How 'The Win Without Pitching Manifesto' Book Changed My Perspective
In October of 2024, I was in consecutive calls with a home contractor for the purpose of providing our Website Optimization & SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services. They could be performing far better in attracting organic leads with our help, and although they haven't yet moved forward with the proposal, the owner (who has dealt predominantly in sales over many years) shared with me that my sales process could be improved and recommended "The Win Without Pitching Manifesto" by Blair Enns.
I had this book sitting in my wishlist on Amazon for a few months now after perusing through Matthew Encina's recommended book reading page. (Side Note: If you haven't checked out Matthew's videos on YouTube, I highly recommend you do). After that sales call, I immediately purchased it, and was surprised to see that it was a bite-sized book, ready to be consumed in a short while. To my surprise, it was anything but a short while due to the concepts mentioned in the book.
My Struggle
The author shares 12 Proclamations to live by so that the endless pitching could cease for those selling a particular product or service. As a creative professional, given that my work deals with both creative design (Graphic Design and Copywriting in terms of Web Development and Marketing) and strong analytical services (SEO, Data Analytics, Marketing), I've always struggled with a sense of specializing as opposed to being a generalist in terms of our marketing agency. It was evident that we were successful in terms of helping our clients gain more leads through organic search traffic (SEO), web development, and paid-per-click marketing, but I was still very much displaying my lack of confidence because I felt my work to be easy to perform.
Never did I think that my easy was simply a byproduct of the thousands of hours poured into my work over the last 5 years, and people are coming to me because I have their remedy. Among the 12 proclamations, I will mention 2 that changed me at my core:
- The Need to Specialize
- Being Selective
Why Specialize
Over the last 4 years, we've had the privilege of serving over 80 customers with websites, SEO, marketing, social media management, and content creation. Out of those 80 customers, about 40% were Nonprofit Organizations, and the other 60% For-profit Organizations. When it comes to their industry, they are all varied. We never found ourselves choosing a particular industry in favor of being able to build up our expertise faster (supposedly). We also presented ourselves as a full-service marketing firm.
The reading of this proclamation helped me to understand that most times, people interested in a service would more likely select the provider that shows relevant work in their industry AND/OR hyper-focused on the product or service they desire.
For example, a Lawyer seeking a website may opt for a Website Firm that specializes for Lawyers only as opposed to a Website Firm that caters to multiple industries. They may see a value in the firm specializing for lawyers because they may have the secret sauce for their industry that a generalist may not.
Another example would be a company seeking SEO services. They could choose to go to a full-service marketing agency, but an agency that purely focused on SEO may be their best choice because it's all they focus on.
In life, we appreciate those that are incredibly gifted at something, and somehow that very gift makes a way for them in terms of standing, finances, and more. Proverbs 22:29 gives us insight:
David was skilled as a musician, and thus serve King Saul with the skillful playing of his instrument. David must have practiced for hours as a shepherd boy, so his being before King Saul was no mere coincidence. What are you giving your time to for the purpose of excelling in your work (gift)?
In light of this proclamation, we decided that things will shift in 2025 as we begin to move from a generalist agency to one more specific, emphasizing Search Engine Marketing (of which SEO is a part of) as that is where we provide the best value.
And because we specialize, we can certainly have a higher dollar amount to our work because we are the go-to people for that specialization. Our time invested in our specialization should not be without reward (though make it make sense).
I really enjoyed this excerpt from the book:
Power in the client-agency relationship usually rests with the client. His power comes from the alternatives that he sees to hiring us. When the client has few alternatives to our expertise then we can dictate pricing, we can set the terms of the engagement and we can take control in a manner that better ensures that our ideas and advice have the desired impact. (Enns, 2018, p. 16)
The Need to Be Selective
Another proclamation that inspired me was the need to be selective. An issue we came across in our company was that the higher paying clients were wonderful to work with, but the lower paying clients were a chore to work with. It wasn't that the lower paying clients were bad (surely we enjoyed serving them with excellence), but their demands did not fit with the value we were providing. Their demands would have been better handled at a higher tier of pricing for their service because the pricing would justify the amount of extra work fulfilling those demands.
Could I have been better at presenting that x will cost an additional y? Absolutely, but I didn't, for fear of man (which is slowly being eliminated) caused me to just solve their issues (although they may have been completely capable of paying the additional cost).
As a result, I no longer have to live with this mindset of accepting every lead that comes our way. I cannot serve everyone. My yes to something means no to something else, but what if that something else was what I should have said yes to? What if my initial yes meant that I would end up in a place of extremely low margins, causing stress and all sorts of issues to surface?
What 2025 Will Look Like
With just these 2 proclamations, there are much changes to come in terms of running our agency. Verbiage and page changes need to still be done on our main website (www.thearising.co), but our marketing plan now receives an overhaul because we know where we want to focus.
Consider picking this book up as it's a short read but it will surely challenge you. I am reading through it again, and probably will do so 3 more times this year until the proclamations become natural in my day-to-day.
If you've read the book, let me know your thoughts on it in the comment section below.
Member discussion