The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

One of our new mantras that we will repeat to ourselves and our potential clients is: We do not begin to solve our clients’ problems before we are engaged.

We want to operate from the practitioner’s position where we have not overinvested in the sale, where we are not trying to talk the client into hiring us, and where we invite him to say no early and often. In this environment, there is no room for the written proposal, which, like the presentation, is a tool of swaying.

It is first through positioning our firm that we begin to shift the power in the buy-sell relationship and change the way our services are bought and sold. Positioning is the foundation of business development success, and of business success. If we fail on this front we face a long, costly uphill journey as owners of creative businesses.

By following the third proclamation (We will diagnose before we prescribe) we demonstrate that our ability to do our best work is rooted in the strength of our diagnostic and strategic development processes. A client asking for unpaid ideas in a written proposal is like a patient asking for a diagnosis and prescription from a doctor he refuses to v

Our focus needs to remain on the client, helping him to facilitate the change in himself that he is considering.

They have gone from order-taker suppliers to expert advisors and have forged a more satisfying and lucrative way of getting and doing business.

The dynamics of the relationship with the client are shaped early, before he hires us.

it is the strength of our processes that drives the consistency of our outcomes.

A good client will begin to relinquish control once he has the confidence that the expert practitioner knows more than he does, or has the tools to learn more. Formalized diagnostic processes are such tools.