The Win Without Pitching Manifesto Quotes

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
― Blair Enns, A Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Speak softly and people lean toward you; speak loudly and they lean away.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“If we are pomegranates then we will resist being pushed into a process designed to compare apples to apples.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“selling, when done properly, has nothing to do with persuading. It is not our job to talk people into things.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Expertise is the only valid basis for differentiating ourselves from the competition. Not personality. Not process. Not price.”
― Blair Enns, A Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“The Paradox of Choice We stand in a room full of doors. As highly curious people, we want to see what is behind every door. This is our desire as artists – to satisfy our curiosity and solve the problems we haven’t previously solved. On some level, however, we know that if we are to drastically reduce our competition and benefit from the resulting power shift, we must pick one door, walk through it and never look back. Our personal desire for variety is suddenly placed at odds with the fundamental need of our business to focus. Is it possible, however, that on the other side of the door we face there is not one long gray hallway, not one empty boring room, but more doors – more choices? Is it possible that what lies on the other side of the door is not the death of our creativity, sure to be snuffed by routine and boredom, but just enough focus to harness the full potential of our talents? The answer, of course, is that it is possible, but we will never know for sure unless we walk through the door and close it behind us.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“We do not begin to solve our clients’ problems before we are engaged.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“The role of our thought leadership is to educate, not to persuade. The future client should be smarter for reading it, we should be smarter for writing it, and, one day, when the client does experience a problem in an area on which we’ve written, our guidance may be helpful to him in seeing the opportunity within his problem. Until that day, we continue to cement our position as leaders in our field through our writing. Experts write.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“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.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“When we drastically reduce the real alternatives to hiring our firm, we shift the power balance away from the client and toward us.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“If 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”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Some choose to be strong because they wish to rule others. Some choose to be strong because they wish to help others. Some choose to be strong because they’ve experienced the alternative and never want to be weak again. What”
― Blair Enns, A Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Unmanaged is one of those rare books that helps you see that the answers to your most pressing organizational problems are the opposite of what you thought they were.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“If we do not win while charging more then it is likely we are attempting to run a business of ideas and advice from a position of weakness; or we are trying to compete outside of our area of focus; or we have avoided The Difficult Business Decision altogether and have chosen, by not choosing at all, to run a business without a focus or a fundamental business strategy.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Those that do not claim meaningful territory are rarely attacked.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“If we want to build deep expertise we must take pains to document how we work, to define how we will work in the future and to continuously refine and improve our approach.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“it is to build a business that allows us to rise to the highest heights possible and make an impact on the world that is larger than us.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Like all creative people, we only seek to create, and in doing so, somehow change the world.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“the process of design is finally being seen as the last great differentiator of businesses and economies; while on the other, the outputs are increasingly seen as commodities.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Walking away from those that cannot pay us what we are worth lowers our average cost of sale and preserves both our positioning and any future business opportunities with the client.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Design is not the solution – it is the process.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“One of the benefits we bring to our clients is the advantage of an outside perspective, one that is not saddled with perceptions of bias or a hidden agenda. We will not allow proper guidance to be sacrificed at the altar of company politics.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Once we choose to make our passion our business, we take on responsibilities to our clients, families and employees.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Presenting is a tool of swaying, while conversing is a tool of weighing”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Those that see us as experts will grant us at least some of the concessions we seek and allow us to Win Without Pitching, to derail the pitch or to gain the inside track. From the rest, we will walk away.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“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.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“To sell is to: Help the unaware Inspire the interested Reassure those who have formed intent”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Winning while charging more is the ultimate benefit and key indicator of effective positioning, for price elasticity is tied to the availability of substitutes.”
― Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

“Premium Pricing Improves Commitment We never want our clients to be in situations where it is easy for them to decide to not take our advice. Any time someone hires an outside expert, the ultimate outcome he seeks is to move forward with confidence. What is the value of good advice not acted upon? Yes, it is our job to tell him what to do, but that is often the easy part. We are equally obliged to give him the strength to do it. We are not meeting our full obligations to our clients when we make recommendations that they find easy to ignore. The price we charge for such guidance should be enough that our clients feel compelled to act, lest they experience a profound sense of wasted resources. There must be the appropriate amount of pain associated with our pricing. This implies the need for our pricing to change as the size of the client changes. Larger organizations need to pay more to ensure their commitment. 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. Reinvesting in Ourselves Of all the investment opportunities we will face in our lives, few will yield returns greater than those opportunities to invest in ourselves. Price premiums give us the profit to reinvest in our people, our enterprise and ourselves. The corporations that we most admire are the ones that invest in research and development. We must follow their path. While others get by on slim margins, winning on price, we will use some of our greater profit margins to better ourselves and put greater distance between our competition and us. Better Margins Equal Better Firms and Better Clients On these many levels, charging more improves our ability to help our clients and increases the likelihood that we will deliver high-quality outcomes. It allows us to select the best clients – those that we are most able to help. Like leaning into the discomfort of money conversations, charging more might not come naturally or seem easy, but it is better for everyone, including the client, and so this too we shall learn to do with confidence.”
― Blair Enns, A Win Without Pitching Manifesto