Useful Links

Some valuable resources for you if you’re looking to grow your consultancy or service business:

• Charles H Green’s Trust Matters blog:  the professional services guru and author of The Trusted Advisor, on the theme of trusted relationships in business
• Seth Godin’s blog: The most popular marketing blog in the world – for good reason
• Remarkable Communication: Sonia Simone has pink hair and dispenses beautifully written and down-to-earth advice on matters of small business marketing. I like her style!
• Mel Lester’s blog on all aspects of business development. He writes for architects and engineering firms but the advice he gives is absolutely relevant to all professional sectors. Worth subscribing to his newsletter – the best I’ve seen. Most definitely one of my valuable content heroes.
• www.ianbrodie.com: Thoughtful nuggets of down-to-earth advice for professional service firms on all aspects of sales and marketing strategy
• www.marketingdonut.com: some great articles and resources on all aspects of marketing for small businesses
• www.raintoday.com: useful hub for articles, interviews, resources and regular webinars on how to grow your service business

• ‘The New Rules of Marketing and PR’  - by David Meerman Scott
• Inbound Marketing – by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah
• The Art of the Start – by Guy Kawasaki
• Making Change Happen – by Jane Northcote
• The Well-Fed Self-Publisher – by Peter Bowerman

• For small business marketing: Bristol’s @BryonyThomas and @MarketingDonut; US brigade @DuctTape, @thisissethsblog, @DMScott, @efficiencycoach
• Professional services business development: @CharlesHGreen, @RainToday, @IanBrodie, @RealTrevorLever
• Content marketing experts: @JuntaJoe, @Junta42, @MickDickinson
• Examples of ‘real’ consultancy and professional service companies who use Twitter well: @London_Law_Firm, @MelLester, @RapidBI, @SackmanAndCo, @relevantrisk

• www.portfoliodirectors.co.uk
• www.clear-thought.co.uk
• www.ianbrodie.com
• http://joinedupnetworking.com
• www.relevant-risk.co.uk

• For design and development of valuable small business websites and blogs: www.iainclaridge.co.uk
• For invaluable business coaching: Heather Townsend at www.efficiencycoach.co.uk, Lee Duncan at www.leeduncan.com and Paul Simister at www.paulsimister.com
• Wordsmith Sharon Tanton for copywriting: www.sharontanton.co.uk
• For beautiful graphics, photography and book illustration: www.lizzieeverard.co.uk
• 37signals’ products such as Highrise contact management tool and the brilliant Basecamp project management tool that we use to manage all complex client projects – simple but hugely effective: http://37signals.com
• The wonderful Thesis theme for Wordpress (that powers this blog)

• Surfers Against Sewage – www.surfersagainstsewage.com
• The National Autistic Society – www.nas.org.uk
• The RNLI  – www.rnli.org.uk