2bobs - With David C. Baker And Blair Enns

Blair identifies three recurring categories of lost sales in creative firms and offers solutions to each. Fixing two of these patterns can reap the dividends immediately, and adjusting your sales approach for all three will pay off for years.   LINKS "Three Patterns of Lost Opportunities" article by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com Brigadoon.live "Slapping Down Your Childlike Glee" 2Bobs episode "Debriefing After a New Business Call" 2Bobs episode "Assume an Advantaged Player" 2Bobs episode "The Rungs You Can Reach on the Ladder of Lead Generation" 2Bobs episode

David sees a lot of creative agencies making bad assumptions about their client relationships by not making the distinction between the reasons why clients come to them in the first place, why they choose to continue working with them as time passes, and then why they ultimately move on.   LINKS "Distinguishing Between Why Clients Come, Stay, and Leave" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com "The Waterfall of Differentiation" 2Bobs episode

Blair is stunned that he still encounters so many advisory businesses like ad agencies, consulting firms, legal and accounting practices — large and small — that are still selling time. So he and David discuss what new revenue models should look like as we all adapt to how AI is changing our businesses.   Links "Time's Up, Babycakes" by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com Time's Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms by Paul Dunn and Ronald J. Baker The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry by John Warrillow The Forever Transaction by Robbie Kellman Baxter Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future – and What to Do About It by Tien Tzuo and Gabe Weisert

Blair interviews David about a recent article he's been receiving a lot of feedback on, in which he lists all of the things he would try to incorporate into a brand new creative agency, based on what he's seen and learned from working with thousands of firms over the years.   Links "If I Started A New Firm, Now" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com

Blair differentiates between decoy pricing and price anchoring, which are two different techniques that are often confused for each other, and can increase your average proposal value in multi-option pricing when used appropriately.   Links "Decoy or Anchor?" article by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com "The Perils of 'Good/Better/Best' Pricing" 2Bobs episode

Despite the fact that many entrepreneurs hate people telling them what to do, they end up running their own agencies using a "central planning" model. Instead, David encourages entrepreneurial leaders to set clear standards, give staff more freedom, and institute kind accountability, for them and ourselves.   Links "Countering Your 'Central Planning' Tendencies" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com

David interviews Blair about his recent article in which he gives us methods to cope with our own natural emotional and physiological responses that can be triggered when unforeseen events unfold within sales conversations.   LINKS "Can Improv and Cold Plunges Improve Your Sales?" by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com Blair's interview on the Undisputed Authority podcast with Liam Curley What Doesn't Kill Us by Scott Carney

Blair interviews David about a recent article in which he argues that the very traits that make entrepreneurs successful also make it hard for them to give up being their own boss and join someone else's company.   LINKS "What Makes Entrepreneurs Unemployable" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com

David interviews Blair about his recent article in which he explores how our businesses are not simple machines that can be tuned (or killed) with specific wrenches, but they are complex adaptive organisms that we need to understand differently.   LINKS "Your Business Is Not a Machine" by Blair Enns for winwitoutpitching.com "Innofficiency in Your Agency" 2Bobs episode "Grow or Die?" 2Bobs episode

David sees too many marketing agencies trying to attract new business by staking claims of specialness on things for which nobody is claiming the opposite, instead of building their positioning on uniquely defined expertise.

Are prospects not responding to your follow-up after you submit a proposal? Blair goes through what might be causing their lack of response and then provides three tools to address the ghosting problem.   Links "Ghosted. Now What?" by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com "The Power of a Metaphor" 2Bobs episode Blair's annual 100 Day Sprint post on LinkedIn

One characteristic of our industry is disappearing moats. After a brief overview of the fourteen moats we've lost from 1965 to today, we'll look at what turf we really have left to defend and what the future will look like if we get this right. It'll be very different, and you'd better get ahead of it.

What do we do in those situations where we have to pitch? Blair simplifies some important principles from his books into a sequence of four precepts we can follow when the sales process doesn't progress like we'd hoped.   Links "The Only New Business Indicator That Matters" 2Bobs episode "Assume an Advantaged Player" 2Bobs episode "Slapping Down Your Childlike Glee" 2Bobs episode

If/when you sell your firm, it'll likely be the largest transaction of your life, and so it makes sense to understand it! In this episode David gives a crash course in everything earnouts.   LINKS "Understanding Earnouts" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com

Blair recognizes growth opportunities in every area of life and business, yet sees many people chasing metrics while unknowingly resisting genuine progress for various reasons.   LINKS "Chief Growth Officer" by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com

David recognizes that the fear of repeating ourselves in our client work is motivated by the right things: “am I delivering value?”   LINKS "Repeating Yourself as an Expert" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com "Questions, Not Answers" 2Bobs episode

Blair tells the story of recreation.gov and how its performance pay deal has been nothing but wins for every party involved, with plenty of lessons for buyers and sellers of all kinds of services.   LINKS "Performance Pay Leads to a $500M Website" by Blair Enns for winwithoutpitching.com Recreation.gov

David provides a framework for one of the most important conversations in a creative agency principal’s life.   LINKS "When A Key Employee Wants Equity" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com "Pros + Cons of Having a Partner" by David C. Baker for punctuation.com

Instead of railing against AI-generated spam, Blair decides to "get in on the action" with his brand new SpamHack AI Growth System™️ in this spoof episode.

David recognizes more than a few parallels between his passion for motorcycle racing and the work being done in creative and marketing agencies.   LINKS “What I Learned from the Race Track” by David C. Baker for punctuation.com