2Bobs—with David C. Baker and Blair Enns

David and Blair address a listener request to go over the challenges that principals often go through once they decide to reposition their firm.

Blair wonders if he's made an error in his efforts to prevent agencies from going into presentation mode during the sales process.

Blair predicts when we are through the COVID-19 pandemic and business is approaching normal (whatever that means), agency principals will look back with some regrets about the things they did not do, rather than the things they did. LINKS "Four Regrets You're About to Have" by Blair Enns "Play the Game of Constraints" by Blair Enns

Blair and David, as two white business leaders, try talking about the traumatic and emotional yet very necessary changes happening now to end systemic racism. As they listen and allow space for the voices of diversity that need to be heard, they also struggle with when to speak up as examples, owning up to their mistakes which will hopefully help lead the way for real change. LINKS "How I'm Trying to Process Things Right Now" by David C. Baker "Speech and Systems" - episode 186 of Exponent podcast A Statement from the Founders of Monday Night Brewing

David is frequently surprised by how many new business people have trouble answering five particular important questions about their jobs and their firms.

Blair gets David to share a part of his upcoming book about how all client relationships have a cycle of love-hate-love that we have to be prepared for and push through.

David expects to get in trouble discussing Blair's topic about the role of friendship in business—between sales people and prospects, account people and clients, and principals and employees.

David and Blair try to predict the future about what principals of creative firms can expect in their relationships with clients as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact business.

Blair and David address five common questions they have heard from creative entrepreneurs as they both have been helping firms navigate the economic changes being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given where the economy is currently heading, David offers a framework that can help principals of creative firms make those tough staffing decisions in a timely and considerate manner.

David asks Blair to clarify his advice on offering proposal options and anchoring. Is it about more than just scope and price? LINKS Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms by Ronald Baker The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably by Thomas T. Nagle and Georg Müller Pricing with Confidence: 10 Ways to Stop Leaving Money on the Table by Reed Holden and Mark Burton Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value by Reed Holden "6 Psychological Tactics Behind the Starbucks Menu" by Kent Hendricks The Soul of Enterprise podcast, episode 233: "Pricing at Starbucks and Six Tactics You Should Know About"

Blair and David record a live episode at the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans for Bureau of Digital's Owner Summit. Thank you to Carl Smith and Lori Averitt at Bureau of Digital for hosting the live recording at the Owner Summit on February 7, 2020 in New Orleans. And thank you to the amazing staff at the Orpheum Theater for helping us with the production and staging!

David does all the heavy lifting for Blair in his recent article so they can finally discuss the overlap between Agile as a management method and pricing policy. LINKS "Pros and Cons of Agile…in the Real World" by David C. Baker 2Bobs episode 78: "Phase Your Client Engagements" Manifesto for Agile Software Development "Agile is Dead (Long Live Agility)" by Dave Thomas

Blair wants firms to get paid to write their proposals, which is the first of his four phases of client engagement. LINKS "Different Pricing Models" - 2Bobs episode 61 "A Beginner's Guide to Negotiating" - 2Bobs episode 53 "Alternative Forms of Reassurance" - 2Bobs episode 46 Transcript

David keeps encountering clients who don't appreciate how their account people actually contribute to their overall business, and Blair totally identifies with the traits that David describes. 2Bobs episode 44: "The Best Ways to Disrespect Account People" WHAT ACCOUNT PEOPLE DO, IN BROAD STROKES: Pull necessary data from the client, even when it's tough to get their cooperation. Sell recommendations back to them that are in their best interest. Lead the client. (Interesting fact: "strategy" is latin for "general" in army who leads.) Protect margins. Grow the account. Send the client to hell...and help them enjoy the trip (e.g., change orders). Read social signals and intervene before catastrophe strikes. Manage an account review, disputes, mistakes, etc. Follow client contacts to their next job. Keep ear to the ground as agency innovates client offerings. PERSONALITY: Goal is authority and prestige. Judges others by their ability to verbalize and be flexible. Overuses enthusiasm, selling ability, and optimism. Fears boxed in environment without room to grow.

Blair and David share their frustrations around some contracts that they have been asked to sign, making it clear why they are not attorneys. This episode does not contain legal advice. Get a lawyer for that: Sharon Toerek Candice Kersh Jeffrey Dermer Michael Lasky

David keeps seeing principals who get someone else to run their firm, which is not a good idea. Then he gets Blair's thoughts on why he thinks it happens. Links David C. Baker Seminar Win Without Pitching Workshops with Blair Enns Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow Entrepreneurial Operating System Traction Library The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike

David and Blair lay out some of the reasons why they think, in most cases, agencies pursuing recurring revenue models are making a mistake. Links "Why Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Arrangements May Not Be Ideal" by David C. Baker The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness by Todd Rose Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour by Blair Enns The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō "Unbundling the Corporation" by John Hagel III and Marc Singer for Harvard Business Review

David brings up one of Blair's favorite topics: how they keep themselves and their clients from being trapped by requests for proposal. LINKS 2Bobs episode 70, "The Only New Business Indicator That Matters"

Blair and David share what they have learned as they have recorded 2Bobs podcast episodes for almost 4 years - what has worked well, what has been challenging, and what they would recommend to those agency principals who might be considering their own podcast. LINKS The Soul of Enterprise Episode 15: "The Best Learning Method Ever Devised: After Action Reviews" with Ron Baker and Ed Kless Build a Better Agency with Drew McClellan EconTalk with Russell Roberts Marcus dePaula, podcast producer and consultant BLAIR'S PODCASTING SETUP Telefunken M82 dynamic XLR microphone Audient iD4 audio interface Rolls MS111 Mic Mute Senal SMH-1000 Professional Field and Studio Monitor Headphones Apple QuickTime Player app for AIFF audio recording using the Maximum quality setting Skype for the conversation (audio only) DAVID'S PODCASTING SETUP Sennheiser HMDC 27 Professional Broadcast Headset with custom extension cable (so David can roam as he records) Audient iD4 audio interface Rolls MS111 Mic Mute Rogue Amoeba Audio Hijack for WAV audio recording of both David's mic and the Skype call (as a backup) Skype for the conversation (audio only) MARCUS' EQUIPMENT RECOMMENDATIONS MARCUS' REMOTE RECORDING INSTRUCTIONS USING CLEANFEED.NET

Blair and David consider the hundreds of firms they have each worked with over the years to identify the characteristics of highest performing firms and what they have seen agency principals do to succeed.

Blair shares some new data (at the time he and David recorded this discussion in January of 2016) that points to the one variable that can predict the likelihood of a prospect hiring your firm.

David wants to know if Blair thinks it's harder for creative firms to find great prospective clients, or great employees, as they unpack how to attract the right candidates using a "lead generation" plan. Ideas for "Lead Generation" of candidates: Social media presence Guest teach a single class at a known school that typically turns out a best student every semester Offer your facility as a meeting place for trade/association meetings Put a rotating art gallery with an open house when the display rotates Quarterly webinar for prospective employees on topics they would be fascinated with, including guests (or even a podcast) Skill-building workshops open to the community, bringing in expert teachers Build a model that depends on a steady rotation of contractors to test them out Keep a great relationship w/ employees who leave you—they are frequently your best people when they return after an interim education somewhere else

Blair is in the spotlight discussing some bad practices driven by assumptions he's seen his clients make over the past couple decades, a few of which are new to David. 10. Branding and Full Service Advertising are Specializations 9. The More You Have to Sell the More Likely a Sale 8. An Increase in Meetings Leads to an Increase in Sales 7. The Written Proposal is a Necessary Step in the Sales Process 6. Build Personal Relationships to Build Sales 5. Presentation Skills Training Leads to Improved Business Development Success 4. Chemistry Wins New Business 3. Selling is Persuading 2. It's Everyone's Job to Sell 1. You Have to Pitch (for Free) to Win a Creative Assignment LINKS Original article by Blair Enns, "Top Ten New Business Development Myths" The Challenger Sale by Neil Rackham Contagious Culture: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization that Thrives by Anese Cavanaugh

Blair interviews David about six employee archetypes which can end up being big hiring mistakes for creative firms.

Blair has another podcast therapy session about "good clients vs. bad clients," as David tries to help him see procurement people as actual human beings who sometimes are just overwhelmed.

Blair has an aversion to the topic of personal branding, so David offers examples of why, when, and how the personal brands he's seen principals develop can be either helpful or harmful for their firms. LINKS "Launch Your Career as a Podcast Guest" by David C. Baker Episode 1 of Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You: "You Don't Exist Without a Personal Brand" The Visible Expert® by Hinge Marketing "Personal Branding for Creative Professionals" course by Dorie Clark

Blair and David explore the differences they see between consultants and agencies in an effort to understand how the landscape is changing and what creative firms can do to beat consultants at their own game. Links The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth by David C. Baker Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland

David admits to making a mistake, as Blair finishes his discussion from a couple episodes back on the eighth pricing model, which he claims "is the highest expression of entrepreneurship there is." Links 2Bobs episode 61 - "Different Pricing Models" Prohibition Gin and Toolbox Design Cup & Leaf "Unbundling the Corporation" by John Hagel III and Marc Singer for the Harvard Business Review The Futur and Chris Do of Blind™ Conscious Minds

David and Blair address the obsession that many principals have with the size of firms, and the advantages of being either big or small.

Blair is struck by how creative businesses have trouble applying their creativity to their revenue models, so he and David discuss some of the best ways firms can get paid. LINKS Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future - and What to Do About It by Tien Tzuo The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue by Robbie Kellman Baxter The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry by John Warrillow 2Bobs Episode 31: "Mastering the Value Conversation" 2Bobs Episode 25: "Pricing Creativity" Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour by Blair Enns

David and Blair each share their own perspectives on how chasing comfort has kept them and their clients making the right decisions in both management and sales situations. LINKS 2Bobs Episode 2: Say What You Think The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon

Blair wants creative firms to quit viewing in-house resources as the enemy and demonstrates how the arrangements between the two can be mutually beneficial. LINKS 2Bobs Episode 2: Say What You Think 2Bobs Episode 57: There are NOT Seven Reasons Why Clients Hire You

David and Blair each share a list of things that they wish agency principals would do more of to take their firms to the next level of success. Links "The Problem of Standards" by David Maister 2001

Blair and David work on clarifying things by coming up with only six reasons why businesses hire creative firms.

Blair and David share the places they find good ideas that they turn into content, the best of which end up being incorporated into their services. Read the transcript ➝

David finds Blair's thoughts fascinating on how far agencies should service or pursue clients geographically, and whether or not the location of a firm should be a factor.

David gives Blair four practical reasons for sales people to hand off new business to the account person before the deal is closed instead of after.

David gets into Blair's head to get his 10 basic negotiating tips that he has worked with clients on over the years. LINKS "10 Negotiating Tips" (with 5 bonus tips) "Selling in One Lesson," 2Bobs episode 49 Buying Less for Less: How to avoid the Marketing Procurement dilemma, by Gerry Preece Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value, by Reed K. Holden TRANSCRIPT DAVID C. BAKER: Blair, today we are going to talk about 10 really interesting ways you can get your spouse to go ... Wait, I haven't, quit laughing. I haven't - BLAIR ENNS: I'm out. DAVID: How to get your spouse to go to the place for dinner that you want to go to. BLAIR: Okay. DAVID: How's that? BLAIR: Sure. What kind of trouble could we possibly get into? DAVID: Yeah, that would be a really stupid pod ... No. What we're talking about are some negotiating tips that you've thought about over many years. You've polled, you've tested, you've researched. You've worked with clients on. You've consolidated them into this one place. We may get to some bonus tips. I don't know if we'll have the time, but we definitely want to talk about the 10 basic tips around negotiating. Can you get me inside your head for a minute before I start pulling these out from you one by one? BLAIR: Well it's pretty crowded in there. What is it that you wanted access to? I gave you my password to everything the other day. What else do you want? DAVID: Is this going to be this difficult today? Are we going to do that? Or are we going to be cooperative? BLAIR: I'm feeling a little punchy. DAVID: Yeah, I see. I see you are. BLAIR: I'm in another hotel room. This is day 31 of a 36 day road trip. I tweeted today, "Okay. I've answered the question, how much travel is too much?". DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Getting into my head, I think these tips, I considered it kind of a beginner's guide to negotiating. I don't consider myself to be an expert on negotiating. But you can't advise people on the subject of selling and pricing without knowing something about negotiating, so a while ago I took a bunch of the best practices that I've encountered on the subject of negotiating, and kind of put it into one place. That's I think what we're going to talk about today. I'll call it a beginner's guide to negotiating, and we're referencing to these 10 tips that I've published previously. DAVID: Hopefully it will be more than a beginner's guide. But we'll just set people's expectations low. BLAIR: Yeah, right. DAVID: Then we'll exceed them. BLAIR: That's exactly what I was doing. DAVID: There are 10 in here. But there are two of them that we've actually had the chance to talk about in previous episodes. I will reference all 10 of them. But then with two of them I'm going to point people to a previous episode if they want to really bone up on all that stuff. DAVID: The first one is, avoid over-investing. This is one that we have talked about. It was in a recent episode. It was called Selling In One Lesson. The idea is that the more somebody wants it, the more at a disadvantage they are, right? Just summarize that for us and then we'll move on to the number two one. Over-investing is the first one. BLAIR: Yeah, so you can, a good metaphor for negotiating would be a poker game where there's times when you're bluffing, when you're playing certain hands. But in particular the idea of bluffing. Or calling somebody else's bluff. You can apply some of the tips that we'll talk about here. If it's very clear to the client that you want this so bad, and it's clear to the client not just from what you say, but from all of the free work that you have done, all of the costs that you've incurred. If you are clearly over-invested in the sale then you do not have much of a bargaining position. Because you are demonstrating through your behavior that you want it more than the client does. Therefor the client is the one with the power in the relationship. BLAIR: It's a big broad rule. Avoid over-investing in the sale. As you pointed out, we covered this in detail in the podcast, Selling In One Lesson. DAVID: Okay. Even if you do desperately need it, don't act like it. BLAIR: Right. DAVID: Second, and here we want to start diving in in more detail. The second principle for negotiating is, ask the question, "Have we already won?". As I read that, I wasn't sure exactly what you meant. That led me to dive a little bit deeper into this, and I found it really interesting. "Have we already won?". Are you really asking that specific question? Or is it more just framing the negotiating in your head? BLAIR: This is a negotiating point specific to the topic of negotiating with procurement. This comes up a lot, I wrote about this in my book, Pricing Creativity: A Guide To Profit Beyond the Billable Hour. In the last month in the various places I've been, and the talks that I've done, and the training I've done, procurement has come up a lot. Where I'll talk about a principle and somebody says, "Ye

After having discussed positioning in multiple previous episodes, David puts together in this one episode the seven most common mistakes firms make when positioning themselves.

David asks Blair about using "after action reviews" following sales calls, and the two key questions that should be asked as a part of that debriefing process. LINKS Episode #15 - The Best Learning Method Ever Devised: After Action Reviews, from The Soul of Enterprise Podcast with Ron Baker and Ed Kless TRANSCRIPT DAVID C. BAKER: Blair, today we are going to talk about debriefing after a new business call. Not after just a business call, but a new business call, right? So how did this topic come to your mind? What got you thinking about this? BLAIR ENNS: I'm a fan of Ron Baker and Ed Kless' podcast, The Soul of Enterprise. They had a podcast way back when and they made the comment that they see the after action review as the most powerful ... I'm gonna get this wrong, but is the most powerful knowledge tool ever invented. DAVID: Wow. BLAIR: That's a big statement. But we were using after action reviews in our business. And we still use them. There's various forms of them. Their origin actually came out of the US Military in the Vietnam War as a way of looking at campaigns. It's a way of essentially reviewing what happened without being critical of any individual and keeping the whole thing positive so that you can figure out what you would do next time. In fact, an after action review is really just okay what was the goal of the thing that we did, whatever the thing we did is, what went well, and then what would we do differently next time? And then there's some protocols around who speaks first and who speaks last, and how a rank is supposed to be unimportant. But I'm listening to their podcast, I realize, oh, yeah we do this all the time in our business. And it is really valuable. And I'd never thought of it as maybe the most valuable knowledge tool ever. But it occurred to me that I've never really advocated for after action reviews in sales. But I think it's probably a pretty good idea especially if you or employee who's on the front lines doing sales or doing new business development, if they're new or they've just come out of some training. Or you're stuck and things aren't going your way. BLAIR: But it's probably a good idea to review all of the key opportunities. The ones that you win and the ones that you lose. But even in the early days, I think just a new business meeting like a phone call. A kind of a lengthier phone call. Something lengthier than no we're not interested, thanks, goodbye. Or a face to face meeting I think is probably a really good idea to review. Let's just review what happened, and decide what went well, and decide what we would do differently next time. DAVID: So just a couple of housekeeping things here, if it's a meeting where you and somebody that works with you and you're gonna do the review, how soon do you do this? Is it important to do it right away after the meeting ends? Even before you get back to the office? I've got several housekeeping questions, but that's the first one. BLAIR: Generally speaking, the sooner the better. We were recording this on a Friday at the end of the week, we had two after action reviews this week of bigger things that happened. One was quite big. The sales period that just passed. That's about two months long. So what happened there. And another one's kind of a smaller thing that we're working on that's quite detailed. And sometimes it makes sense for a little bit of time to go by so that you can process what actually happened. BLAIR: But I think in the early days, if this is new for you, then the sooner the better. And then the times when you are allowing a little bit of processing time or gestation time, you know enough to make notes as things occur to you. Because the danger is if you leave it too long, you're going to forget a lot of the valuable points. Or you're going to forget the specifics of what happened or how you felt in certain situations. And those can be really valuable. DAVID: It seems like if it's you and let's say you're training somebody that's newer to your firm, sometimes it might make sense to have that person give their perspective before you give yours so that you get some independence, I would guess too. So that's interesting. And I could see this happening then after a meeting that both of you attended or maybe after a phone call where you're on speakerphone. How do you handle it when you're not on speakerphone? I presume half of the states in the US allow you to record a call without the other person's consent. But I presume you're not necessarily recording the calls. How do you handle that? How do you get feedback from somebody else if they weren't actually on the call? BLAIR: Yeah. Let me just speak to that issue of kind of rank or who goes first that you touched on. Coming out of the US Military, the idea is when they walk into an after action review, everybody basically takes a hat off and puts their insignias face down on the table. So the idea is that rank goes away. And I think a further idea is that you ge

Blair asks David to make some predictions about the new year, and then they discuss some ways that businesses can prepare for and react to (God forbid) an economic downturn. TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, predict the future. Coming year, the year ahead ... It doesn't matter when people are listening to this or when we've recorded it, but in the year ahead is it going to be a year of abundance or is it batten the hatches, we've got trouble? DAVID C. BAKER: I think it'll probably be right in the middle. I think it'll be- BLAIR: Oh, come on. Make a guess. DAVID: Oh, no but that is a real prediction. BLAIR: Don't you love driving through these small towns and rural parts of whatever country and you see these fortune tellers that read the cards or whatever? And they're all in these shitty little offices. I'm just wondering, how does that work? DAVID: How come they're not in palaces? BLAIR: Yeah. Right. Or the 49th floor of some high rise condominium. DAVID: You talk with your clients, a lot of them every week, and I do as well, it'd be interesting to see what you're feeling right now. What they're feeling right now. My sense is that there's quite a bit of uncertainty, like the stock market wasn't great through last year, and unemployment is still low, and there's some political uncertainty. The world feels a little bit fragile. But really that's kind of in our heads. DAVID: The actual business results have been pretty good for almost everybody in the marketing field. There are a few isolated examples of firms that have struggled a lot. Often because they lost one big client or something like that. But it's generally, firms have been doing really well, and there's thinking okay, is this next year, is this year, 2019, going to be as good as last year? DAVID: I don't think it will be better. I don't think it will be a whole lot worse. I think we'll be lucky to have a similar year. But what do you think? BLAIR: For context, we're recording this on December 21st, 2018. So Happy Solstice by the way. So we're going into 2019 wondering how things are going to shake out. And the stock market, see I don't pay much attention to the stock market but I just noticed that all the gains for the year have been wiped out in the last few weeks. So the market is down. There is discussion within the broader financial markets about whether, or not we're headed for another 2008-ish crisis. There is the global political unrest and uncertainty. BLAIR: But in the face of all that, if you ask me to make a prediction of the year ahead ... this has nothing to do with reality, I realize as I was thinking about it. And only to do with whatever is going on inside of me. But I always believe my future is bigger than my past, to steal a phrase from Dan Sullivan, from Strategic Coach. So I'm an eternal optimist. BLAIR: Now it doesn't mean I think that the market conditions are going to improve next year. I actually don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about this. That's why I'm going to interview you on it. Because you've spent some time thinking about it. And this can't be right, but it's a great way to go through life. I actually think it really doesn't matter what the markets do. BLAIR: If I'm running a well run business, I will be able to survive anything. So, that's the way I think about. And then how I think about a bad year, looking back on it, might be entirely different. But I go into it with this, you might call it naiveté, around what's going to happen. But you should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Is that the saying? DAVID: Yeah. That's a really interesting perspective. And by the way, you are so messed up in the head. BLAIR: I know. I acknowledge that. DAVID: You think I wouldn't be surprised anymore by the stuff you say. BLAIR: What surprised you? DAVID: Well, you said something really powerful, that I don't want to pass up. I want to make sure that people don't miss it. And that's that from a personal performance, or a firm performance standpoint, next year will be better than last year. And that's separate than what the marketplace might bring us. I think that's really, really smart thinking. DAVID: I want to clarify having, in that broader context, that yeah, I absolutely believe that too. Every one of my clients is going to be running their business better in 2019 than they were in 2018. But what will the marketplace bring them? And I think that's just brilliant the way you just separated those two things. BLAIR: So I've spent a lot of time contemplating the question of, is there such thing as free will? Do we human beings have free will? Then one day I realized, you know what, it's kind of a stupid question. Because the answer is it doesn't matter. You should live your life like you have free will and you have total control. And I feel the same way about business. BLAIR: You should operate your business like you have complete control over what happens. Because I think in those moments when we feel helpless and

Blair describes to David how he was able to distill his Win Without Pitching approach into a simple formula: P=db/D Power = desirability / Desire Links Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt Economics in One Lesson Wikipedia page Henry Hazlitt Wikipedia page The Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns Transcript DAVID C. BAKER: Blair, We are going to talk about selling in one lesson. BLAIR ENNS: I know why you're laughing. DAVID: I'm laughing because you're constantly pretending that people need to hear all kinds of lessons, but if really is selling is just in one lesson, then doesn't that sort of undermine, anyway, let's just go on. I'm sorry, I'm just trying too hard here. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: So selling in one lesson. But what's interesting about this is that you have a formula, and I think we probably need to put this formula in the show notes, right? Because just being able to picture this as a, so tell us the formula and then where this came from because I find it really fascinating. BLAIR: Yeah, it's a formula. It's not really made for the audio medium but what the hell. So selling in one lesson, well let me back up a little bit. So I've been doing the Win Without Pitching thing since about 2002. And since then, people have said to me, you know, like in as few words as possible, explain how you win without pitching. So it took me a long time to get it down to two steps. And so here's how you win without pitching in two steps. BLAIR: Step one, you change the power structure in the buy sell relationship, and you do that through positioning and we could talk more about that, but we'll get into that in a bit. But that's step one. You change the power dynamics or the power structure in the relationship through the positioning of the firm. By vastly reducing the number of direct competitors you have, you change the power dynamics towards you because the client's power, their power in the sale, their power to push you around, dictate price, etc, comes from the availability of substitutes. So by narrowing your focus, building deep expertise, you become this expert firm and you change the power dynamics. So that's step one, change the power dynamics in the relationship primarily through positioning. BLAIR: And then step two is to leverage that new found power that you have to change the way your services are bought and sold. And it takes a really long time to unpack that second step because it encompasses many, many things. So, for a long time I was pretty happy with my Win Without Pitching in two step description. And then about five or six years ago, I read Henry Hazlitt's book Economics in One Lesson. And this is a book that I think it was published in 1947 and sold well over a million copies, and I'd never heard of it. And somebody mentioned it and I picked it up and I thought, well, this is something else. If somebody can really pull off the promise in the title by delivering the entire kind of school of economics, I won't call it a science because I like many others don't believe it's a science, but the entire school of economics in just one lesson that will be impressive. And he did it, like to Hazlitt's credit, he was able to distill the entire field of economics down in one lesson. DAVID: And economics is not a simple field either. So pretty complex. So you took this as a challenge. Two is not enough. BLAIR: I thought, well, he can do it in one lesson, I can do, what does it mean to win without pitching or to sell creativity or to sell expertise of any kind. I'll just broaden out to selling in one lesson. And let me read you Hazlitt's lesson because early in his book he delivers the lesson and then he goes through all of these examples of how poor economic decision making or poor economic policy arises from violation of the lesson. Here's the lesson. "The art of economics consistent looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy. It consists in tracing the consequences of that policy, not merely for one group, but for all groups." BLAIR: So, what he says essentially is that any mistake in economic policy arises from the violation of one or two things. The first thing is you didn't consider all groups who would be affected by this. You only considered one group. And the second thing is, you didn't consider the long term, you only considered the short term. It's not the only book you would read in the field of economics, but it's a book that you could read and then you could measure any other economic theory or recommendation against the lesson in that book. I think that's why it's such a powerful accomplishment that Hazlitt pulled off. And I was thinking, well, is there the equivalent in selling? And I don't know if I've arrived at it, but I have a lesson that I can distill into even fewer words than Hazlitt. I can get it down to a formula. DAVID: Yeah, and I'm picturing you in this white lab coat in t

After touching on the topic of risk in many other episodes of this podcast, David and Blair finally take a full episode to discuss at length the role of risk in entrepreneurship. LINKS "Confessions of a Recovering Consultant" by Blair Enns Hyman P. Minsky Archive Twitter exchange with Jonathan Stark on risk Strategic Coach program with Dan Sullivan "A Mission With No Exit" by Blair Enns Peter Drucker TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, what's the riskiest thing you've ever done? DAVID BAKER: I've always wanted to have a really long pregnant pause right after you start something, because you're always telling me I can regain the power with silence. The biggest risk I've taken was probably telling my wife about the risks I was going to take. BLAIR: Yeah, right. Wow. Hands up, everybody. DAVID: She's only told me there was one thing I could not do and it's so illogical. She says I cannot jump out of an airplane. She doesn't terrify flying, or race, or whatever, but I can't jump out, which seems so illogical. So, as soon as I get some, you know what, I'm going to jump out of an airplane. BLAIR: You've got some high risk hobbies. I'm not sure that you indulge in all of them, but tell us a little bit about your high risk hobbies. List them off, because it's a little bit incredible. Here's the consultant, somebody who types for a living. DAVID: Oh, that is dismissive, types for a living. BLAIR: Well, I refer to myself that way too. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Like I'm a typist, right? I have friends who have calluses, like they're real men. You and I, we type and talk on the phone. DAVID: Okay. So, I taught motorcycle racing. I fly airplanes and helicopters. I travel to very dangerous parts of the country. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: I love the shooting sports, not shooting at each other. I'm not so much into those, and I don't hunt, but I like shooting sports. And I do a podcast with you, that's pretty up there too. What are yours? BLAIR: Yeah, right. Okay. I knew I was going to open with this question. For those of you listening, if anybody is listening, this is the risk episode, where we're going to talk about various types of risk, but to answer your question. When I knew I was going to pose this question to you, I started thinking oh, what's the most riskiest thing I've ever done? Other than some things that were driven by kind of alcohol and youth that were just outright stupid when I put my life or the lives of others in danger, other than that, I can't ... The riskiest things I've done in business have been investing in the business. By that I mean spending money, seeing something as an investment but knowing in the short-term, the expense is potentially debilitating to the business. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: But then trusting that it's going to pay off in revenue down the road. DAVID: Oh. The biggest risk you took that I can remember was when you totally changed your business model to a training model from a consulting model. That was a huge risk, to me at least it felt, maybe it didn't feel that way to you as much as it did to me. I was looking, from the outside, in marvel really. I was thinking, "Wow, that is a big risk." BLAIR: You were thinking, "Wow, that is a stupid move." I remember you telling me like a year later, "You know you could still go back to being a consultant," and I couldn't because I wrote that 3,000 word blog post called "Confessions of a Recovering Consultant." DAVID: Right. BLAIR: The reason I did it is I put it out there so that I would not ... That was my version of burning the ships so that I would not go back. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: And here we are. DAVID: But you do take some pretty significant physical risks. They may not seem like it to you because of where you live, but you hike in pretty crazy places and you poke bears, maybe not literally but close to it. BLAIR: I once said to my son, who was 15 at the time, I said, "You know, you're one of the few people in the world who has put your hand into a grizzly bear's mouth," and he responded promptly by saying, "I'm one of the few people in the world who has stuck a thermometer up a grizzly bear's butt." DAVID: Except he didn't use that word, but yes we gathered. BLAIR: He did. DAVID: He did? BLAIR: Okay. Enough about us. So, I sent you a text saying, "Hey, we should do a whole show on risk," because probably like one in three or four episodes, we keep coming back to the subject of risk, like how much risk that the principals of creative firms take. So, where do you want to start here? Do you want to start with your Minsky quote? DAVID: You know, I never used to pay any attention to economists, until you kept quoting different economists to me. So, as I was thinking about risk last night, watching a very boring TV show, I found this quote that just struck me. It's by Hyman Minsky, and it says this. He said, "Stability is destabilizing." And then there was an article on the Wall Street Journal talking about that concept and he also said, "That's because, in

Blair gets David to admit that he was kind of wrong about open book management being just a fad when he originally wrote about it almost two decades ago, and David offers ways that it can actually benefit both employees and clients when used appropriately. Links Financial Management of a Marketing Firm by David C. Baker TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, today we're going to talk about open book management. How does that sound to you? DAVID C. BAKER: Sounds like you think you're in charge. Why don't you say, "Can we talk about that?" BLAIR: Well, let me assert control. David, would it be okay with you if we talked about open book management? DAVID: Great idea. I like that idea. Let's do that. BLAIR: Okay, fantastic. I just happen to have an article here that you wrote. I've actually just pulled it out of your book, Financial Management of a Marketing Firm. We don't talk about that. We should do some podcasts on that book, because that's a book that every principal of a creative firm should have on their desk or their bookshelf. And the reason I had it out is, I was just on a call with the owner of a small creative firm who wants to raise his level of business acumen, and we don't have the training program that he's looking for. Ours is too specific to business development. So I said, "You need to buy this book." And then, as I was leafing through the book, I saw you had the stuff on open book management. We'd already agreed that we were going to talk about open book management. But I want to read something from this that's in the book. BLAIR: It says, "OBM, open book management, is clearly a fad. That doesn't make it wrong, just suspect!" Exclamation mark. "Open space layouts are also a fad, and time will tell how they catch on. Though there's already strong anecdotal evidence, if that's possible, that people jumped on the bandwagon and only later asked where it was headed." DAVID: So you want me to pull stuff out of here to embarrass you, as well? Or not? BLAIR: "In my opinion, open book management is a fad that will not catch on with the masses." When did you write this? DAVID: Last month. No, the first time I took a stab at writing about open book management was in 2000, so you gotta give me a little bit of slack. I was kind of wrong about that. I'm still going to be right about open plan offices, but it's going to take another decade for the world to figure out that I'm right about that. BLAIR: Really? DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Yeah, you think we're going to go back or away from open plan offices? DAVID: You know, one of the key components was that the principal or leader or whatever should be out with all the rest of the folks, and that blew up in everybody's faces, so we've already walked away from one of the key tenets of it, and we've also walked away from other things like, now we have places for people to go off and work if they want to, and we're not making everybody sit in what looks like a call center and be all disturbed by everybody's nonsense. So, yeah, I do think it's going to be another ten years, but we'll figure that out, too. BLAIR: Okay. DAVID: But I was wrong on this one, for sure. BLAIR: Well, let's just pick up from there. What did you think was going to happen, and what's the state of the nation right now when it comes to open book management? DAVID: Well, people are more open to it for sure, and one of the things that occurred to me as I was looking back over my first foray into this is that I wrote it at a particular time in history, so this is right during a difficult economic environment, and that's typically when principals move towards more open book environment. BLAIR: Yeah, "look, I'm not making any money." DAVID: Yeah, right, so quit your whining. It's like, I'm not making any money, why do you keep asking me for more money? That's very common, like people go to open book management when things aren't going all that well, and then they're not quite as enthused about it when things are going great. But, we've matured in so many ways around that, and it think that the current approach to open book management is really good. I'm very much in favor of it, to a certain degree. DAVID: I asked a bunch of principals not too long ago, just a couple months ago, about their perspective on open book management, and you and I talked about this poll. It's really, what did you find interesting about that poll? Tell people about the results of it first. BLAIR: Yeah, so the Twitter poll that you did. You said, "As the principal of a marketing firm, my perspective on open book management is: A, everything is fair game; B, all is open but salaries; C, we share the big picture; D, financials are not shared. And the number one response, 38% people said, everything is fair game. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: And then 24% was the next, B, all is open but salaries. So 62% of the people you polled are in favor of open book management at one level or another. DAVID: Right, that surprised me. It surprised you, as well,

Blair and David analyze and then look beyond the requests for reassurance potential clients make during the late stage of a sale to address their underlying motivations. LINKS "Transtheoretical Model" (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983; Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992) TRANSCRIPT DAVID C. BAKER: Blair, today I want to ask you about something that I've heard you talk about for many years and it's this notion of alternative forms of reassurance. BLAIR ENNS: Yeah. DAVID: We used to do this event together and we did it for like 10 years running. BLAIR: You mean that one where I carried the both of us. DAVID: Yeah. That's the one, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely the one. I remember listening particularly attentively to this one section that you used to talk about because it was a new concept to me, but I was also really fascinated by it and I thought, mainly I thought the title was just perfect and you called it something like the alternative forms of reassurance and as I recall at a certain point in the sales cycle when an agency is in the process of landing a new client, that prospective client still wants a little bit more information and they might ask for something and this was a way as I recall, where you could kind of redirect the question and provide alternative means of reassurance. You remember those days? BLAIR: Yeah, I remember those days fondly and the way you described it, I think of a judo move. We're talking about late in the sale and I guess I'll back up in a minute and explain why reassurance is important late and it's not important at all early, but we're talking about late in the sale when your job as a salesperson is to reassure this nervous late stage client and they ask you for things. I was counseled to look beyond the request, the specific request and look at the motivation for the request and sometimes the request is the negotiation, the request is to cut price. Maybe you're just negotiating, but maybe there's something else going on here or maybe they're asking for a money back guarantee or maybe they're asking for references or maybe they're asking to do things a little bit differently. DAVID: Right. BLAIR: In a lot of those situations, you have to think about what is the client buying from you. Anytime they hire your firm, they're buying a path to their desired future state, and so when you put forward a proposal in front of them with a price attached and they look at that price, you are essentially pricing their desired future state discounted for uncertainty. In every price, there is an uncertainty discount that's built in or there's some math around an uncertainty discount that the client is doing. Looking beyond the motivation for the request late in the buying cycle, again, it might be to cut price, it might be to offer references or it might be to do the engagement differently. It's not universal, but many times they see a lot of risk in the engagement and they're simply trying to mitigate that risk. They're trying to lower that uncertainty. BLAIR: So if the engagement fails because of what's known as performance risk and that is you're the provider, your questionable ability to do the job, if in the end you don't end up doing what you say you're going to or to the quality that you say you're going to and you affect the outcome, but then the client is on the hook for that and if they think there's a great chance that that's going to happen, then if it's really high, they won't hire you at all. But if it's a little bit lower than that, maybe they'll see the risk and decide, "Well, for the level of risk that I'm taking, I want a lower price." So that's just one example, asking for a lower price where the client's really just trying to mitigate their risk, factor in uncertainty or another way of putting it is they're looking to be reassured that everything's okay and those are all different kind of spins on what is essentially the same topic, a nervous late stage client wondering, "Well, what if this goes wrong?" DAVID: So if you handle this well, can you in effect eliminate that discount a bit from a pricing standpoint? If you handle that reassurance correctly, can you close that gap and leave less money on the table? Is that part of it as well? BLAIR: Oh, yeah. I couldn't sit here and say you're going to eliminate all discounts forever and still close the deal. But the vast majority of them, especially with good clients, like a value buyer who doesn't see themselves as spending on an expense, but investing in a solution or an opportunity, a value buyer who maybe starts negotiating or asking for a discount, you can almost always offer an alternative form of reassurance as long as you're able to look past the request and discern the true motivation and see what's going on underneath. If you don't mind, I wouldn't mind backing up and just talking about why reassurance is important late. DAVID: Yeah, sure. BLAIR: I'm fond of saying that selling isn't about talking people int

David disagrees with Blair (sort of) on his model for growing existing accounts in the post-AOR era, and then offers his list of 6 ideas on the topic. Links The Peter principle The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson Tony Mikes Transcript DAVID C. BAKER: Today Blair, we are coming to you live from the ReCourses Woodworking Shop, where so far I have done no woodworking, but a whole lot of podcast recording. Maybe I need to take my saws up to my office or something, but I can wander because I'm on like a corded mic and I can just look at my stuff. If you start to bore me, I just read the manuals for my saws and it's really fun. Is that okay with you? BLAIR ENNS:Yeah. I'll hear the table saw fire up in the background, right? DAVID: You know you need to start to get more interesting at that point. BLAIR: You know you're retreating further and further from civilization and identifying more and more with machinery and animals. DAVID: And the rest of the world thanks me for this. BLAIR: All right. Unabomber, what are we doing? DAVID: Today, we're talking about growing accounts. And as I was thinking about this, why are we so interested in this? I guess one alternative would be that we could just really land big accounts at the beginning but it seems like two things have changed in the world that our listeners occupy. One is that they are tending to start with relationships that begin smaller. That's one thing that I've noticed. So it makes it more critical to grow accounts. The other thing that's changed is that it's much more of a project-based world and so maybe growth isn't necessarily going to solve all of that, but we're talking about a chain of projects. So it's kind of like an AOR relationship disguised as a whole bunch of projects that follow on, which require the skills to grow an account. Why do you want to talk about this? Why is this that important? BLAIR: Yeah. And I think you're right in describing the environment. In this non-AOR environment, the emphasis is greater than it's ever been to go mine the account for the very next project because there aren't the guarantees, to the extent that there were guarantees at all in an AOR relationship. I guess in some of them, there were some form of guarantee. So you really do have to kind of eat what you kill in the modern project-based world. BLAIR: As somebody who focuses on the new business side of things, I've worked with a lot of firms where they were really good at new business and then you look at how quickly their accounts or clients move on, you think, "Man, if you would just solve that problem, you would be killing it." DAVID: Yeah. And thank goodness they were good at new business because as fast as they landed them, they left, right? BLAIR: Yeah. So you've got a list of things, pointers that we'll review on growing existing accounts. And I have one point. And I don't think you agree with my point. Is this going to be the first podcast where we disagree? DAVID: Publicly, yeah. There's been a lot of ... BLAIR: You're so polite. DAVID: Maybe I read through ... You sent me one paragraph with some ideas when I thought, "I don't know about that one." BLAIR: And a PowerPoint deck. DAVID: So this will be very interesting so you're going to talk about a concept called the account conference. Sounds very very official. And then we're going to, if you leave me any time at all. BLAIR: I'm not planning to. DAVID: Right. Then I'm going to provide just some very specific pointers, which I'm sure you'll agree with, right? DAVID: When did you come up with this idea and what was the impetus for the account conference? It sounds like this is something that's been rolling around in your brain for a while. BLAIR: Yeah. Well, I'm looking at this deck, it was from a webinar I did in February of 2014. So it's been around for almost five years. And the idea was I invented the idea of an account conference. Well actually I observed it happening in a hospital. So I was in a hospital with a family member and the surgery was about to happen. And I was watching how not just the surgeons and other doctors, but all the medical practitioners kind of handled it. They had, they called it a conference, maybe it was a patient conference. And I kind of watched from outside of the room. And I asked them questions about it later. In hospitals, you have these hierarchies, where the surgeon is at the very top and then you've got the specialists, doctor and then you've got that nurses et cetera and the other healthcare practitioners. BLAIR: So there's this hierarchy. and in any hierarchy, there's a danger that the people at the top are kind of standing on the iceberg of ignorance. So they have this sense that they know everything because they're the master in that domain. And often there's people below, who are thinking, "Well, I'm not sure that's such a good idea." So the notion of the conference in a hospital setting as I understand it, it's basically stripes down in the m

Blair remembers what it was like when he was an account person himself, and David shares five ways firms can treat their account people better. LINKS "How to Drive Your Employees Bat Sh*t Crazy" 2Bobs episode TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, we're talking today about how to disrespect people. This is your topic idea. DAVID C. BAKER: Yeah, I get so many requests from people that want help with this, and they naturally ask me. Right? BLAIR: Yeah. Of course they do. DAVID: "Who'd be really an expert at this? Ah, David, yeah, he could help us with this." BLAIR: Yeah. The topic is, best ways to disrespect account people. Why this topic? DAVID: I see so many firms disrespecting account people. I mean, they're obviously not doing it intentionally, but when you look at how they're treated, and how they're brought into workflow and all this stuff, it's pretty obvious that they could do things a little bit better, and so when I talk through it with them, their eyes light up, and they see, "Oh, there's another way to do this." That's the topic. I thought it might be interesting, because it just will save me time, right, in consulting, because then I won't have to answer this question every time, right? BLAIR: You just said in this podcast, "I'm just thinking." I was an account person for many years, and I was going to say, "I don't recall ever being disrespected," but it just took me about five seconds to think longer, and now these emotions have all come flooding back. There are times when, as the account person, you're on top of the world. Right? I remember some of those moments early in my career. DAVID: Just this morning, like an hour ago, I don't know, maybe it was the topic, it brought me back to this moment where I was just thinking, "I should have quit in that moment," back working for a large, multinational agency where I was disrespected. I thought, "I should have just quit right then." BLAIR: Okay. Let's get into this, so you've got a bunch of ways in which account people are disrespected. We're going to unpack these. Right? The first one on your list here is this idea of recognizing or not recognizing how difficult the role is. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Hot potato. Over to you. DAVID: Imagine working for a president, don't think of a specific one, just imagine working for this anonymous president of a country, and you are the ambassador, and you are asked to represent your country, but also speak for the country where you are planted, basically. I believe strongly that the most difficult role, not the most important role, but the most difficult role in a firm is this account person, because you have one foot firmly planted on both sides of the fence. You're supposed to speak for the client, but you're also supposed to not give away the shop. I think it's so critical. It's why it's so important to find the right ones. They're just so important, and when you think about the degree, you talk a lot about this, to what degree does a creative firm lead or direct their clients, and then you go down the list? So much of it depends on how good the account people are, for sure. BLAIR: Yeah. They're at the front lines, making the strategy real or blowing up the strategy, if there is a strategy. I love that metaphor of the ambassador. You're saying something that you think is the party line, and all of a sudden, then the president says something completely different or even throws you under the bus. DAVID: Right. Right. BLAIR: So you're saying the first way to disrespect the account people is to not recognize how difficult their role is. DAVID: Right, how difficult their role ... These are the people who are better than anybody else in the world at sending a client to hell and helping them enjoy the trip, and not even realizing that they're going to hell, like pushing back, getting more money out of them, getting the information out that they've been reticent to share. It just goes on and on about how important they are. BLAIR: Yeah. Great. Okay. Next on your list is something about hovering over their shoulders. Is that what you mean by this? DAVID: Well, yeah, and I see this phrase. It just sneaks out, I guess, and there aren't any evil intentions around it, but you can see this happening in the early stages of closing a new account, where the principal, who has made some appearance, because it is important that they make some appearance. Maybe not physical, but at least be a part of that closing process, they'll reassure them on the flip side of saying, "I'm not going to be your day-to-day account person," and then the flip side of that is to reassure them that, "But if anything goes wrong, or if there's any time you need me, just let me know," almost planting the seed is just so disrespectful, I think, the idea that, "If you don't get your way, come to me. Bypass your account person and climb a step higher on that ladder." DAVID: I really, honestly, do not believe that principals, or even salespeople who aren't principals,

Blair offers seven mindsets that any seller of expertise needs to master so that they can behave like the expert in the sales cycle. Links "The Jedi Mindset" by Blair Enns McClelland's Human Motivation Theory, also known as Three Needs Theory, Acquired Needs Theory, Motivational Needs Theory, and Learned Needs Theory Transcript DAVID C. BAKER: Good morning, Blair. You are in London. I'm in Nashville. BLAIR ENNS: Yeah, it's my afternoon, and it's your seven AM. DAVID: And don't tell me you've gotten a lot more done today already, because that's just a time change thing. Has nothing to do with productivity. Today we're going to talk about the seven masteries of the rainmaker, choke, choke. BLAIR: You're choking on the word rainmaker, are you? DAVID: Well, a little bit. I'm also, it's like seven. How come it's not six or eight? Seven sounds quite biblically, almost like we need to take an offering at the end of this or something. BLAIR: Let's do that. DAVID: I'm more choking on the idea of the rainmaker. Do you hear that term much anymore? I don't really hear it. We know what it means, though. BLAIR: No, but there was a time when you heard it often. In fact, if an agency were running an ad looking for a new business person, probably a health percentage of those ads would have the title rainmaker wanted. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: I've never liked the term rainmaker. It's a little bit funny that an agency principal would be looking for an individual who essentially has magical powers, the ability to make it rain. DAVID: Right. It's dry. The crops are going to die. All we can do is just rely on magic. So let's call on the rainmaker. We have no idea how he ... it was always a he back in those days, but we don't know how he or she does it, but this is our last resort. BLAIR: We have no positioning. We have no leads. We have no prospects. We have no formalized new business process. You absolutely need somebody who can make it rain, yeah. So I've kind of used that term tongue in cheek, but the idea of seven masteries, it really stems from the notion of mindset. Because you can master behaviors. You can master all kinds of things. And when I originally wrote about this a few years ago, I had come home to the idea that I was teaching people sales process and people were learning, so they were onboarding and understanding what it is that they knew to do in specific situations, but yet, they still couldn't bring themselves to do it. BLAIR: So I kind of went deep into the subject and realized well, the things that I'm asking them to do, because my approach, the Win Without Pitching approach to selling to new businesses is a little bit contrary to the conventional way it's done in the creative profession. So the things that I was asking them to do were contrary to their overall general pattern of behavior. And then you ask yourself, well, what sets somebody's general pattern of behavior, and the answer is it's really the thoughts in their head, the mindset. BLAIR: So I kind of arrived at this model, this idea of the seven masteries of the rainmaker. These are the seven things that are concepts that an individual needs to master in order to put themselves in the mindset, the mindset of the expert. I sometimes refer to it as the Jedi mindset, so they master those concepts. So they're in the proper mindset. Then they can begin to behave, generally speaking, across the pattern of general behavior, they can begin to behave like the expert, and then they can start to take onboard these very specific things that we teach client does x, you do y. BLAIR: If you learn those specific points of sales process, what to do in the sale, in certain situations, but you're not already operating or behaving like the expert, then they're not going to work. So this whole idea was about getting to somebody's mindset. DAVID: Okay, so we're going to go through the seven, but before we do that, let's assume that I want to embrace this way of thinking. What specifically, almost mechanically, are you suggesting I'm going to do with these seven things? Do I just write them down, and I chant them to myself? No, you're not talking about that. It's more I analyze my behavior against this list. What am I going to do with this after we get through going through the seven? BLAIR: As I walk you through the seven, you'll think about where you are on that spectrum, and in the first mastery, just ask yourself, hey, are you mastering this now, or do you have some homework to do? And then I am going to get you to chant something funnily enough. DAVID: Good luck with that. BLAIR: After we get through four of the ... I think I said to you, this is either going to be really fun, or it's going to be a complete disaster. DAVID: Right, yeah. BLAIR: So we'll just see how it goes. As I explain the mastery, you just ask yourself, well, is this something I have mastered, or do I have some homework to do? And then once we get through four, the first four, which I consider to be t

LINKS "The Great Convergence Is Upon Us" by Blair Enns "CRM: The Train Coming At You" by Blair Enns AltGroup.net website "Eight Gauges on Your Agency Dashboard" by David C. Baker The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike "Rising From the Ashes: A New Agency Model" by Blair Enns TRANSCRIPTION DAVID C. BAKER: Blair today we're going to start over. Both you and I are going to start over. We're going to pretend to start over anyway, and the topic is If I Were Starting a Firm Now. In other words this is a firm that you and I work with, and the folks who listen to this podcast generally. If I were starting a firm like that now, what would I do differently? We're going way back in time because I ran a firm ... you worked at multiple firms, and I started and ran a firm for six years. My goodness, I would do so many things differently. If we talked about this 10 years ago, the answers would be different. If we talked about it 10 years from now, the answers would be different. But at this moment in time, what would we do differently if we were going to start a firm now? Are you up for that topic? BLAIR ENNS: I am up for it, and as you've pointed out I have never owned a firm before. I've run a small office, I've been the number two in a larger office, but I've never owned a firm. So I'll try it one, let's do this. DAVID: Okay. We're going to ping pong with some questions here, and I'm going to start by asking for your opinion on something that's really the big umbrella here. The reason I want to ask you is because you recently wrote a lot about this, and it was a provocative article the things that you talked about. I haven't talked with you to see what kind of feedback you got about it, but here is the question; what category of firm would you start? Would it be a digital firm? Or a dev shop? Or a UX shop? Or a PR firm? How would you start a firm from a category standpoint if you were starting over? BLAIR: I think the piece you're referring to is something I wrote called "The Great Convergence Is Upon Us." The convergence I was talking about is the convergence of design, which is often UX design, software engineering, and business consulting. I'm seeing most of the best lucrative, most thriving, most impactful firms that we're working with these days are in that space. I think it's really hard to think of starting a new firm today that doesn't combine those three skills, so I absolutely would combine those three skills because I think that's where the big opportunity is in the market place but that doesn't really narrow things a lot. If I look at what I know the world of selling, and also some of the world of marketing ... what I've been interested in for a bunch of years is this intersection of sales and marketing. I wrote something on this ... oh man, it's probably approaching 10 years ago now. I think it was called "CRM: The Train That's Coming At You." BLAIR: CRM as a customer relationship management software was becoming more prevalent and powerful, it's driven by the internet changing the way people buy, and the way we sell, and the way we use marketing automation. The biggest way sales and marketing has changed in the era of Google is that lead generation has moved from a sales function to a marketing function. When that happens, that changes the nature of what selling is, and it changes the nature a little bit of what marketing is. One of the implications is actually sales and marketing in your client's organizations are getting closer and closer together, and they're overlapping. That article I wrote about CRM was that the CRM application is actually the place in your client's organization ... and I know it's not an application, isn't really a place. But it's the place where sales and marketing are overlapping. BLAIR: Even pre-CRM days when I was working in the agency business, I as somebody who comes from the world of sales, I always felt like in a new business opportunity, if I could get the chief sales officers in the room as a decision maker, and I could convert him or her, if I could win him or her, I would win the account. There's just something about ... this is a long rambling answer, but there's something about where sales and marketing overlap, and the technology that's required, and the way those two different departments work together. I would focus on that space. So where sales and marketing overlap in my client's business, it would be tech heavy. A lot of that tech would be CRM. I would have this converge firm that had high level of business consulting, had technology chops like software engineering, and had really good design UX skills. I would go after sales driven organizations, and I guess the classic label would be a B2B firm. I would specialize in B2B because in a lot of B2B organizations you have this kind of handshake, or overlap in sales and marketing. Did that make sense at all? DAVID: It did. I kept thinking of t