The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

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Derail the pitch (when you show up late, get the client to put his process aside and take a different approach with you) We will see ourselves as professional practitioners who bring real solutions to our clients’ business problems. We will seek respect above money, for only when we are respected as experts will we be paid the money we seek."

We do not begin to solve our clients’ problems before we are engaged. … Doctors charge for MRIs. Accountants charge for audits. Lawyers charge for discovery. And we charge for our diagnostic work as well … our clients pay us to write proposals via a phased sale that begins with a diagnostic." Trading expertise for profit (working cheaply or for free) for a period of time is valid and should be sincerely communicate to the clients. If we were to accept even half of the project work that comes to us, then we would find ourselves aimlessly building a tactical firm burdened by too many small clients and projects, with the commensurate challenges of poorer financial reward and less fulfillment." I've been thinking a lot about structure and pricing for creative firms, as I think about the opportunities for the agency I work with. This book came at a helpful time. I'm not directly in a sales role, though, so in some ways, it fluttered just left of my head. The ideal audience is definitely a sales-leadership role in a creative firm. Of uttermost importance is positioning and it is a key step in the business development success. With positioning, we will reduce or eliminate the competition.After reading it once I confidently believed it’s worth 10X the selling price. After listening to the Audible at least 20 times now, I can confidently say it’s worth at least 100X the selling price. This book is one sentence: You become great by being and acting like an expert, positioning your firm in a way that there are no other alternatives for the buyer and taking on only the few best client engagements. Profit margins are highest in the first two phases (diagnose and prescribe) than in the last two (apply and reapply). Our thinking is the value-added differentiator in the first two phases. We Will Charge More The book starts by painting a picture of the problem, which is that service providers/ freelancers/ business owners get caught in this cycle of vying for business, almost like supplicants, and needing to offer free work just to get a foot in the door on commodity pricing. Basically, doing a ton of work just to get by, if that.

The goal of this book is to free the creative firm from the ‘ pitch’. But what is the pitch? It is described in the book as:This book will help you rethink how you approach your marketing and sales. It will reframe the stories you were telling yourself about how sales can be manipulative. Also, it will help you embrace the process by also disproving the typical belief that if "you build it they will come". Freedom of Execution → Welcome input on strategy, but require freedom of execution. I.e. Client should focus focus on the “outcome” vs “how” you get there. Our mission is to position ourselves as the expert practitioner in the mind of the prospective client."

Mission: to position myself as the expert practitioner in the mind of the client (Positioning / Trout reference) The narrower our claim of expertise, the bigger our integrity. The claim of expertise build us credibility. Legitimate price negotiations are fair game.” BUT: don’t cut price past the point of profitability.

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Note: You will never be fully rid of the presentation. That is not the goal. The goal is to eliminate our own need to present.)

The more heavily invested we are during the sale, the less likely the client will tell us what he is really thinking. Accept that clients will turn over —> this is healthy —> client hire in times of need —> if we do our job, this need reduces. Expertise is the only valid basis for differentiating ourselves from the competition. Not personality. Not process. Not price. When the client has few alternatives to our expertise then we can dictate pricing, we can set the terms of the engagement and we can take control." We Will Replace Presentations with ConversationsIf we are not seen as more expert than our competition than we will be viewed as one in a sea of many, and we will have little power in our relationships with our clients and prospects The book starts by defining a pitch as an ‘attempt to sell or win approval for one’s ideas by giving them away for free, usually within a competitive, buyer-driven process.’ Enns goes argues that market forces are aligned against agencies, pressuring them to give work away for free to prove their worth to clients with creatives resigned to this and trade associations seemingly powerless to challenge the status quo. Solid state physics Quantum theory Chemical bonds SCIENCE Physics Condensed Matter Física do estado sólido Mecânica quântica Just because it is in the client's nature to lear, does not mean he should be allowed to do so at all times." I especially like the approach to sales as the expert practitioner determining fit, rather than as the persuader.