Sheridan saved his swimming pool company in the 2008 crash by answering in writing, on his site, everything customers asked on the phone. From there he draws his list of five subjects almost nobody publishes: what it costs, what problems it has, how it compares to the alternatives, what buyers say about it, and who the best in the field are.
What I took from it
The argument for publishing prices, which is where everyone gets off the bus. Whoever asks the price will find it out anyway; the only decision is whether they find it on your site, with your explanation of why it costs that, or on somebody else's. Publishing the price does not scare off clients, it scares off conversations that were never going to close, which is a different thing and a desirable one when you work alone.
Writing about the drawbacks of your own service and about when not to hire it. It is counter-intuitive and it works: the person who arrives after reading that arrives convinced, with no persuading required.
And sending reading material before a meeting, so the conversation can start past the basics. Whoever did not read it was not ready for that meeting either.
What I left out
The company structure he proposes. The book pushes hiring a content manager, building a video team and bringing everything in house, which fits the agency the author went on to run rather than someone working alone. And it has to be said: the pool story comes round again and again. The ideas take three chapters; the rest is repetition and case studies.