Blair frequently tells his clients, “You reinvent the firm one new client at a time.” So looking ahead to the new year, he has five areas where principals can be looking to upgrade their agency’s culture through the next new client.
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Have your firm's managers been promoted based on technical proficiency and status, or was it because of their self-awareness and critical thinking? David shares why he sees so many poor managers in the creative firms he's worked with, and then lists what he looks for in great team leaders.
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Without turning everything into a power play, David provides seven sources of leverage that can help agencies maintain the leadership role in client engagements long term.
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David has 16 things for principals to try when they feel the need to do something different from running their firm.
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Blair talks about his new podcast with Leah Power, 20% - The Marketing Procurement Podcast, in which they are speaking with marketing, procurement, and agency professionals about how to "procure" creativity without killing it.
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Blair recommends five things firms need to be effective at qualifying new business opportunities in order to prevent the over-allocation of resources against early-stage buyers.
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David thinks creative firms can learn something from sex workers about how to run their business.
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David is not an economist so he doesn’t have any idea if an economic downturn is imminent, but the signs aren’t great. If you decide that a downturn is around the corner, what would you do right now?
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Blair had fun on a week of sales calls and came up with four reasons why he thinks most people can learn to have fun selling like he did.
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Blair and David go into detail about what a model is for a creative firm and how they can be useful in closing new business and improving profitability.
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David and Blair follow up their previous discussion about how marketing firms have evolved, going deeper into how different service categories and positioning might look in the near future.
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Creative or marketing firms look a lot different today than they did 20 years ago. What happened to the ad agencies and design firms? And what trends are Blair and David seeing as businesses and technology continue to evolve?
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David keeps getting asked: “what multiple are you seeing these days?” As if there’s some simple, magic answer that’ll lead to a company’s value. EBITDA is a great tool…but an incomplete one.
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When someone makes Prospect Theory generalizations—saying that buyers either over-weight gains or over-weight losses—Blair wants us to remember that both are true at different times during the sales process, and we need to adjust accordingly at the right times to close the sale.
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Inspired by some observations of what sometimes happens to people on the journey from vendor to expert, Blair sees some newbie Win Without Pitching devotees going too far–power tripping.
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Does your list of service offerings look like a Cheesecake Factory menu? David identifies five hallmarks of poor service design along with five principles of effective service offering design.
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In a follow-up to the popular “Secrets Behind the Killer Proposal” episode, David unloads everything firms can do to make sure their website is locked and loaded for winning over new clients (wink wink).
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David has seven reasons for removing all barriers on his website for readers and prospects to access what he writes - but admits that it may not be for everyone.
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