Sell Naked: And Other Advice for Growing and Managing Services Firms by Ryan Frederick

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Best Practices for Services Firms

Whether you own a services firm or are thinking of starting one, you are contributing to at least 13 percent of U.S. GDP. That was the professional and business services’ share in 2018, according to Deloitte, and this sector is still growing.

If you are among the many thousands of professionals who ply a craft or skill, be it legal, accounting, advising, design services, programing, data management or any from a long list of necessary business services, and you’re thinking about starting a services firm, the moment that decision gets made, you become a business-person in addition to being a crafts-person. 

Becoming a successful business-person and running a successful services firm associated to a craft is a challenge for many because the business aspects can be seen as an anchor to the craft. Many crafts-people just want to design beautiful homes, write code, help clients with legal matters, create award-winning user interfaces, and so on. Running successful services firms doesn’t mean the crafts-people have to run away from their craft to be successful. But they do have to embrace, understand, and get good at the business-person side of it, or they will end up working for someone else who has figured it out. 

Fundamentals that make services firms work differ from other types of companies. 

Marketing and selling are different than they would be for a product company. Operations are different. The financial aspects are different in every way and at every turn. 

Between the covers of this book, you will find scores of insights, tips, and strategies gleaned from the author’s decades of experience in managing and selling for services firms. From team dynamics, to cash-flow management, from growth strategies to finding the right client fit, and from forming partnerships to the best exit strategy, this book’s eight sections will help you understand the art and skill-sets required to manage a successful services firm. 

Being a great marketing and sales services firm is a choice, period. 

Much of the focus of this book is on growing a services firm. Many firms get marketing and sales wrong across the board. Some firms get pieces of it right, but it is rare to see a firm that is executing well across the entire marketing and sales continuum. 

In addition to explaining why he recommends that you should “sell naked,” author Ryan Frederick covers a range of marketing and sales strategies and activities to help services firms of all types become business-development juggernauts. Most of these marketing and sales strategies are not epiphanies. Some are counter-intuitive and challenge preconceived ideas of how things should be done around business development for a services firm, but none of them are out of reach for any services firm.

Services firms that choose to become intentional and disciplined about becoming great marketing and sales firms will get there over time. The best advice is to START now.

(312 pages, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-941688-70-0; February 2021)

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