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
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!”
Blair leads a discussion on how clients tend to take mental shortcuts in making business decisions, and how we can nudge clients without manipulating them to make a decision that is in their best interest.
A mainstay of some agency new business conferences is a few highly coveted clients on the stage lecturing the agency audience on what they want from their agency partners that they’re not getting. While it would be foolish to dismiss these client entreaties out of hand, it would be just as foolish, I believe, to give them what they want.
I don’t care what you or I did in 2017. Good or bad, it’s done, and I’ve never been one for lingering too long in the past. A lot of people think that their past defines their future. That the things they can accomplish now and tomorrow are limited by what has happened previously. But that’s ridiculous. The wake doesn’t push the ship. You’re free to go wherever you want, do what you want and earn what you want in 2018, regardless of the reality that was in 2017.
No, this isn’t a rant about how things were better before everything was digital. Rather, it’s an observation on how principals of creative firms have borrowed some of the wrong things from the cultures of technology businesses and startups, in particular.
Take this simple test and consider putting it to your team members. It’s one question to which the answers reveal so much about the firm and the individual respondents. I love putting this question to people who do not have day-to-day business development responsibilities – people like creative directors, partners, CFOs and pretty much anybody else in the firm.
Okay, here’s the million dollar question…
You will get a curated collection of Blair’s best writing, videos, and podcast episodes immediately after signing up.
Then, you’ll receive Blair’s latest work as it’s published.
