Your clients are far more likely to talk to each other when you have vertical positioning. Blair has observed both good and bad things arising from this.

As we are hearing about more firms that are closing during these challenging times, David offers some guidance to help cut through the confusion when our worst fears in our business become reality.

As Blair continues to encourage expert practice owners to price the client and not the service, he and David discuss the pros and cons of four levels of pricing authority they should be thinking about within their firm, instead of just assuming pricing responsibility automatically defaults to a specific role or position.

David thinks principals should build their firms as if they were going to sell it while Blair’s advice is to run it as if you’ll never sell it. Being aware of options as your firm matures can give you the leverage you might need in negotiations.

Through the process of writing his latest book, Blair's thinking has evolved on whether or not firms should resist the urge to productize their services as they work to creatively meet the unique needs of each client.

In Blair's experience, the most common reason a lead generation plan doesn’t get executed is it doesn’t recognize and leverage the strengths or motivations of the individuals executing.

David describes the differences in what kind of people principals should hire during the early stage of their creative firm’s development when it’s all about “what we can afford,” the middle stage when it’s about “what we need,” and then the later days of an agency when it’s about “what we can learn.”

Blair borrows a concept from finance and fitness to help creative agencies find the balance between low risk and high risk pricing strategies.

Blair interviews David about his new book, Selling Your Professional Services Firm: A Primer.

Blair interviews David on his recent article about the idea that expertise does involve supplying answers, eventually, but mainly expertise is about asking the right questions, first, and then offering a few answers after the truth surfaces.

Blair shares how to determine whether or not we are the advantaged player the “polite battle for control” within the game of sales, and how we can get the odds of winning the sale to be more in our favor.

David interviews Blair about his new book, which lays out his proven framework B2B service providers can use to increase closing ratios and average proposal values.

Blair and David reminisce about their podcasting journey since Blair first pitched the 2Bobs idea to David back in 2016, sharing what they've learned along the way, and what they might like to try with the podcast in the future.

David unpacks six principles that can help creative firms benefit from delivering strategic guidance through their account managers.

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.

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.

David provides some clear examples of what is required for a firm to be successful at offering one service for many different verticals.

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.