Fun book: Upstart Startups by Lieber. Also read The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & John David Mann. Definitely seek out mentors who have traveled the road before you. I would also recommend an executive coach, but of course I'm biased there. :)

Tongue in cheek answer: The best sales process is one you will consistently do! :) I wrote a 335 page book on this topic...perhaps check out Seal the Deal. I'm not sure if it will answer your question, because you haven't shared what you're selling to whom, but maybe it will help? http://www.suzipomerantz.com/suzis-books/peek-inside-the-book-seal-the-deal/

Jeffrey Gitomer has a great series of little books like his Little Red Book of Sales Answers. Other superb books I'd recommend are Ian Altman's Upside Down Selling and Harry Beckwith's Selling the Invisible as well as Karl Albrecht's Service America. My own book, Seal the Deal, could be useful to you as it distinguishes networking, marketing, and sales for a service professional and outlines a system for how to leverage the essential mindsets in each one for integrated action. It's not written specifically for CEOs, though, so you may not want that. You might also check out Bill Cates' newest book: Beyond Referrals. As for courses, there are a wide array of excellent offerings available on udemy.com on every topic under the sun! You might also consider hiring an executive coach. Stanford just released a study about the value of CEOs having a coach: http://www.suzipomerantz.com/stanford-executive-coaching-study-reveals-most-ceos-want-coaching/

Jason's answer is right-on. A rule of thumb that I've used when considering the big move from 1099ers to employees is if the employee's effectiveness in year one could recoup a 3x return on the investment of their salary. In other words, does the employee free you up to bring in more consulting clients, or generate sufficient product sales to justify their salary? The issue you raise of not having a predictable revenue stream as a consultant is exactly what led to the creation of the Seal the Deal Success Kit, which we created for coaches, but works as well for any consultant who wants to level out the ups and downs of the unreliable in-flow of revenues. http://sealthedealsuccesskit.com/ It's essentially a fully-stocked kitchen of information about essential mindsets for integrating leveraged action across three domains simultaneously: Networking, Marketing, and Sales. Do you feel you have a sustainable system for generating new consulting work/ revenue? A business coach could make sense for you...there's a great article out recently citing Stanford research into the value of having a coach for your business. Here's that article. http://www.suzipomerantz.com/stanford-executive-coaching-study-reveals-most-ceos-want-coaching/ Books I'd recommend include: Seal the Deal (by me), Upside Down Selling (by Ian Altman), Beyond Referrals (by Bill Cates), Made to Stick (Heath brothers), and Dynamic Laws of Prosperity (Catherine Ponder). Hope this is somewhat helpful!

The Power of Full Engagement (Loehr & Schwartz) Leadership and Self Deception (Arbinger Institute) The Go-Giver (Burg and Mann) Success on Our Own Terms (O'Brien) Leadership is an Art (DePree)