2bobs - With David C. Baker And Blair Enns

David unpacks six principles that can help creative firms benefit from delivering strategic guidance through their account managers.   LINKS "Account Managers and Strategy" by David C. Baker at punctuation.com

Blair sees four common behaviors when business owners are looking to get deals moving in times of economic decline, stagnation, or uncertainty that end up doing long term harm to their positioning and pricing.   LINKS "Four Ways to Commodify Your Offering" by Blair Enns on WinWithoutPitching.com "Phase Your Client Engagements" 2Bobs episode

Every few years we’re told that we need to move on from using email newsletters as a part of our marketing platform. And David says that advice has always been wrong.   Links David’s article on Punctuation.com (subscribe to his newsletter at the bottom of the page) “Email is the Most Consistent, Reliable Marketing Channel on the Web and I Can Prove It” by Rand Fishkin

David provides some clear examples of what is required for a firm to be successful at offering one service for many different verticals.   Links “Strengthening a Weak Horizontal Positioning” by David C. Baker on punctuation.com

Given these uncertain economic times we are in right now, Blair is asking if some creative firms might need to rethink the market they serve, looking at whether their positioning might be too broad, too narrow, or just wrong.   LINKS "The Target Is Not the Market" by Blair Enns on winwithoutpitching.com

David shares his decision-making framework that will help agency principals make better decisions during chaotic times like these.   LINKS “Leading in a Chaotic World” article by David C. Baker on Punctuation.com

Pricing is a prison cell of our own making. And it’s cultural. Blair has come up with a series of prompts as a creative exercise to help us all move into a realm of higher pricing.   Links “Creating a Culture of Premium Pricing” by Blair Enns at WinWithoutPitching.com “Have we Hit Peak Strategy?” “Be the Client You Want to See in the World”

David wants agency principals to develop new business plans which delivers more new leads with less labor so their organizations can have more controllable growth, as well as increasing their likelihood for a successful exit when that time comes.   Links 2Bobs episode: “The Rungs You Can Reach on the Ladder of Lead Generation” NY Times article: “How a Self-Published Book Broke ‘All the Rules’ and Became a Best Seller”

Blair thinks too many design firms and other service providers are trying too hard to raise prices by presenting themselves as more “strategic.” Both he and David see these agencies losing more and more work to competitors moving to off-shore teams and AI centered services.   Links Blair’s “What Is Strategy?” episode of the Ditching Hourly podcast with Jonathan Stark

David definitely doesn’t want anyone to be like tech bros, but he has recognized a few things creative agencies might be able to learn from them.

Blair has five steps creative agency leaders can take to turn their account managers, project managers, developers, engineers, and advisors into a source of instant scale to their sales efforts.    LINKS “Turning Your Delivery Team Into a Sales Team” article by Blair on WinWithoutPitching.com

Whether you call yourself an advisor or consultant (or not), David has seven core ethical principles that should govern advisory work.   LINKS "Advising Clients Ethically" article on Punctuation.com

The fact that sales people tend to talk too much is nothing new, but Blair has observed in recent client work just how profound of an effect this pervasive problem has on sales outcomes.   Links “How and When to Talk About Your Firm” “Replacing Presentations With Conversations”

When it comes to qualifications for ideal clients, David doesn’t hear anyone talking about how agencies can benefit when the person across the table is someone who presses boundaries and ethically skirts the rules within their own organization.

As Blair is finishing his new book that drops later this year, he comes to the realization that pretty much everything he does comes down to the fundamental issue that experts think they need to show up as a different person during the sale: pitching, persuading, and convincing instead of as the leader their prospective clients need them to be.   LINKS "The Dichotomy of the Expert Salesperson" article by Blair Enns at WinWithoutPitching.com "Ditch the (Sales) Script"

While discussing eight ways creative firms can do pro bono work better based on an article David wrote recently, both he and Blair discover a couple new profound insights together.   LINKS “Maximizing Your Pro-Bono Contributions” by David C. Baker at Punctuation.com Left-handed Mango Chutney

Blair recognizes how a Confucius quote is really bad business advice, but is still moved by how a highly principled creative firm in New Zealand continues to thrive by prioritizing their creative practices and client fit over new business strategy.   LINKS "Attending the Way" article by Blair on WinWithoutPitching.com AltGroup.net

David frequently gets hired to help resolve issues at firms between multiple principles when it comes to who does what and how much each should get paid, so he’s come up with a 7-point framework he can use in each unique scenario.

David interviews Blair about his recent article in which he takes a lesson from investing with compound interest to understand the increasing returns we can receive from our relentless pursuit of knowledge over time.   Links “The Time Value of Knowledge” article on WinWithoutPitching.com

David looks at the current data and weighs all the pros and cons of continuing to have staff who work from home in our post-pandemic economy, which makes Blair wonder if he would even survive if he was starting out in his profession today.   Links “The Pros/Cons of Remote Work”