Win Without Pitching®: Thinking

Agency Business

The Best Ways to Disrespect Account People

Blair remembers what it was like when he was an account person himself, and David shares five ways firms can treat their account people better.

Starting…Existing…Thriving

Blair interviews David on what each of the three levels of success in running a creative firm looks like.

Rising From The Ashes: A New Agency Model

As someone who is perhaps a little too fond of a grand statement, I’m tempted to borrow from Landau and shout that I have seen the marketing agency model of the future and its name is Communo. Like Landau, however, I have a bias. (Landau went on to become Springsteen’s manager shortly after writing those words.) I’m an advisor to Communo and have a financial interest in their success.

The Great Convergence is Upon Us

One of the clearest trends in professional firms today is the convergence of the disciplines of design, business consulting and software engineering on the same client business challenges. This Great Convergence is pitting firms of radically different types against each other in the battle to best serve the client, and it’s creating new types of

Reviewing the “Surveillance Footage”

There are seven patterns that almost all principals are guilty of. When David and Blair point them out, it lead their clients to say, “you must have hidden cameras in my office!”

Collaborating with Competitors

David and Blair compare each other’s competitiveness and then offer some specific ways principals can actually collaborate with their competitors as a part of building beneficial business relationships.

Four Segments of New Business

Blair and David come up with descriptive words that help clarify each of the four parts of what David calls the “pantheon” for new business: positioning, lead generation, sales, and pricing.

Navigating The Seven-Year Chokepoint

Business is a game with hidden levels. By succeeding at one level, you get invited to play the next. The common mistake is to bring those first-level tools to the next level. Not only do they not work here, but they also work against you. Many of the habits you learned you will now have to unlearn. Accepting this inevitable obsolescence of tools is the key to obtaining all the advanced levels of success.

Five Rules for Pursuing Project Work

Some firms don’t take project work at all, while for others project revenue vastly outstrips the income from their few ongoing clients. What’s the proper role of project work in your firm, and what’s the proper approach to pursuing or vetting it? In this article I lay out some specific guidelines on projects as a part of your overall client mix, and the rules of pursuing and accepting project work.

Replacing the Gorilla Account

Are you being held hostage by a gorilla account that, if they left, would destabilize or even destroy your firm?

The threat is very real according to David C. Baker at ReCourses, who quantifies these things. “One half of all firms that lose a client representing at least 35% of their revenue do NOT survive.”

You might want to get ahead of that.

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