In 2004, John Doerr, Erica Stritch, and I went on a mission to find the best publications focused on marketing and selling for professional services. We found great writers and experts, we found great articles, and we found some quality niche publications that trade associations put out for their areas of specialty.

We found a few decent overall publications for marketing-in-general and sales-in-general (and a lot of junk...another story). As long as we looked, we didn't find a publication that did marketing and selling professional services justice.

In the best tradition of "put your money where your mouth is" we decided to build it. Thus was born RainToday.com. As RainToday's popularity grew it took on a life of its own. We offered more events, more content, and more research. Now, we're offering more once again: RainToday.com membership. For those of you that subscribe to Rainmaker Report, rest assured that the complimentary weekly newsletter is still complimentary. There's just a lot more available now (and a lot more coming). We created membership as the easy package for you to take advantage of it all.

The press release on the RainToday.com evolution is below. I encourage you to have a look at the site. Please email me at mschultz @ whillsgroup.com if you have any feedback. I'd look forward to hearing from you.

RainToday.com Introduces Premium Subscription Membership

Framingham, MA – August 06, 2008 – RainToday.com, the premier online source for insight, advice, and tools for growing a service business, announced the launch of their new premium membership services.

RainToday.com Annual Membership brings professional services leaders, marketers and business developers the latest tools, events, articles, case studies, interviews, and research around marketing and sales for professional services. With access to the largest database of content on professional services marketing and sales, RainToday membership focuses on helping professional service providers generate more revenue and grow their firms.

“The launch of this new site marks a major evolution at RainToday,” said Erica Stritch, General Manager of RainToday.com. “RainToday.com has emerged as the leading provider of marketing and sales resources for professional services. Through our new annual membership, RainToday members will have access to the latest research, case studies, interviews, webinars, guides, tools, and other premium content to help them generate more revenue and grow their firms. And this is just the foundation - the future of RainToday holds blogs, discussion forums, live events, podcasts, and more.”

RainToday.com Membership benefits include:

• Webinars and teleseminars: Members have access to RainToday.com’s library of webinar and teleseminars with well-known experts in the field including Seth Godin, Ford Harding, Mike Schultz, Jill Konrath and more.
  
  
• How-to guides and tools: RainToday members receive specific how-to advice and templates from tools such as The Professional Services Guide to Online PR, How to Write and Market a White Paper, How to Set Appointments through Cold Calling, and more.
  
  
• Insights: More than 190 professional services marketing and sales experts write for RainToday including Michael W. McLaughlin, Bruce W. Marcus, John Doerr, Charles Green, and Patrick McKenna.
  
  
• Premium Content: Members gain access to interviews with services marketing and sales practitioners and templates and tools to help budget, plan, and implement lead generation, marketing, and sales activities.
  
  
• Research: In addition to free tools and events, members save 20% on all RainToday Research such as What’s Working in Lead Generation, Fees and Pricing Benchmark Report, and How Clients Buy.

“While there are a number of subscription-based websites out there focused on marketing and sales in general, RainToday is the only site designed specifically to address the unique challenges that professional services firms face," said Mike Schultz, Founder and Publisher of RainToday.com. “RainToday is the hub for the best thinking in services marketing and selling. RainToday.com membership will give leaders, marketers and sellers of professional services research, tools, ideas, insights and fresh perspectives that will be immediately useful for them.”

To learn more about RainToday.com Annual Membership and to start a risk-free 7 day trial, visit the RainToday website at http://www.raintoday.com/membership.cfm.