THE BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2022
Delighted to be announcing that my book ‘Connecting with Clients’ has been shortlisted in the Business Book of the Year Awards for 2022. Thank you
Jason Hillenburg Goodreads
Kendall Townsend The Magic Pen
Kevin Roberts
“This book is a game changer for agencies and all professional service businesses. It is a truly practical, effective toolkit based on applying psychology to relationship management. Enjoyable and the ideas work.”
Stephen Woodford CEO The Advertising Association
“A must read for every client facing exec from a first day graduate to hardened Global CEO. It is the first book of its kind. Rammed full of insights, top tips and ideas to strengthen any client relationship.”
Paul Bainsfair Director General, IPA
“I wish all my agency partners had read and applied the ideas in Connecting with Clients. It is a compendium of relationship skills that every client facing exec needs today.”
Kelly Reilly Ex VP Global Marketing, Ocean Spray Now CEO/CMO Red Thread Coffee
Colin Jordan
Australia: Abbeys | Amazon.com.au | Angus & Robertson | Booktopia | Dymocks
Japan: Amazon.jp
UK: Amazon.co.uk | Blackwells | Foyles | Hive | W.H.Smiths
North America: Amazon.com | Books-a-million | Keplers Books (SF) | Powells
South Africa: Exclusive Books | takealot.com
Paul is Co-Founder of the Client Relationship Consultancy (CRC)
www.clientrelationship.com
Paul is also the Co-Founder of the Academy of Relationship Management
www.academy-relationships.com
Delighted to be announcing that my book ‘Connecting with Clients’ has been shortlisted in the Business Book of the Year Awards for 2022. Thank you
Ever wondered what makes a good professional relationship work? Why are we prepared to walk over hot coals for some people, yet barely get up
… and they’ve never been higher because agencies really did respond fantastically over the last year! In this Podcast with Mumbrella, Paul Cowan looks at
“Paul Cowan’s book “Connecting with Clients: For Stronger, More Rewarding and Longer-Lasting Client Relationships”, like many books of its type, are the product of the author’s extensive personal and professional experiences. He is a recognized relationship specialist and co-founder of Client Relationship Consultancy and the Customer Relationship Consultancy. Coupling his expertise in this area with his psychotherapy credentials has led Cowan to working with couples, individuals, teams and organizations with the hopes of facilitating change. The book is somewhat lengthy for works of this type, but readers shouldn’t be intimidated as they get enormous bang for their buck thanks to Cowan’s wealth of wisdom.
His willingness to incorporate his personal life into the book to illustrate key points he wants readers to grasp is critical to its success. He does so with honesty and even a little humor. Mixing those personal observations in with his professional experiences and various concepts, the Kirton Adaptation-Innovation Theory for example, provides a varied take on forging stronger relationships with clients rather than relying on Cowan’s ideas alone. His lack of ego is refreshing. He has a lot to proudly beat his chest over, but refrains from doing so – he’s constantly evolving, growing, and open to new ideas even when he isn’t the author. It is clear this has been an important part of his success and “Connecting with Clients” makes it obvious readers should seriously consider following his example.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.clientrelationship.com/
It isn’t all blocks of paragraphs running half a page. Cowan has the talent and knowledge where he can make points in a line or two, utilizing succinctness and command of language, but he can also dazzle readers with extended passages that neatly unpack and assemble sometimes unwieldy ideas. He makes great use of compositional devices such as tips, lists, step by step instruction, and it never bores you. This goes back to the prose style Cowan takes on for the book. He doesn’t write it from an academic perspective but, instead, puts his ideas across with personality and keen observations that fly by, but ultimately contribute the book’s overall impact.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Connecting-Cli…
It is longer than you might expect. It is a hair over three hundred and fifty pages in digital form and may seem a little daunting at first look, but the writing style discussed earlier serves him well. Individuals “chapters” are uniformly short, but Cowan shows a masterful grasp of detail far outstripping what we often encounter in similar works. Connecting with Clients: For Stronger, More Rewarding and Longer-Lasting Client Relationships has the potential to last decades to come as a seminal work.
Cowan’s dissection of the company/client relationship has immense value for the current business landscape, but it addresses fundamentals that are largely impervious or resistant to technological changes or social upheaval. There are some ABC’s about human nature that never change. Paul Cowan’s book is an essential contribution to non-fiction business literature and well worth your time. Let’s hope we hear from him again in his capacity as an author but, if not, he’s given us something to remember him by.”
Jason Hillenburg Goodreads
“Connecting with clients or other people in general is more than just giving them what they want. It calls upon us to relate to the individual’s hopes, fears, biases, and loves. It requires us to understand not just where they are, but where they have been and would like to go. It demands tact and truthfulness alike, a sympathetic frankness that brokers no deceptions, but yet realizes the imperfections we all share. Paul Cowan’s book Connecting with Clients: For Stronger, More Rewarding and Longer-Lasting Client Relationships condenses these lessons for readers in a relatively long written work that should prove an invaluable resource for anyone with business-minded concerns, for sure, but it goes a step beyond with its subtle commentaries on human nature itself and has practical application in our everyday lives.
The book is voluminous. It should be. Over seventy different sections are included in the text examining a wide variety of issues someone can encounter during a client/customer relationship, but don’t let the numbers intimidate you. Connecting with Clients may run well over three hundred pages in all, but each of those over seventy sections are short and to the point. Cowan does not belabor individual points anymore than what he must to communicate with the reader. Moreover, he writes with breezy yet punchy style that manages to impart valuable information while keeping things as informal, never staid, as possible.
Do not mistake the informality for a lack of substance. Much of the information Cowan shares with readers comes from his years of experience as both a consultant and psychotherapist. Working from these two pedigrees gives him an unique perspective few share. Cowan doesn’t just understand the nuts and bolts that enable businesses and organizations to flourish, particularly in the area of customer service, but likewise grasps the underlying motivations driving clients and those who work on their behalf.
Each of the sections includes a “Top Tips” at their conclusion. This is where Cowan can summarize the material covered in that section, but it likewise affords him the opportunity to underline key takeaways readers should pay closer attention to. There is some visual accompaniment included with the book, but the bulk of Connecting with Clients relies on Cowan’s prose to make an impact on the reader. He has obviously done ample research to further fortify his philosophy, but the book can be powered by his experiences alone and still make a deep impression on readers.
Some readers may be turned off by his vernacular at certain points in the book, but it is a small flaw unlikely to turn readers away. Cowan avoids repeating himself much and, though the book is not structured in any recognizable linear fashion, it nonetheless progresses in a coherent and sensible manner.
Lucidity is a strong suit of Cowan’s thinking. The personal aspects he shares along the way further humanize him for readers; the book would undoubtedly sputter and read very dry if he hadn’t made this decision. Connecting with Clients: For Stronger, More Rewarding and Longer-Lasting Client Relationships is a book you can read from cover to cover or dip into and possesses timeless attributes that will make it a go-to text on this subject for years to come.”
Kendall Townsend The Magic Pen
“Paul was fired – by himself and others (starting like me, with his Headmaster) at least four times – with two/three near misses. He has just written a great book for Ad folks and leaders everywhere.
Paul was at Saatchi & Saatchi before my time – 1978-1990. He rose to become a Group Account Director, then left to start his own agency with a senior S&S Creative and Planner – Cowan Kemsley Taylor.
Paul’s book is easy, uncomplicated, simple and authentic. He doesn’t demand too much effort from the reader to fully understand what he wants to get across.
If you have the opportunity to read it, take it. As Eric Burden once said “It will be worth it”.
It’s available for £12 in the Apple Bookstore and in softcover from other usual outlets.
(Thank you to the Goode Simon for the heads-up.)”
Kevin Roberts
“Paul Cowan wants to help. There’s no sense of him looking to bask in the glories of a successful career when reading his book Connecting with Clients:For Stronger, More Rewarding and Longer-Lasting Client Relationships. He isn’t angling for applause or laurel leaves. Connecting with Clients is, instead, a natural outgrowth of his long career as both a relationship specialist focused on buttressing connections between individuals, clients, and customers. It is informed by his experiences as a psychotherapist. Moreover, it’s an altruistic move designed to pay back what he’s learned during his professional life so readers can better realize their own professional ambitions.
It is written in a relaxed conversational style that stays on the reader’s level rather than lording its superior knowledge. The most successful and enduring non-fiction works, particularly those related to the business world to a greater or lesser degree, share several commonalities, but high among them is personality. The academic world produces treatises with an assortment of citations, graphs, charts, and number crunching, but all too often it reads like an instruction manual rather than a work composed by someone deeply immersed in the how and why of a specific topic. There’s no danger of that with Cowan’s book.
He keeps things light at all the right times. Concluding each portion of the book with a list of top tips is a relaxed way for him to drive home the points he tries to share with the reader and he relates his personal experiences from a variety of emotional points of view that keep readers interested and, occasionally, entertained. This is especially important when you consider the book’s length. It is likely to run over three hundred pages in hardcover form, perhaps even longer in paperback, but the connection Cowan makes with readers and his prose style come together to make Connecting with Clients a fast-paced reading experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://paulcowan.com/
Examining the subject through lists, steps, and other devices is indicative of how Cowan approaches resolving issues and each instance of this is easy to follow. Some sections of the book are longer than others, but Cowan deserves kudos for keeping things brief, for the most part, and you never feel like you’re walking across familiar territory though, by necessity, many topics overlap. Connecting with Clients reads like a book that Cowan planned out to the last detail before he ever set a single word down.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Connecting-Clients-rewarding-longer-lasting-relationships/dp/0857198599/
Giving back in this way is, really, what it is all about. We have an image, largely media-formed, of individuals in the business world living on a predatory plane far removed from normal every day life. The bottom line is the bottom line. Cowan, along with others, upends that stereotype. This isn’t a book you’ll see on the New York Times bestseller list. It won’t be water cooler chatter in the workplace. Instead, it’s a perfect example of someone who has learned much during their time dealing with people and wants to share what they’ve gathered with the widest possible audience.”
Colin Jordan