Recap: Blair Enns, Spotlight Speaker Series

Working in the business of selling ideas leads to a laundry list of challenges. One of the biggest: pricing. Lucky for us, Blair Enns, author of Pricing Creativity and The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, came to Buffalo on November 14, 2018 to teach us all his method on pricing the work we produce and sell.

Far from simple, yet surprisingly straightforward, Blair explained how to follow a few straightforward rules that can help lead your agency to realizing exponential returns.

The first rule: Price the client, not the job.

Agencies in particular need to realize that each of our clients is unique and could react to the same stimuli in totally different ways. Instead of pricing based on the projects we’re producing, it’s time to start considering pricing based on the level of value we create for our clients.

The second rule: Offer options.

Too frequently, we begin a conversation with a prospective client by finding out exactly what they need and show them the quickest—and only—way we recommend arriving there.

Blair suggests that instead of selling new work this way, present three options for your client to choose from. These should consist of: 1) work that will meet client goals; 2) work that will exceed client goals; and 3) work that will lead to exponential client returns (and not necessarily in that order).

The third and final rule: Anchor high.

Imagine this: you walk into a luxury clothing store. They ask your budget. You tell them $300-500. The stylist presents you with a pair of shoes that cost $1,100. They’ve just anchored your expectations of cost—and therefore your likelihood to spend—high.

When you anchor high on a potential new project, Blair suggests you approach it by doing two things: 1) always present the highest option first; and 2) when you present it, explain in detail why the price of this option is so much higher and what value that the option will add to their organization.

Thank you to Blair for a great presentation as our second installment of our Spotlight Speaker Series in 2018-2019!

The Spotlight Speaker Series continues in April.

Next up, join us on April 9, 2019 as we hear from John January, a CEO and lifelong creative from Kansas City, who will talk about “Dirty Little Secrets of the Creative Mind.” See you there!