Win Without Pitching®
Thinking
FEATURED ARTICLE BY BLAIR ENNS
We all understand the idea of a target market. Hopefully, you have a formalized understanding of what or who your target market is. But you might be better off thinking about the target and the market as two different things.
The target is the narrow area at which you aim. The market is the broader area you are happy to hit.
Think of a golfer aiming at the flag (target) and happy to land on the green (market).
Creating a Culture of Premium Pricing
I’m fond of saying that pricing is a prison cell in your mind, of your own making. You see yourself trapped within a narrow band of what you can charge. Your competitors are similarly trapped, but the band or cell they are trapped in is different from yours. Some of your competitors are charging significantly more than you, and some significantly less, yet everyone feels restricted, confined by the idea of an elastic demand that will drop with the slightest price increase.
Have We Hit Peak Strategy?
If you “do strategy” or price strategy as a line item it’s time to stop and look at your own business strategy instead. How will you become, and remain, unique, especially in the era of offshore labor and AI? What urgent and expensive problem will you help your clients solve?
The Dichotomy of the Expert Salesperson
The world needs more of expert you. Let’s explore both sides of the expert salesperson.
Attending The Way
“A man, sitting in his house, attending the way, will be heard a hundred miles distant. Work done truly and conscientiously, in isolation, calls unknown friends.”
The Time Value of Knowledge
Just as the interest on money compounds over time, the interest on knowledge compounds similarly, under the right conditions.
“Working/Non-Working” Doesn’t Work
If creative and production really are non-working then why be so irresponsible as to spend 20% of your budget on them? Shouldn’t you be focused on getting that to zero?
The Target Is Not the Market
We all understand the idea of a target market. Hopefully, you have a formalized understanding of what or who your target market is. But you might be better off thinking about the target and the market as two different things.
Seven Positioning Mistakes to Avoid
Blair and David discuss the seven most common mistakes firms make when positioning themselves.
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.
Is The Design Firm an Endangered Species?
I imagined that there is a line among design-based businesses that separates those who see themselves as in the business of design from those who see design as just one of the tools they use, in the service of whatever business they are really in. I wondered if this line was moving, squeezing out the traditional design firm.
Alternative Forms of Reassurance
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.
Seven Strategies to Grow Accounts
David disagrees with Blair’s model for growing existing accounts in the post-AOR era and then offers his list of 6 ideas on the topic.
The Seven Masteries of the Rainmaker
Blair offers seven mindsets that any seller of expertise needs to master so that they can behave like the expert in the sales cycle.
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.
Creating a Culture of Premium Pricing
I’m fond of saying that pricing is a prison cell in your mind, of your own making. You see yourself trapped within a narrow band of what you can charge. Your competitors are similarly trapped, but the band or cell they are trapped in is different from yours. Some of your competitors are charging significantly more than you, and some significantly less, yet everyone feels restricted, confined by the idea of an elastic demand that will drop with the slightest price increase.
Quantifying The Value of Pricing
Your two main levers of profit are to lower your expenses and to raise your revenue. (Profound opening, I know. Stay with me.)
Why We Suck at Negotiating
The more I get to know procurement professionals through my pet project that is 20% – The Marketing Procurement Podcast, the more I am struck by how bad we in the creative professions are at negotiating.
Beyond Good, Better, Best Pricing
I’ve written for years on the impact that three-option proposals can have on your closing ratio and your average selected price. Providing your clients with three or four different ways to engage you—at different price points—might be the simplest and fastest path to improving profit.
Have We Hit Peak Strategy?
If you “do strategy” or price strategy as a line item it’s time to stop and look at your own business strategy instead. How will you become, and remain, unique, especially in the era of offshore labor and AI? What urgent and expensive problem will you help your clients solve?
Turning Your Delivery Team Into a Sales Team
Almost every leader of a business of expertise has a moment when they realize their delivery team—account managers, project managers, developers, engineers, consultants or advisors—could be a source of instant scale to their sales efforts. Inspiration tends to hit in moments of sales stagnation or decline. If you’re considering enlisting your delivery team in your
Are These The Last Days of The Pitch?
Something is in the air in Agencyland. After a long, cold and seemingly endless winter, something is finally in the air. Free pitching, the addictive and destructive opioid of both client and agency is disappearing like the White Witch’s endless winter. It may not yet be summer, but spring is most definitely here.
Do You Even Need a New Business Person?
I’m a fan of constraint-driven exercises, so let me pose one for your consideration. Imagine that you could never employ a full-time dedicated new business person (let alone a team) What changes would you need to make in your business as a result?
The Best Referral Machine I Have Ever Seen
I’m of two minds when it comes to referrals as a lead source. On one hand, I’m jaded by the people who claim their number one source of clients is “word of mouth and referrals,” when they really mean, “I have no idea and no plan.” On the other hand, I know people and businesses that have absolutely mastered the art of referrals, driving all their growth through this one channel.
Inbound, Outbound & In Between
Is there any way to do outbound lead generation without giving up the expert high ground, or does any solicitation taint you with the stench of a needy, powerless vendor?
Seven Strategies to Grow Accounts
David disagrees with Blair’s model for growing existing accounts in the post-AOR era and then offers his list of 6 ideas on the topic.
Four Steps To Lead Generation Success
When I think of the firms that drive numerous inbound leads they all have one very clear thing they do. Their lead generation efforts are as focused as their positioning. They’ve resisted diluting their efforts across numerous channels, avoiding Warren Buffet’s admonishment that “Diversification is for people who don’t know what they are doing.”
Open Book Management
Blair gets David to admit that he was kind of wrong about open book management being just a fad when he originally wrote about it almost two decades ago, and David offers ways that it can actually improve relationships with both employees and clients when used appropriately.
Alternative Forms of Reassurance
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.
Seven Strategies to Grow Accounts
David disagrees with Blair’s model for growing existing accounts in the post-AOR era and then offers his list of 6 ideas on the topic.
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.
Unclog Your Stuck Pipeline
Unclog Your Stuck Pipeline June 14, 2023 9:00 am PT — “Caution” seems to be the word of the day. Clients aren’t panicking about a possible recession, but every purchase is under scrutiny. Deals are taking longer to close. Pricing and payment terms are coming under pressure.
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