The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

by Blair Enns

we are not seen as more expert than our competition then 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 world is drowning in undifferentiated creative businesses.

When the alternatives to hiring us are many, the client will dictate price.

Positioning is the foundation of business development success, and of business success.

We must choose a focus Then articulate that focus via a consistent claim of expertise And finally, we must work to add the missing skills, capabilities and processes necessary to support our new claim.

The Benefits of Positioning We can measure the success of our positioning by gauging our ability to command two things simultaneously: a sales advantage and a price premium. A Sales Advantage → To possess a sales advantage means that when and where we choose to compete, we win more often than not. A Price Premium → To command a price premium means that when we win, we do so not by cutting price, but while charging more.

We are hired for our expertise and not our service.

we cannot escape the fact that money is both a necessity in life and the most basic scorecard of success in business.

ensure that all engagements begin with both parties understanding how we will work together.

Strategy First → We will agree with the client on the strategy before any creative development begins.

Continuous Reference to Strategy → Immediately prior to presenting any creative, we will review the agreed upon strategy with the client.

Freedom of Execution → We welcome the client’s input on the strategy and in exchange we ask him to grant us the freedom to explore various ways of executing it.

Fewer Options of Better Quality → When we present creative options we will strive to limit them to as few as practical.

Presenting is a tool of swaying, while conversing is a tool of weighing. Through the former we try to convince people to hire us. Through the latter we try to determine if both parties would be well served by working together.

Our mission is to position ourselves as the expert practitioner in the mind of the prospective client.

It is not our job to convince the client to hire us via presentation or any other means.

Objective: Determine Fit → While our mission is to position, our objective at each and every interaction in the buying cycle is simply to see if there is a fit between the client’s need and our expertise suitable enough to take a next step.

It is not our objective to sell, convince or persuade.

To be truly free of the pitch we must change the tone of these meetings with our prospective clients and move from the presenter/complier role to that of the expert practitioner.

There are four phases in our client engagements: Diagnose the problem/opportunity Prescribe a therapy Apply the therapy Reapply the therapy as necessary

While it is common practice in the creative professions to prescribe solutions without fully and accurately diagnosing the problem, in almost every other profession such a sequence would render the professional liable for malpractice.

diagnose the client’s challenges in our own manner. Design is not the solution – it is the process.

professional obligation to diagnose first, we must map out and formalize our own diagnostic process.

Making things and selling things are the two basic functions in business. For our business to succeed we must succeed at both.

selling is about determining a fit between the buyer’s need and the seller’s supply (our very objective) and then facilitating a next step.

We sell ideas and advice – the very contents of our heads – and so how we sell impacts what we are able to deliver.

there is only one way we can afford to sell: the way of the respectful facilitator.

If we have not specialized and set ourselves apart from our competition in a meaningful way then all we have left is convincing. Convince or pitch: these are the options of the undifferentiated firm.

To sell is to: Help the unaware Inspire the interested Reassure those who have formed intent

The role of our thought leadership is to educate, not to persuade.

The interested future client looks for inspiration to move forward.

inspire him to form the intent to solve his problem; it is not to inspire him to hire us.

Our portfolios are our best tools of inspiration.

Inspiration is the primary role of our website, our brochure, our sales collateral and our in-person portfolio review.

Trying to inspire someone who does not recognize that he has a problem is a recipe for defensiveness and resentment. Inspiration is something we must save for the interested.

these requests at face value and simply comply. Win Without Pitching firms offer alternative ways forward. Phased engagements, pilot projects, money-back guarantees and case studies framed in defined methodologies are among the many viable alternative forms of reassurance.

The key is to respond to the motivation and not necessarily the request.

stay with him as he progresses through the buying cycle, at first helping over time, then inspiring when appropriate, and finally, reassuring at the end.

When we do choose to participate in the client-directed selection process we should do so with the perspective that every competitive bid process has a preferred option. Somebody almost always has inside information or access to hard-to-reach decision makers. Sometimes the outcome is predetermined and the process is but a veil of legitimacy.

We have long been conditioned to think that the written proposal is a necessary step in the buying cycle. It is not.

The paper is produced only once the agreement has been reached.

When we spend hours on a lengthy written proposal, one that diagnoses and prescribes for free, it sends the message that we need the client’s business.

The more heavily invested we appear to be in the sale, the less likely the client will tell us what he is really thinking.

The most common, and costly, business development mistake shared by creative firms around the world is that of mistaking interest for intent.

sending us away to write is not likely to achieve it. We must learn to measure the client’s intent;

when we pitch, present and invest in a written proposal – we often make it difficult for the client to be honest with us.

The outcome of the diagnostic phase is two parts: findings and recommendations.

we are not in the proposal writing business.

Instead of seeking clients, we will selectively and respectfully pursue perfect fits

small number of high-quality clients.