 | Win Without Pitching is the business development consulting firm for ad agencies and design firms that believe there is a better way to build a marketing communication agency. |
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Blair Enns blogs about agency business development, free pitching and occasionally, life in Kaslo.
ReCourses New Business Summit | 11 October 2011For the ninth year in a row I'll be joining David C. Baker in hosting the ReCourses New Business Summit in Nashville this January. It's three days out of the office dedicated entirely to shaping the business development function of your firm...  Topics: Timely Online Business Development Training | 23 June 2011We've just completed the task of organizing ten years of writing and three years of monthly webcasts into six online training program that you can use for do-it-yourself positioning, business development training, and managing of people and processes... Topics: WWP Selling System Getting Paid | 4 May 2011At the end of a recent workshop one of the participants said something like, "This is all good advice, but the real issue is how do you help me grow some balls?"
After ten years I still find it odd - funny, even - that business people struggle to muster the internal fortitude to apply basic business principles to their business.
Meet one designer who doesn't... From Generalist to Specialist | 27 February 2011I recently interviewed Suzanne Shelton, principal of The Shelton Group in Knoxville, TN, in preparation for the March WWP webcast, Branded Studies. Beyond Suzanne's use of branded studies, I was most interested in the story of her firm's transition from generalist to specialist, including her struggles and misgivings along the way... Getting More Out of LinkedIn | 16 January 2011We all use LinkedIn, but few of use it well. That's about to change. Jan Vermeiren, the world's leading LinkedIn expert, is joining us for a one-hour webcast on Advanced Strategies for LinkedIn... Topics: Lead Generation, Social Media Why I Charge More | 5 January 2011Sometimes we do it for the money, don't we? The irony is that the less money we're paid, the more likely we are to be doing it for the money. When we're paid well, it's suddenly about something much bigger... Topics: Pricing Spec Can Be Beaten | 15 November 2010I'm always happy to get reports from the field on behalf of firms I've worked with in the past. Usually these notes are about individual successes, but every once in awhile I get reports of broader success across the profession, such as this email... Topics: Free Pitching Expert Lead Generation | 10 November 2010Meet four agency principals who have written books on their areas of expertise. Each will be my guest in a special round-table format of the Win Without Pitching webcast in February that is part of an extended series on Expert Lead Generation that kicks off next month... Topics: Lead Generation Tell Me Ten Things | 20 September 2010I often meet creative folks who acknowledge the importance of specializing and then say something like "we specialize in branding." If you want to really measure the validity of the claim you've been making, try this exercise... Topics: Positioning What To Look For in Business Development Candidates | 9 September 2010Summer is over and people are hiring. I've had a few conversations this week with creative firm principals looking to hire new business development personnel, so I promised to post some advice on the subject here... Topics: Personnel Negotiating With Procurement | 28 August 2010Few topics make me grind my teeth like the subject of procurement’s role in hiring creative firms. These people aren't going away however so we need to get better at dealing with them. I have just the man to help you... Topics: Procurement Let's Hear It for the Punk Kids | 11 August 2010Some thoughts on the creative destruction of design jobs around the world as The Old Guard is replaced by The Punk Kids... Topics: Random Online Positioning Program | 20 July 2010 If you were to hire me to help you reposition your firm I would walk you through seven steps. These seven steps are now captured in an online positioning program that you can do yourself, in seven lessons... Topics: Positioning Reading The WWP Manifesto on Your Mobile Device | 14 July 2010 The Win Without Pitching Manifesto is available for free reading online, but it can also be downloaded (for $19) for reading on your computer in PDF format or on your phone or other mobile device in epub format.
This post explains how to get the book onto your device... A Summer of Books | 12 July 2010 After feeling 10 months pregnant for the last six months (thereby establishing a new gestation record for humans, even if just imagined) The Win Without Pitching Manifesto has been born... A Global Standard on Design Procurement | 12 February 2010 Two interesting events on opposite sides of the world this week provide fodder for panels on Global Design Procurement that I'll be moderating at ICOGRADA's Design Week in Vancouver in April and APDF in New York in May... Topics: Procurement Procurement God | 8 February 2010 A laugh at the games clients and agencies play to circumvent an ill-conceived or poorly administered procurement process. Topics: Procurement, Interesting Positioning Transitions | 27 January 2010 Once you choose a new focus for your firm, what are your options for getting from where you are now to where you want to be?
There are four... Topics: Positioning Business Development Peer Groups | 21 January 2010 I'm putting interested business development folks (principals and employees) together in online peer groups for the purpose of supporting each other in their business development efforts.
Read on if you're interested in participating... 2010 Unplugged | 3 January 2010 2010 is the year of information emancipation for me. No, I’m not setting more information free, I’m making drastic cuts to the information I consume, and, increasingly, feel enslaved by. I’m emancipating myself from the slavery of information... Enthusiasm | 10 December 2009 Firms often play up their enthusiasm for the account in business development situations, but this almost always sends the wrong signals and attracts the worst types of clients... Designer Certification | 8 December 2009 I've softened my opposition to the call for certification of designers as a means to combat free pitching. Sort of... Topics: Free Pitching, Timely Dude, I'm Tweeting! | 1 December 2009 Social media IS business development. Kind of, sometimes, maybe... Topics: Lead Generation, Social Media How to Write a Proposal | 27 November 2009 The seven sections of the can't-miss written proposal are finally revealed to the world. Behold! Clients from Hell? | 24 November 2009 Last week I discovered Clients From Hell, a website that collects and publishes stories from designers about their worst client experiences. They'll make you laugh out loud, but it's not always the client that's the source of hilarity... Topics: Process, Interesting Community | 23 November 2009 Building community with social media. Topics: Social Media The Rise and Fall of Procurement | 19 November 2009 Frustration with procurement's failed attempts to drive efficiencies into aqcuiring creative, marketing and other professional services is starting to boil over... Topics: Procurement, Timely The Checklist | 17 November 2009 Be sure to review the checklist before heading in to the pitch. Topics: Free Pitching, Random Honest Intentions | 17 November 2009 The real reason the client wants a proposal... Topics: Proposals Authentic Transparency | 13 November 2009 Another Perfect Pitch comic strip. I promise I'll stop. Soon... Topics: Free Pitching, Random Prepping the Pitch | 12 November 2009 I've tried my hand at a stripgenerator.com comic, tackling one of my favorites subjects, The Deck. Let me know what you think. :) ReCourses New Business Summit | 9 November 2009 Welcome to the only business development conference where you won't learn how to get on more pitch lists, build and leverage chemistry and personal rapport, improve presentation skills, write better proposals, play nice with procurement and search consultants, or deliver the killer pitch. Still interested? Read the Top 10 things you will and won't learn at the ReCourses NBS... Topics: General Manifesto Chapter 1 Posted | 25 October 2009 The first chapter of the forthcoming Win Without Pitching Manifesto, a 24,000-word hardcover being published by Rockbench Press in February 2010 is now online: We Will Specialize... Topics: Free Pitching, Books Welcome to Kaslo | 20 October 2009 I get asked about Kaslo a lot in my travels, and I've long promised that I would tell more of the story of this tiny village in the mountains of British Columbia that's been home for almost 10 years. I'll start here... Topics: Random Old Posts | 19 October 2009 Until this month, this blog has been behind a login and available only to those who have purchased access to the Online Training Center.
Making it public means some of those old posts are not relevant (or appropriate), so please bear with us as we sift through two years of posts and decide which will make it into the archives and which will go. For now, fewer posts older than this one are live. Topics: General Pay the Writer | 18 June 2009This is a funny, relevant rant from sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison on writers being asked and even volunteering to work for free. Every time he says the word 'writer', I hear 'designer'. Strong language warning.
Topics: Free Pitching If Win Without Pitching Made Gin... | 10 June 2009 ...we would make Hendrick's Gin.
Hendrick's infuses cucumber and rose petal into their gin, in addition to some of the more traditional botanical. Everything about the gin, it's packaging and all aspects of the company's communication, is about setting itself apart, telling prospects It's an odd, sophisticated taste - you probably won't like it... Topics: Positioning, Objections $40,000 Off Coupon | 9 June 2009
The Brainstorm Group in Toronto recently ran a full page ad in the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, featuring the above coupon for $40k off creative services. Great promotional move, but wil it come back to haunt them? Topics: Lead Generation Vendor Client Relations Video | 8 June 2009This video is circulating widely. It's been sent to me many times. Watch it, keep the URL and forward it to your clients and clients-to-be as the occasion calls.
Topics: Procurement, Free Pitching Will Low-Affiliation People Rule the Future? | 20 May 2009Reading about Peak Oil this morning - the idea that global oil production will soon forever outstrip demand, and thinking of the implications for the way business will be conducted, if the peak oil predictions come to be.
In a world where travel is prohibitively expensive, business models will have to change. Some people will find it easier than others to adapt... Topics: Personnel Fly the Plane | 20 April 2009This is great. A pdf of a recently famous event, with some language to put it into a relevant business context. Sorry I don't have the time to get a small jpg up but you need to read it in size..
Not sure of the origin (if you know please let me know - I would like to attribute). Thanks, David Chapin for forwarding.
I can't get the metaphor out of my mind. It's the new mantra: Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. You're not flying the plane! Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane... Mistakes in Positioning Language | 16 April 2009There's a standard set of words that a lot of undifferentiated firms use to try describe how they're different and why they should be hired. I've commented on terms like full service, strategic, responsive and others ad nauseum over the years (and I'll comment on them so more in next week's newsletter, Seven Words You Can't Say in Business Development) but there's one phrase I've heard over and over but never really saw a pattern of use until recently.
The phrase is, "We get it." Topics: Positioning Two Tips for Telephone Introductions | 9 April 2009Jim Camp, in Start With No, his book on Win-Lose negotiating, makes the point that in any negotiation only one party can be okay. By that he means one party is going to feel more comfortable and confident than the other. The surprising part of his guidance is that he claims it should be the other party and not you who feels this way.. Topics: Lead Generation On Tactics & Strategy | 24 March 2009
1. Differs vastly from individual to individual 2. Is rarer than I previous thought 3. Is rooted in our hard-wiring and not our experiences
For years I've heard numerous agency principals dismiss their competition with the line, 'They don't do strategy.' I long ago developed a reflex to this statement in the form of the question, 'What is strategy?' While there's been little consistency in the answers I've received there has been almost universal consistency in the long pause that precedes the answer. The pause tells me that we haven't spent much time contemplating this oft-used word... The Perfect Recording Studio? | 17 February 2009I've been struggling to find or create a suitable recording studio in Kaslo for my increasing number of audio/video projects.
My friend and office mate Patrick spent the weekend building an igloo. Well, lo and behold: perfect light, perfect acoustics... Topics: Interesting Language or Strategy? | 5 February 2009Without naming names I'm going to re-post here some text from an email exchange with a client on the subject of positioning. At some point he asks the question, "Am I just a graphic designer?"
My slightly edited response... Sorting Through Social Media | 4 February 2009I read another article this morning on using Twitter for your business. Once again the benefit list ended after novelty and connectedness. I know there are other benefits and examples of people employing this great new tool to good effect, but beyond exuberance for last year's App of the Year, balanced guidance on harnessing it for commercial purposes seems to be missing. A Writer Is... | 2 February 2009From Thomas Mann: "A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
Also, there are many variations on this quote, from Twain to Thoreau to Nietzsche, but I think Blaise Pascal said it first: "I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”
Alright, that's enough chicken soup for the writer's soul - get back to that thought leadership piece. If it were easy, everybody would do it (well.) The Year to Come | 26 January 2009
A short trip on January 6th turned into 17 days on the road as weather moved in and sealed Kaslo off from the outside world. All three roads heading into town were cut off by avalanche for a couple of days, so I decided to keep moving to my next stop. (I'll try to get some pictures of the avalanche sites posted here - they are impressive). Writing Resources | 15 January 2009I've been getting questions on resources to help people improve their writing skills. Here are some that I and others use. Feel free to add to the list. More on Writing... | 14 January 2009Yesterday I uploaded the latest newsletter, Four Reasons to Write. I've already received some great feedback, or more correctly, additional guidance on the benefits and principles of writing.
Reader Tuija Seipell, herself a business writer, replied with this additional guidance that I thought was worth adding here: The Follow-Up | 5 January 2009Someone posed a question to me about things a firm might do when the prospect has whittled his choices down to two - your firm and one other. It's a little question that merits a big answer so as I started to write I thought I would break it down into components and deal with a few of them in separate posts over the week.
Today, the Follow-Up... 2009 Branding Challenge | 2 January 2009I have a challenge for you regarding the B-word (Brand), and as it is the first working day of the new year, allow me to frame it as a New Year's Resolution that you might consider to taking on.
There are two levels to this resolution; choose the one that you think you're up to: The Jedi Master Challenge or the Padawan Learner Challenge... Things Undone in 2008 | 29 December 2008Still in holiday mode but as the year end approaches I'm thinking of things left undone this year. Like getting the kayaks under cover... Merry Christmas | 22 December 2008Kaslo is beautiful this time of year and I'd like you to see it.
I've added a brief video of my morning commute to the Video & Audio section, here. Please excuse the quality. We're getting better at this. :)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
-Blair Affiliation and Social Netowrks | 18 December 2008I had an interesting aha moment this week about business development candidates applying for jobs via social networks. The Power of Reciprocity | 18 November 2008In this month's Win Without Pitching Webcast, The Referral, I talked about leveraging the power of reciprocity - the social construction of responding in-kind to the behavior of others - in using referrals. I referred to a podcast on the subject and promised to link to it here.I highly recommend it... Process-Framed Case Studies Go Back to School | 6 October 2008Process-framed case studies (PFCS) are closing tools that frame your case studies in a defined, replicable process. They are powerful tools of reassurance that Win Without Pitching firms use to derail pitches and secure new business without writing proposals. Every year I do a seminar on building and using PFCS. This fall I've been asked to do a guest lecture on PFCS to the California College of Art's new Design MBA program. Getting Things Done with THINGS | 3 October 2008
The book has spawned user groups and even software, like Things, a Mac-based task management program rooted in some of Allen's thinking... One Firm's Anti-Pitch Manifesto | 2 October 2008San Francisco-based design firm 300FeetOut have an Anti-Pitch declaration on their website and I'm diggin' it... Here it is. What Not To Do | 20 August 2008I watch these people giving advice on how to win pitches and I'm reminded of most of my agency career (the first two thirds, anyway).
For me, this is like watching a comedy routine. But it's not comedy - it's the norm, and that's why for the first six years of my practice I had sheep on my website. It takes a lot of de-programming to even start to think that maybe there might be a better way.
Baaa-aaa! Topics: Free Pitching, Interesting Bermuda Bound | 29 July 2008
The 2009 event will see some significant changes. It will be two full days, with more workshop components that allow participants to develop and formalize some new diagnostic processes. Stay tuned... Summer Reading | 28 July 2008
Bound for Wales | 11 June 2008
Like most boys, I have a thing for dragons, so I'm all over the idea of a quick trip to Wales... The State of Design Associations | 11 June 2008
I was cleaning out files yesterday and found the text of a speech I delivered to the Bureau of European Design Agencies (BEDA) in Berlin last year. (I cleaned it up and uploaded it to the Manifestos section here.) The purpose of the speech was to talk about what design associations can do to combat the free pitching problem...
ENTJ: The Evil Overlord | 20 May 2008More contemplation on the idea of the hard-wiring of individuals that allows them to adopt certain behaviors, or precludes them from it. While poking around on the subject I found this hilarious non-traditional take on Myers Briggs personality types: http://www.xeromag.com/fun/personality.html. Fun and Money | 16 May 2008
When a creative person launches his own creative services firm, it's with these two objectives of fun and money in mind, but in the beginning, it's really about the fun... More Agency Spoofs | 28 April 2008
Try following the Yellow Brick Road and hope you're not reading your own web copy. :) I especially like the client quotes and the trademarked process, Brand Mogic. Oh Lord... | 26 February 2008I am not going to preface this link with comments, other than to say that it's likely brought to us by the people behind Huh? Corp.
Judge not... ah Hell, judge away. ;)
http://www.christvertising.com Returning to the Scene of the Crime | 21 February 2008
My message went over well enough (although I got poor marks for my rusty and wooden style!) that I was invited back two years later. David Baker has now ended his involvement with the conference that he co-founded, but the event is soldiering on (now an annual event again after two stints as a biannual) in Austin the weekend of September 25th, 2008. I've been invited back this year to do the opening keynote, giving me a rare opportunity to take back some of the things I said five years ago.
But will I? The Lichens Reunite in Kaslo | 20 February 2008Earlier this winter (while I was on the road unfortunately) the famous '60's rock band The Lichens reunited for a concert here in tiny little Kaslo, BC Canada.
In this YouTube video you get a little glimpse of our tiny village, as seen through the eyes of The Lichens lead singer Nicholas Dodge, AKA, The Randemic. Banff, Anyone? | 19 February 2008Closing for Creative Firms is a seminar/workshop that I've done once a year for the last few years. It's primarily focused on building and using process-framed case studies to help derail a pitch and close business without having to write a proposal. For this year's event I was targeting the Bahamas in March, but my schedule got away from me (plus a month in Barbados over Christmas gave me my island fix for awhile).
Plan B, however, is Banff, one of the world's most beautiful places... Conflicts of Interest | 18 February 2008
Here now, a few points on the realities of conflict of interest issues and how to handle them... Webinar Technology Tips | 18 February 2008In January 2008 I finished the first series of Win Without Pitching webinars. It was a bit of an experiment for me and all-in-all I’m happy about the results and eager to apply what I’ve learned in the next series, scheduled for May and June.
Earlier this month at the ReCourses New Business Summit in Nashville I did a break-out session on using speaking and seminars to demonstrate thought leadership and generate leads. In that session I was surprised at how many people were using or considering webinars. Many asked about my experience with the technical aspects of the medium, so I thought I would post them here. Surviving the Economic Train Wreck | 23 January 2008
I won't pretend to understand the nuances of how the US sub-prime mortgage market started the current economic downturn, and I certainly won't try to predict how bad things will get or how far this will spread. But let me tell you what I'm seeing today and share some points to consider as you frame your business development efforts for the year. On Project Work | 14 January 2008One of the questions I fielded during last week's Talking Money webinar was on project work. I gave a short answer to what is a somewhat nuanced subject, and so promised to answer more fully here.
What should the mix of project work to agency of record (AOR) -type work be in your firm? Should you be taking project work at all? Is it appropriate to pursue project work as a means to 'get your foot in the door' and then try to widen that crack to include more and more high value strategic work?
All your questions on project work, answered here... Universal Laws of Money | 3 December 2007I've visited a lot of countries in the last few months, some for the first time, and it doesn't
I hear this throughout North America, too. "This won't work in the South..." or "Blair, you don't understand - we can't do this in the Midwest..."
What is it that can't be done? It is speak frankly about money... Visual Literacy | 19 November 2007As a creative services firm one of your strengths should be the ability to communicate complex information and key insights visually. In any strategic engagement or in the strategic phases (diagnostic and strategic direction setting) of any engagement the ability to communicate information visually separates you from consultants and other non-creative competitors who prefer to present complex information via long reports. A Lesson in Finding Good People | 22 October 2007Having a hard time finding a business development person these days?
You're not alone. Here's my hypothesis on one more reason why... Is This Your Firm? | 19 October 2007
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