You never want to make assumptions in the sale. If you feel yourself assuming something, you need to lean into that and ask a question about what it is that you are assuming. Because when you make assumptions in the sale, it will likely lead you down a really long and expensive path.
The subjectivity of value works both ways. Value is highly personal and subjective but it is so to all parties on both sides of the buy-sell divide. Just as two different clients considering the same offering from the same firm will assign different value to that offering, so too will two different salespeople trying to sell that offering.
Your power in the sale is a function of having your desirability be greater than your own desire. Makes sense, right?
One of the things that creative firms need to let go of is the need to present. It’s one of the proclamations in The Win Without Pitching Manifesto. “We will replace presentations with conversations.”
Friends, have you ever struggled with how to write a proposal? Sure you have, but I’m here to help. After years of reviewing written proposals from hundreds of marketing firms and about a dozen years of writing my own 100+ page proposals, I give to you, The Can’t-Miss, Killer Proposal. Read this before your competitors
Why do agencies get themselves into these situations where they feel they have to take work on onerous terms, where they have to put up with procurement’s powerplay moves and where they have no power to affect price?
At the highest level of pricing centralization and, I believe, value-and-profit creation, here’s how account leaders and a value council should work together
Blair and David analyze and then look beyond the requests for reassurance potential clients make during the late stage of a sale to address their underlying motivations.
Let’s try on the idea of you being as ruthlessly discerning with your prospective clients, if a little kinder in your language. What are the questions you would like to know in advance of working with a client to determine if this relationship is going to work?
It’s been common for a long time for agencies to kick off a new client engagement with a workshop of some form. Sometime in the last two years, however, clients started to suggest to agencies that instead of pitching for free they would pay them to workshop some ideas. It sounds good on the surface, but is it better than pitching?
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