The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

by Blair Enns

Larger Clients Get Greater Value Another reason larger clients must pay more is they derive greater financial value from similar work we would do for smaller organizations. To charge John Doe Chevrolet what we would charge General Motors for the same work would be irresponsible of us. The larger client pays more to ensure his commitment to solving his problem and to ensure his commitment to working with us – and he pays more because we are delivering a service that has a greater dollar value to him.

Technology and oversupply are combining to rapidly widen the gulf between the commoditized tacticians who now bid their services against each other online, and the expert practitioners who command significant fees for leading their clients to novel solutions to meaningful business challenges. The middle is disappearing. The need to choose a path is being forced upon us. If we continue to choose not to choose, the decision will be made for us, and we will be pushed down the commodity road where we will reside with thousands of other order-taker suppliers who will never be free of the pitch.

There is always another, better opportunity behind the one facing us. If we cannot see it, we must at least believe it.

In following the twelve proclamations we will leave the poor clients to our competitors, and in this way acknowledge that the free-pitching problem is never going away – it is only going away from us.

Profit is the proof of the worth of our enterprise. It validates our gifts and gives us the strength to make our mark on the world, and that is all we have ever wanted. Like all creative people, we only seek to create, and in doing so, somehow change the world.