The Positioning Manual for Indie Consultants: Find the strategic beachhead that will amplify your visibility, momentum, impact, and profit.

by Philip Morgan

The Positioning Manual for Indie Consultants gives you a high-level understanding of how specialization and positioning work in the context of an indie consulting business. With this understanding, you will be well-equipped to make a foundational strategy decision for your business. This book argues that focused expertise and increased visibility & trust are the keys to a more successful indie consulting business. The book describes how specialization accelerates all three. This book assumes that you can tolerate a medium to high level of risk when you specialize.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

153 pages, Paperback

Published January 14, 2022

Reviews

[Visnja Zeljeznjak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strategic approach to specialization that's rare to find in books.

The message of this book is clear: to get ahead with your consulting business, you need to create visibility in the market and earn enough trust to make selling easier. These two things, visibility and trust, are much easier to get if you SPECIALIZE in something, in some way.

But how do you do that? How should you approach this Big Business Decision?

This book helps with the strategic thinking about how we should specialize. It names several different models of specialization and explains what happens if you choose one over the other. It takes into account the differences in our personal and business styles and helps us choose the optimal direction. It stays away from the usual 'tricks' of marketing and focuses on what really matters in consulting: building a personal brand with visibility and trust. It even advises which marketing styles to choose if you decide for a specific specialization model.

From time to time, I love to read what I call 'the thinking books' about business. This book is exactly the type I love to read: it makes me think, it helps me position myself better in the limited universe I operate in, and it gives me insights into how other consultants think about the consulting business.

The author possesses an ability to think in well defined structures and frameworks. and I love frameworks.

I would recommend the book to any consultant who is in need of a big picture and structure.

Well done, Philip!

[Morgan Leahy]

Helpful frameworks for The Difficult Business Decision

When we decide to make what Blair Enns calls ‘The Difficult Business Decision’, we May look for a process to do this. Philip has helpfully isolated which parts of this process are are ‘repeatable things any indie consultant can choose to do’, vs. which principles we must differentiate ourselves (a ‘beachhead’).
Also this may not apply to everyone, but Philip is a self-described ‘aloof introvert’; it is important for other ‘aloof introverts’ to see what positioning methods are working well for Philip as he grows his own business (i.e. public speaking).

[Paul Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing and helpful book on positioning

There’s plenty of content on positioning on the web. I learnt about Phillip at ClientCon and then listened to his podcast. This book brings unique insights to the topic and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and learnt a lot. The 5 ways to position oneselves was a new perspective for me - so thank you.

[Andrew]

Exceptionally well written and researched. Deep and incisive but very easy to read, you can put this book down and pick it up again later and get straight back into the bite size chapters without losing the thread.
A must for business managers and self improvement coaching.
Very well done.

[Honza Marcinek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Upřímně ta kniha není vůbec špatná. Je to hezky koncipovaná kniha o tom, jak získat pozornost a důvěru na přeplněném trhu. Zasvětí vás to do třech oblastí specializace a jak přsto v úzce zaměřené oblasti být úspěšný. Někdy to má provokativní myšlenky, které jsou doplněny o humorné vsuvky. Rozhodně dobrá knížka pro každého začínajícího konzultanta, která vám dá základy, které poté budete potřebovat rozvinout.