Can You Really Win Without Pitching? Part 2
If there is one thing you can do now to un-pitch your sales pitch, it’s to ask more questions.
Be relentlessly curious about your client, their problem, and their goals so you can diagnose the problem before you prescribe the solution.
This week we are wrapping up the final six Win Without Pitching Proclamations in part two of our interview with Brian Sooy.
Some quick hits from the episode:
Build expertise rapidly
Find your niche in your market and do the heck out of it.Don’t solve the problem before getting paid
Ask questions to diagnose the problem before prescribing a solution.Address the issue of money early
Don’t make it awkward, just address the price early on so you can continue to demonstrate your authority as the guide.
Check out our wrap up with Brian Sooy on Growing a Fruitful Brand.
Related content: The Futur podcast with Chris Do
Ep. 39:
Can You Really Win Without Pitching? Part 2
Automated Transcript
Ben Lueders:
This is part two in a two-part series on the Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns. If you haven't yet watched the first part, you're going to want to go do that right now.
Hey, welcome to Growing a Fruitful Brand, where we discuss how to create and grow a brand that makes the world a better place for you, your customers, and your employees. I'm Ben Lueders, founder and art director of Fruitful Design & Strategy, and today I'm joined again by Brian Sooy of Aespire. He is the designer of this book, made this awesome WWP monogram for Blair, designed the whole thing, and has designed a lot of awesome stuff for Blair and others. But his firm, Aespire, they follow and try to follow the Win Without Pitching Manifesto.
In our first part, we explored the first six of the 12 proclamations in this book, and today we tackle the next six. Enjoy.
Brian, welcome again to Growing a Fruitful brand. One of the things that I kept on looking at you in the last one, "Do you guys follow this? Do you guys do this?" They're like, "Well, yeah. I mean, we try. Nothing's ideal." This is all about ideal, right?
Brian Sooy:
Yeah. There's an ideal here, but there's so much that's practical as well because I know Blair and his team are very conscious of defining principles that you can put into practice. I can be guilty of just focusing too much on principle, but honestly, I was talking to my staff about this. It's like, yeah, we do put this into practice and it's just been part of us since 2009 when we were working on the book, and then 2010 onward.
Ben Lueders:
Wow. Just a full disclosure, right before we hopped into this call, I was sitting down with my business partner, Raj, and he was showing me this huge proposal that a rival firm apparently put together. A client that we are pursuing, a potential client, they showed us and actually gave us a copy of this other proposal that this firm made, and it's so long I didn't even want to look at it.
I was just thinking about being on the receiving end of this and I just had to look at Raj and I was like, "This is why we need to win without pitching, because this is so much work." I was just thinking that it looked like a month of work that they're just giving away. Yeah, if I don't have to do that anymore, I will be very happy.
Brian Sooy:
You mean you haven't had AI replace [inaudible 00:02:58] yet?
Ben Lueders:
That's a whole nother episode. But yeah, I mean, are you utilizing AI much at Aespire?
Brian Sooy:
We are in secret and profound ways.
Ben Lueders:
In secret? That really is a whole nother podcast episode.
Okay, we'll get to that. I don't want to give away too much, that might be part three. But for part two, let's dive right in with proclamation number seven in the Win Without Pitching Manifesto, and that is we will build expertise rapidly. What does Blair mean by that?
Brian Sooy:
Expertise comes from applying your knowledge over and over and over again to solve similar problems for similar, I would say similar, clients. I don't even want to say similar clients. To solving similar problems so that you continually get better at it and more efficient and ultimately more profitable at solving those problems.
I think last time we talked about horizontal expertise and vertical expertise. There's a lot of different ways you can build expertise, but again, all of it takes either being really smart or a lot of practice.
Ben Lueders:
So how do you build it rapidly? I think of my expertise and it's like, oh, I built expertise over a long period of time and that's what makes me who I am. Yeah, that's an interesting descriptor there. How is that different, building it rapidly?
Brian Sooy:
So I think it can be in focusing on one particular sector or one particular category and only seeking out those kind of clients and solving the problem for them. Again, because the first time you do it might take time, the second time it'll take a little less time and so on.
I'm always jealous of people who... Not jealous. I'm always envious of people who are able to work in one sector and then pivot out and become an independent consultant because they've gained their expertise inside and then they turn around and they've got this great book of business because they learned on the job as opposed to... I mean, I don't know your experience, but mine is learning it from the outside.
So building expertise rapidly is going to look different for all of us. For instance, if you're a musical prodigy, like our daughter's fiance has a photographic memory.
Ben Lueders:
Oh wow.
Brian Sooy:
He can listen to and hear something once and then play it.
Ben Lueders:
Wow.
Brian Sooy:
I could sit there and listen 20 times and I don't remember where my fingers need to go and it just takes time. But over time I get better, whereas he's better out of the gate and just able to do that.
So I think it depends on our gifting, it depends on our skill and ability, how we apply knowledge, but also just I think it's come up with a process, repeat the process, refine the process, apply the process, and just keep that cycle going until maybe it's two years you're just really good at doing that one thing.
Ben Lueders:
I saw a blog post I think of Blair's that I think worded this one a little bit differently that was just talking about always learning. How has a spirit of just always being willing to learn, adapt, and change, how have you embraced that over at Aespire?
Brian Sooy:
Well, it is one of our core values as well in terms of a guiding principle in that we're always willing to and needing to adapt and change in order to make our vision a reality. That's part of what we call the Clarity Manifesto or the Clarity Credo. So we have to think about these things. What's different in the world now? What's the way it used to be? The way we used to have to draw or isolate a background from the foreground is you put a piece of acetate on it and [inaudible 00:07:18] the whole thing with the ink and then you filled the ink in and then you had to make a mask.
Ben Lueders:
You got me beat. You got me beat.
Brian Sooy:
[inaudible 00:07:27].
Ben Lueders:
I will say that is before my time. That's before my time. Well, that's a good point. I wasn't going to call you out on your age, but you have been around a little bit longer than me, I'm guessing, and so I imagine for you to stay in the game, you've had to probably completely reinvent your methodology and your practices.
Brian Sooy:
I'd say I'm able to stay up with the tools, no problem, even like with Siri talking to us right now, and adapting technologies, learning new software. I think I'm fortunate in that learning software is second nature. I'm adept at it. But the more complicated it gets, though, the more tedious I find it.
But on the other hand, brand strategy and things I've learned from Marty Neumeier, and principles like this, they don't change. So the key I think is in understanding what Arthur Brooks talks about in his book From Strength to Strength is that when we are younger, so say from 20 to 45, we have fluid intelligence. We can grasp things quickly, invent things, innovate, just absorb quickly. But then after you're 45 and you move up into your sixties, seventies, you gain crystallized intelligence. It's purely physiological, psychological, it just happens to all of us.
So I may not think as fast as some people, but I can put together concepts that are completely unrelated and come up with some [inaudible 00:09:08] and crystallize them. So I've applied the StoryBrand Framework to Neucewinder's business model framework. Just different things like that, which those are the kind of things that come with wisdom, experience, and expertise. So there is that constant sense of change.
Then you think, okay, well what do I need to do to adapt to AI, for instance, and apply that to my expertise? Well, I need to learn how to write prompts. It's the inputs that count, not the output.
Ben Lueders:
Oh yeah.
Brian Sooy:
So how do I use my ability to focus and be really concise to write a prompt that's going to give me really solid output that I can then just use and tweak and adapt? Then what's the right time to use that and when should I just rely on good old-fashioned staring at the screen and seeing associations that happen?
Today, I'm building out a positioning and brand script for a client, and the way I was doing it on the screen made me see that the external problem was really the external and vice versa and it was a different problem that the client had said. It's like, oh, it's not, it's something totally different, and it's transformational for their business.
Ben Lueders:
Let's go on to, I guess we're at the eighth proclamation. We will not solve problems before we are paid. So this reminds me of that giant proposal deck that I was just looking at from a rival firm where obviously they did a lot of work. There's a lot of solving of problems that they did in hopes to maybe get paid someday. If things go the way that I want, they're not going to get paid because I hope that that client goes with us and not them.
Brian Sooy:
Sure.
Ben Lueders:
I hope we have a much smaller proposal.
We will not solve problems before we are paid. What does this mean to you, Brian?
Brian Sooy:
Well, I used these two phrases just in the previous call that I had. They asked what do you think an ad spend should be if we were to work together over 12 months? I just said, well, that gets into really prescribing a solution before we diagnose the problem and the need, so I have no idea. So I said, "Here's what I'll do. I'll make up a number and I'll put an asterisk after it that this number is completely made up." They're like, "Okay."
Ben Lueders:
I love the honesty there.
Brian Sooy:
Well, there's no point in beating around the bush and trying to masquerade anything. I don't want to sound desperate. I don't want to sound like I'm overconfident in something that's completely ambiguous. I think the clients we talk to need to know that, okay, you're being unreasonable here. You're asking for something that nobody knows yet until we know who our audience is going to be, what channels we need to be reaching them in. You could spend four times in digital marketing through Google as you would with contextual digital marketing through a targeted solution. Just not diagnosing that way.
I said, "But we will do that in the second phase. Once you've agreed to work with us, that's part of the diagnostic processes. We figure that out during our audit and review."
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure you understand why clients want us to do this, right? They want that confidence that it's going to work. They want to make sure the results can be guaranteed before they invest the money. So what's the best way to do that? To see if you can do a little bit of work for them to give them that.
It's funny you said that you just had that in a meeting right before this. I guess I did too, but I didn't really notice it was happening. I had a sales meeting right before and they were basically trying to get me to give them a marketing strategy on the spot. As I was trying to answer some of their questions, and I'm putting it together now, they were trying to get me to do a little bit of work for them right there on the spot. It's hard because, and the way that I answered it was, "I don't have enough information. I don't know your target audience enough yet. I don't know your goals enough yet. But I think if we work together, we could figure these things out together."
So I think I answered it all right, but it's funny, I wasn't thinking of this principle when we were talking. But yeah, clients, they do this a lot, don't they?
Brian Sooy:
They do. Again, they want the assurance.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah.
Brian Sooy:
It comes to they want to be confident that this is going to work. I think part of being honest with them is we're going to steward the resources you give us to the best of our ability and we're going to collaboratively work together. Is there a guarantee that it's going to work? No. If you want a money back guarantee, then we can talk about doing something like that, which is something that Blair suggests either in this book or in the second book.
But if they want to be absolutely 100% confident, it's managing that expectation like we talked about last time. Let's work in three month sprints and we're going to work toward the one outcome of most importance to you, your top priority right now, and then work toward achieving that. Then you build that trust over time. You're just leading them along in short term steps versus our hope is like, oh, we're going to commit to this one year engagement, we're going to have this revenue coming in, and they don't always want to take those long-term steps.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah. No, that's great wisdom. If you're starting to spend so much time and energy and problem solving before you've won a bid or actually an invoice has been accepted, you're getting in a really dangerous area where what happens when they don't go with you after all of that work? Would you be able to move on without feeling like a bridge has been burned or bitterness?
Because I've been there before where I put my heart and soul into something and then now I feel uncomfortable when I see them on social media or when I see the other firm they went with. I think as humans we're susceptible to this almost pettiness, but it makes sense though. In those situations, I put myself in a vulnerable spot by doing all this work for no pay. That's not a good place to be.
Brian Sooy:
Sure. You have to have, I believe, and maybe this is just something you need to be told or you learn over time, a sense of detachment. Don't take this personally. On one level, it's a transaction. But our egos are saying, oh, but I'd love to be able to brag about the cool design thing we did for this client, right?
Ben Lueders:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Brian Sooy:
So having a sense of detachment and just being willing to walk away.
Ben Lueders:
But that's easier though when you haven't done all the problem solving and work, right? That's the idea is don't get so far down this relationship that it's going to be hard.
Think of it in human relationships. It's a lot harder to call off an engagement a few days before the wedding, right? It's one thing if you ask someone out and they say no. That hurts, that's rejection to some level. But I tried and that was about it. It's a whole different level when you've been courting this person for a long period of time and your heart's all in and then the rejection.
Brian Sooy:
Yeah. So think about the eighth proclamation about building expertise rapidly, or I'm sorry, the seventh one, and then this one, and being able to say, well, look, you wouldn't go to your doctor and say, "Can you solve the problem before you do the diagnosis," right?
Ben Lueders:
Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.
Brian Sooy:
[inaudible 00:18:22] going to work? Well, it's the same. We want to be viewed as experts at the same level as a physician or an attorney and we want to be known as advisors to help businesses grow, not just solve the one social media problem they may have or whatever. So that's where we lean into our expertise and say someone like us doesn't do something like that and here's why. So it's leveraging our own authority because we've done this before and pointing to examples of how it's been successful for other clients, and that's what will reassure them.
I use these all the time. I showed three examples of, oh, I knew what kind of organization they were, and so I was able to say, "Here's what we did for an organization just like yours last year," and showed them the deliverables and talked about the outcomes that we had. That was really reassuring to them.
Ben Lueders:
I am curious, just real quickly before we move on to the next one, Brian, is that something that you've gotten better at with time and with age? Do you find yourself more easily able to just move on and not be as attached to things now in this stage in your career? Because I feel like I've noticed that improving in myself. I feel like when I was much younger I think I just took everything so personally and I'm able to be a little bit more detached now. I'm just curious if you've seen that change with age.
Brian Sooy:
Yeah, I'd say so. Age and continually refining our positioning, understanding how we work best as a firm, how I work best as a strategist. The impact I want to have, being able to say quickly that this is not the right fit for us, or being willing to invest in a sale because I know it's going to be in the best interest of the client.
So there's got to be, I think, a sense of selflessness in this whole process, as well as a sense of detachment, that you're doing it for the benefit of them. But if they don't want it, then it's not a reflection on you personally, it's that it wasn't the right solution for them. It's like, don't get attached to your proposals.
Ben Lueders:
That's good. Write a book on that. That's perfect.
This is another money one, but proclamation number nine, we will address issues of money early. What does he mean by that?
Brian Sooy:
It means you don't want to get all the way to the end of this giant proposal that says maybe it's a $300,000 project for the client to say, "Well, I only had 20." Right? I mean, how many times-
Ben Lueders:
That gets awkward. That gets really awkward. I have been there before in the past and it's like, oh, we have not been well-matched and well-suited. We thought, but because afraid to talk about money, we waited till the 11th hour and now we realize we are not in the same ballpark.
Brian Sooy:
Right. Right. So if we're going to address issues of money early, that means in our very first conversation. Or if you're so bold as to use it as a prospecting tool, in that autoresponder that goes out when they send in the contact form it says, "Thanks for contacting, we appreciate it. Just so upfront, our minimum level of engagement that Blair referenced is X amount."
I find that minimum level easy to refer to because people want to work with us. I'm tending to lean more into what I call scarcity marketing now, where I say I've only got limited time and capacity and limited energy at this point and I want to make the most out of these next, what is it, nine years, until I'm 70.
Ben Lueders:
We now know your age. There you go.
Brian Sooy:
[inaudible 00:22:52]. I look 45, but I'm 61.
Ben Lueders:
I would agree. I would agree. I would have a hard time pegging your age.
Brian Sooy:
When you're younger it's like the future's wide open and you're just wanting to make money. But now it's more about stewarding your time and your talents, stewarding the trust people want to put in you, and wanting to make the most impact.
So it's like, yes, we can work together, but there's a minimum level of investment on your part. Not even engagement, it's a minimum level of investment. That means you're going to invest time in meeting with me and you're not going to ditch me in the meetings. Because we want them to feel in a sense that we're interviewing them. Because we still want to be in control of the relationship. We don't want to feel like the buyer's in control, we want to be in control.
So yeah, just being able to say we could do a project like that, but typically our minimum to do it is this much. Are you willing to invest that or have you allocated that in the budget? If not, then we would need to look at scaling that back somehow or just some language around that.
Ben Lueders:
No, that's really good. I was going to say, what are some practical ways that people can do this? One that we've done, similar to what you just shared, it's on the contact form on our website, there's a dropdown of what's your budget for this? It starts at a minimum amount. There's no $100 option or whatever.
I think I saw another firm doing that and it was like, oh, that's kind of helpful actually. At first I was like, wow, that's their minimum number? That seemed so high at the time. It was probably the same as ours now, which is probably a good thing. But it was also helpful because then I know that when someone reaches out to me and they don't have the money or for whatever reason they're not in that ballpark, I know not to refer them to that firm because I know what their minimum is.
So just being a little bit more just open about it, not afraid. It seems like this proclamation is getting into just not being afraid to talk about money.
Brian Sooy:
And looking at wanting to devote the time that you want to invest in creating behalf of somebody else, innovating on behalf of somebody else, into something that's going to have some impact, not only financially for you, but for them, and then for the world.
I think we talked about last time, I have really thought hard about what we do. I want people to be able to flourish, I want businesses to thrive, but I want communities to prosper. That could be the community in which the people live, but also it could be a faith community, it could be a community of business owners. Am I making a contribution that elevates what we do to a different level because I'm helping somebody else amplify what they're doing and magnify?
Ben Lueders:
No, that's beautiful.
All right, we have arrived at the 10th proclamation. We will refuse to work at a loss. So this is getting into profitability here, huh?
Brian Sooy:
Right.
Ben Lueders:
How have you experienced this in your career?
Brian Sooy:
Well, I have experienced working at a loss many times and resolved to no longer do it. So we talk a lot here about not overinvesting in the project. This is going to sound odd, especially for the perfectionists in the audience, of which many designers are or agency [inaudible 00:27:02].
Ben Lueders:
Yes, there are a lot.
Brian Sooy:
Yeah. I'm a recovering perfectionist. My dad always said good only has to be good enough, and I don't get that. It's like, good only has to be good enough. At a certain level not everybody's going to notice the things that you notice.
Ben Lueders:
Oh yeah.
Brian Sooy:
I think a lot of this can go back to now you draw a box and in design you grab the box tool and you draw a box and your corners are perfect. Back then you used to have to use ink and Wite-Out. You overdrew the corners and then you Wited-Out out the overlap. But at a certain point you could go nuts because you might see a little tiny curve. It's like nobody else is going to notice that, move on.
But when you scale that across a project, there's going to be things that you don't want to take shortcuts for professional integrity reasons, but nor do you want to overinvest in serving a client in the service. If you're on a retainer, it's easy to do everything that comes along without having any boundaries and all of a sudden you're giving them twice the value that they're paying for. Or maybe the initial concept and design phase is taking twice as long as it should. Well, at that point you're subsidizing that client and you're subsidizing it from the profitability from other clients, if that makes sense.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, that's a great way to think about it.
So I'm curious, for you and your firm, do you track your time? Do you have just an understanding of how much time and effort you're spending on projects to make sure? Because that's something that we've struggled with where we've tried time tracking before and weren't very good at it. Apparently we weren't very perfectionistic when it came to our time tracking. We're experimenting with it again because there has been some concern of I think we're not very profitable on some of these things because we're spending way too much time on certain phases and aspects some of which just doesn't really matter. It really doesn't in the grand scheme of things. So I'm just curious, what have you guys done there?
Brian Sooy:
So we do use TimeFox to track time.
Ben Lueders:
Okay.
Brian Sooy:
Vance is very diligent about it. I'm not.
Ben Lueders:
There it is.
Brian Sooy:
So every week I vow to be more disciplined about it. Every week I fail. But we use it. We do have once in a while a project where we're tracking time just because it is time and materials, but that is so rare anymore.
We use it more on book design projects just so we know that next time we do a project like this and it involves cover design, print design, and ebook, that we're staying within a fixed number of hours that we allocated at. Because we want to maintain a certain level of profitability per project. Then we can go back and next time we have a quote on a book design project, if we're not doing it on a value basis where we're design plus sales, we can say, "Yes, we need to cost this much. Here are the outcomes that you get from it, that process." But it's purely for self-evaluation for I'd say 99% of it.
Then at the end of the year, because we do work as a collaborative marketing partner with clients so we're like one of the team, we can go back at the end of the year and it takes me 30 seconds to run a report and I can see on a monthly basis, were we over or under, on a yearly basis, were we over or under. Then we will for our non-profit clients say, "We know we're working within a fixed budget. If we go above and beyond, we're going to let you know that this is a gift to your nonprofit or ministry." We call that out.
Ben Lueders:
That's really smart though. I think that reminds me of something that Raj helped implement early on with Fruitful was I used to do some pro bono stuff or discount nonprofit clients all the time, but I wouldn't communicate the value of what they were getting. So I found some of those would be the most difficult situations because here I was feeling like I was giving so generously and they didn't really understand the value of it. Raj is all for pro bono, gift, or discounted work in certain situations as long as we're communicating clearly the value of those things so that they understand what it is that they're receiving. So I think that's really good.
The other thing I wanted to say, based on your good enough comment from your dad, is that was another thing that Raj helped implement around here, which is just what he calls ship it. You've got to ship it at some point. Coming in, he had a much better understanding of, no, it is good enough. The design team has spent enough time on it. You've tried enough layout options. Now is the time to ship it because any longer we're going to start losing money on this.
I love that. We say it all the time, especially to certain designers. I really have embraced that. I wouldn't say I was ever super hardcore perfectionist like some. I think I have a good handle on when something just needs to be done and so Raj and I have worked well together in that way.
Brian Sooy:
That's great. Another thing to even think about is so you want to make sure it's profitable, right? So you come up with your fee and, okay, we're set up with a fee, add 20% and then send it. It's like, oh, well there's our profit.
Ben Lueders:
There you go. It's easy.
Brian Sooy:
As easy as that.
Ben Lueders:
As easy as that.
Brian Sooy:
I've done that sometimes and it's like, I'm glad I did that. It made me feel better. It was still a reasonable and fair price for the value we delivered. Again, these financial ones come together because, as you said earlier, we are fearful sometimes, we're afraid to charge what we're worth.
Ben Lueders:
Oh yeah.
Brian Sooy:
There's a lot of this conversation about value-based pricing, but coming up with a fee that reflects the value we create for the client, that's where it really gets awkward because then they're like, "Whoa, you're stepping into our profit and loss zone there." But it's like, no, come on, let's talk about this and just at least have a conversation about it. If it's the right kind of client. Or say they're not willing to do that, great, then we're going to add a third to the monthly fee or we're going to add more because we are creating such great value for you.
Ben Lueders:
All right. This seems very related to the 10th one, but the 11th proclamation is we will charge more. So that's what we're already getting at, but anything else you would add?
Brian Sooy:
I think this idea of charging more, we have to be confident in our pricing. Do you have a fixed list when someone says we want to do a rebrand, the minimum, do you have a list where you can go, yeah, this is what it costs? Or do you think-
Ben Lueders:
Do we?
Brian Sooy:
Yeah,
Ben Lueders:
We do.
Brian Sooy:
Okay, good.
Ben Lueders:
It changes though. It changes over time. Every year or so our prices do change. So yeah. Do you guys? This feels very vulnerable.
Brian Sooy:
Well, no, we do now. I mean, I hadn't done it until about six months... I don't even think it was six months ago. People were asking me and I've been answering the same question over and over for 28 years. I'm just going to put it on paper now. So I opened a spreadsheet and I just said, if I'm going to do this, it costs this much, if I'm going to do this, it costs this much. Now I don't have that hesitancy when someone just wants a quick cost and, well, wait a minute, let me go look. I either give them that cost or I add to it.
Ben Lueders:
Okay. How did you do it before? How did you do it for 28 years without that? It was just everything was always custom and value based?
Brian Sooy:
Well, no, there was a lot of customized coming up with a custom price for that client as opposed to we've solved this before, I know what it takes to get there, and this is what we've charged the last three clients to do it. So here's our basis for that, and as we get better at it and more efficient, that fee goes up.
Ben Lueders:
Which is great. That's the way it should be. Yeah. That's one thing that I have a appreciated about, I've mentioned Chris Do already, but people talking about value based pricing where as we get better at what we do, we get more efficient. The idea is that we're going to spend less time designing and creating these things because of our expertise, we shouldn't be penalized for that. Because now something that used to take me 12 hours, I can do in two hours, that doesn't mean it's any less valuable.
So this is why we don't charge hourly for our clients. We should know internally how long it takes us and what our hourly rate is per se internally, but we don't show our clients, by the way, that only took me an hour to do, or that took me 20 hours to do. We don't communicate it that way.
But I'll often tell people how long do you think it took the designer of the Nike logo to design the Nike logo? The rumor was that it only took a short matter of time and it was someone who was not a very experienced designer. But the value of the Nike brand is so valuable, of course, and so it's not just about time, not just about hours.
Brian Sooy:
Yeah. I mean, because the difference between a $500 logo and a $60,000 logo isn't the amount of time it took. It's your reputation and then the value that it's going to end up gaining over time for the client.
I think there are most likely a couple good articles I recall reading online about that whole concept of pricing something, that it's based on the value it helps create. Then that whole value conversation is something more that requires much more expertise in, but we don't want to shortchange ourselves. So if we're going to charge more, it's just a matter of being confident that we are the experts, we're worth the investment for the client, and then we convey that expertise and that confidence we have through the sales conversation. We often talk about wanting to move from just, Blair talks about this in here, the vendor to the practitioner from just the-
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, the practitioner or performer. I was just going to say, it reminds me of that whole thing of you don't want to be in this position of just performing and entertaining and hoping that they like the performance you're doing, but really assuming that the demeanor of a professional practitioner.
I like using the doctor example that I think you were just mentioning a minute ago of you wouldn't expect a doctor to be trying to dazzle you and show you a presentation and try to convince you and lower his or her prices on the spot to try to get your business. That would be a really weird experience and you probably wouldn't go to that doctor.
Brian Sooy:
That's right. Yeah.
Ben Lueders:
We need to think of ourselves as us as designers and agency owners, but anyone listening in in whatever your field of expertise is, trying to think of yourself as a professional practitioner and not this desperate performer is a great way to think.
All right, we've arrived at the final 12th proclamation in the Win Without Pitching Manifesto. We will hold our heads high. I feel like I need to sit up a little straighter for this one. We will hold our heads high. What does Blair mean by that?
Brian Sooy:
You were just talking about it.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, was I?
Brian Sooy:
We're professional practitioners that brings solutions to solving business problems.
I don't know if you feel this, but when a client says to me, like one was saying to me today, it's a new client that we're just starting work with, "Should I view you as our marketing strategist?" I'm like, "Well, yes, but more. I mean, I'm here to help your business grow."
So when we were talking a little bit about packaging and a new pricing model and a new offering, what we can speak into that. There's a strategy to how you would want to price that as software, how you position that with the customer. So is that marketing or is that really business advising? So we have to think of ourselves as more than, I don't want to just say just a creative, but we're professional problem solvers it's just that we use a different vernacular because it's the industry we think we're in. But maybe we're not in the industry, maybe we just haven't defined ourselves the right way.
Ben Lueders:
I feel like we're heading into a part three, Brian. I think you just opened up a whole new can of worms for us to explore next time. Yeah, well I'm just looking at this 12th proclamation and it says we will seek respect above money. Only when we are respected as experts will we be paid the money that we seek. Do you have any, I don't know, parting advice for ways in which we can hold our heads high in our respective fields?
Brian Sooy:
Yeah, that's a great question. Because the money is proof of the respect, right? When we think about this statement, we'll seek respect above money, for only when we are respected as experts will we be paid the money we seek. So first we think about what money do we seek and why do we seek it? I mean, I want financial freedom. I want time freedom. I want generosity freedom.
My wife and I have this interesting dynamic in that I want to make as much money as possible so that she is empowered and free to be as generous as she wants to be. Not that I'm not generous, I love being generous, but this is my gifting is I can turn ideas into money. Whereas she'll think about something, she listens, she hears, she's like, "Oh, I think we should support this organization for this reason." So I need to have that goal in mind when I'm selling that, but at the same time, I am a respected business professional.
I am bringing value to you from 40 years of experience from working with dozens of clients like you and others. So I'm bringing cross-disciplinary knowledge to this one engagement. What is the worth of that? So it bothers me in particular. It's one of my weaknesses. If someone doesn't respect me, it really bothers me. So you just have to learn to overcome that and move past it, I think.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, and I think that's a really good point about the money is a good symbol. It represents the respect. You've been in these sales conversations with people that you give the ballpark, you give your minimum, and there's no hesitation, it's like, "Absolutely, let's work together." There's like, "All right, where do we sign? What's the next thing?" You can just tell there's a trust, but there's also just a respect of what it is you do.
Then there's other ones where they cross their arms and they're like, "Okay, perform a little bit though. Solve a little bit right now to make sure that... And, can you also..." So it is interesting how the money can show where that respect is at. The respect for your field, your industry, for you as a professional, for your company.
So yeah, it's not like the money isn't important at all. It is important. It's one of the primary ways that a client shows respect for you is would I be willing to go in this much for you and for these services?
So similar to what we were sharing a few proclamations ago, but I think a great way to help earn some of that respect instead of putting together giant problem solving proposals is just to share case study, share work that you've done, give them referrals and stuff, people they can talk to that have had similar problems. Maybe not the exact same problem. I think that can be a great way for people to see, oh yeah, they're holding their heads high, they're doing good work. They're worth our respect and our investment.
Brian Sooy:
Well, and it's also then using that objection that they raise. If they sit back and they cross their arms and like, "Prove it to me," you're able to lean back in and just gently redirect that objection and turn it into one of your own to say, "I know that other firms may have done that for you, but the way we work is this, and here's why. We don't do long proposals, we have a conversation and we've outlined what it would cost. If you'd like, we can put together a contract that outlines that so you can sign it or take it to your board or whatever, but we're not going to get into everything that we just outlined for you here. It's just going to be confirmation of what we just talked about."
That can be very effective as well in terms of just standing firm in your confidence and your professionalism. Because you always want to give respect back, you don't want to feel like you're being flippant or arrogant. Hopefully you've had enough conversation by the time you've gotten to that point where you're not experiencing that pushback, because that could be really awkward too.
Ben Lueders:
Yes, it can.
Brian Sooy:
Yeah. There's some other points where Blair makes. He says here, "From the very beginning, we were driven by some bold ideas." I mean, we all have some sort of dream when we start the business that we're going to be this, or change this, or do that, and then you look back 20, 30 years later and you're like, what was my dream? Did I accomplish what I set out to do? Has that changed? It allows us, as he says next, to be selective. Being able to say, someone does, again, cross their arms and wants you to perform more, that could be the opportunity where you say, "I'm just getting the sense that this isn't the right fit and so I think it's time to conclude our conversation."
It sounds like, oh, I should be able to say that. You have to role play this in your mind or you have to role play it with somebody else or really spend time, okay, I would've said this, I should have said this in that conversation, next time I will.
Ben Lueders:
That's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Because we've all had those situations where later on, oh man, I should have said this. I should have said this in the room. The next day you're like, oh, this would've really been the right thing to say. But yeah, you're right, we need to internalize that and be like, okay, not only should I have said that, but maybe it's not too late in this situation, I could still say it. Or I'm going to make sure that I learn from this situation and that I say that next time so I don't keep repeating these same mistakes. For sure. For sure.
Well, Brian, we've done it. We've made it through all 12 of the proclamations in the Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns. This has been super eye-opening and enlightening. It's really fun for me to hear from you and the experience that you've had running your firm, Aespire. So I definitely, and I'm sure Brian would too, recommend reading this book.
Brian, anything else you would recommend our audience do in light of this conversation?
Brian Sooy:
Take a look at the resources that Win Without Pitching has at winwithoutpitching.com. I'm giving a huge shout out to them. I don't think I go to it every week, but at least... I don't want to say because they could probably tell me if I'm accurate or not. I go to it multiple times a year because I think of an article I read or something that just really stuck out to me. Then Blair and the team there have a great email list. It's not really a newsletter, just you get an article from Blair that really can add some value just because he says, think about this, think about this.
There's a number of professionals out there similar to Blair, associated, like Chris Do, he has his perspective on this. But there's great value and I think the earlier you can start in thinking about these principles and implementing them, then the sooner that you can be confident in how you change the way you sell.
Because it doesn't have to be the same way for you that everybody else does. We want it to be consultative, not transactional. We want to come across as helpers and guides and advisors that have a great deal of expertise that can help this client go from where they are now where they're struggling to where they want to be in the future.
Ben Lueders:
Well said. Well said. Well, Brian, thanks so much for being on Growing a Fruitful Brand.
Brian Sooy:
Yeah, and thank you, Ben. I appreciate the conversation. It was awesome and you are a great interviewer.
Ben Lueders:
Thank you. You're a great interviewee.
Brian Sooy:
Let's pat each other on the back now.
Ben Lueders:
Thanks for joining us today on Growing a Fruitful Brand. If you found today's show helpful, don't forget to subscribe and consider sharing it with someone who might also enjoy it. If you'd like to work with Fruitful on a branding website or messaging project of your own, you can always reach out on our website, Fruitful.Design. So until next time, don't forget to grow something good.
