networks were formed, and identify the informal contracts that they supported. This historical development points to tensions between the relational contracting of investment banks and the regulatory impulses of the State, thus providing some explanation for the periodic large-scale State intervention in the operation of capital markets. Their theory also provides a technological explanation for the massive restructuring of the capital markets in recent decades, which the authors argue can be used to think about the likely future direction of the investment banking industry.