2Bobs—with David C. Baker and Blair Enns

By David C. Baker and Blair Enns

Business

What's 2Bobs—with David C. Baker and Blair Enns about?

Conversations on the art of creative entrepreneurship with David C. Baker and Blair Enns

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2Bobs—with David C. Baker and Blair Enns episodes:

04.10.2024
Just Stop Talking
The fact that sales people tend to talk too much is nothing new, but Blair has observed in recent client work just how profound of an effect this pervasive problem has on sales outcomes. Links “How and When to...
03.27.2024
Working With a Maverick
When it comes to qualifications for ideal clients, David doesn’t hear anyone talking about how agencies can benefit when the person across the table is someone who presses boundaries and ethically skirts the rules within their own organization.
03.13.2024
The Dichotomy of the Expert Salesperson
As Blair is finishing his new book that drops later this year, he comes to the realization that pretty much everything he does comes down to the fundamental issue that experts think they need to show up as a different...
02.28.2024
Maximizing Pro Bono Opportunities
While discussing eight ways creative firms can do pro bono work better based on an article David wrote recently, both he and Blair discover a couple new profound insights together. LINKS “Maximizing Your Pro-Bono Contributions” by David C. Baker...
02.14.2024
Attending the Way
Blair recognizes how a Confucius quote is really bad business advice, but is still moved by how a highly principled creative firm in New Zealand continues to thrive by prioritizing their creative practices and client fit over new business strategy....
01.31.2024
A 7-part Theory of Principal Compensation
David frequently gets hired to help resolve issues at firms between multiple principles when it comes to who does what and how much each should get paid, so he’s come up with a 7-point framework he can use in each...
01.17.2024
The Time Value of Knowledge
David interviews Blair about his recent article in which he takes a lesson from investing with compound interest to understand the increasing returns we can receive from our relentless pursuit of knowledge over time. Links “The Time Value of...
01.03.2024
Revisiting Remote Work
David looks at the current data and weighs all the pros and cons of continuing to have staff who work from home in our post-pandemic economy, which makes Blair wonder if he would even survive if he was starting out...
12.20.2023
Ditch the (Sales) Script
Blair sees too many creative firms talking at prospective clients using sales scripts instead of having a series of wide ranging conversations on their unique issues and objectives that set the tone for the potential long-term engagement. Links “Ten...
12.06.2023
Constrained by Artificial Boundaries
Blair’s latest obsession is bounded rationality, in which he sees too many creative firms failing to make “rational” decisions because they choose to bind their businesses with outdated and overly-constraining ideals like the 80/20 principle. Links “The Great Convergence...
11.22.2023
A Theory of Leisure
David shares his thoughts on some bad advice he hears involving the focus on pursuing personal passions in business.
11.08.2023
The Death Throes of the Pitch
Blair weighs in on this year's Forrester report, which shows the ridiculous amount of money agencies have been wasting on pitches. LINKS "Are These the Last Days of the Pitch?" by Blair Enns for Win Without Pitching "A...
10.25.2023
How Much Should You Spend on Your Own Marketing?
David addresses another frequently asked question, looking at what creative firms should budget in terms of both money and time for their website, SaaS/automation, PR, content creation, and social media.
10.11.2023
The Conflicting Ethics of Selling and Negotiating
Blair identifies the differences between the ethics of selling expertise and the three schools of bargaining ethics, and what happens when we don’t adapt our bargaining approach to match our opponents in the game of negotiation. Links “The Conflicting...
09.27.2023
Doing Employee Orientation Right
In an era of rapid turnover and remote working arrangements, developing a structured onboarding process for new staff is more important than ever. David has a checklist to help agencies get their new employees up to speed as quickly as...
09.13.2023
The War on Payment Terms
Blair sees non-standard payment terms as a two-sided issue, where agencies should be creatively leveraging terms more to their own benefit as opposed to just defending themselves against procurement departments who impose onerous terms. LINKS "Payment Terms, On Your...
08.30.2023
What Your Team Wants From You
While analyzing data from his Total Business Reset surveys, David has noticed five significant trends which principals should be aware of to run their firms more effectively, as well as one thing your team wishes you’d stop doing.
08.16.2023
How to Ask for Referrals
As a follow-up to the discussion in the previous episode, Blair has some criteria for firms that would beneift from prioritizing and codifying an effective referral strategy as a way to gain new business. LINKS “The Best Referral Machine...
08.02.2023
How to Make Referrals
In part one of a two-part discussion about developing a business referral strategy, Blair is surprised to hear that David wants to cover how and why we can get better at giving away business, before talking about how to get...
07.19.2023
Do You Even Need New Business People?
Blair runs through one of his constraint driven exercises with David by having us imagine running our business with nobody dedicated to the various functions under the banner of new business.
07.05.2023
Predictive Traits of Successful Owners
David has observed six common characteristics of agency principals that can affect whether or not their business succeeds.
06.21.2023
Six Barriers to New Business Success
Even after understanding and trying to adopt the philosophies from Win Without Pitching, Blair sees many creative firms struggling to increase profit because of these six obstacles involving their people and processes. Links Mastering the Value Conversation The Complexities...
06.07.2023
Ten Questions I Want to Ask You
This is your intervention and David has some tough questions about the important decisions you should be making to manage and grow your creative firm. LINKS "The Four Types of Employees at Your Firm"
05.24.2023
Qualities of the World’s Best Project Managers
David feels like project managers get a bad rap and has tried to raise their profile within creative firms. So he’s gathered a list of traits from the best project managers he’s met in the hundreds of agencies he’s worked...
05.10.2023
CRM and the Mistakes to Avoid
A lot has changed since Blair wrote his article about seven mistakes he sees creative firms make with CRM years ago, and David wants to know why Excel isn’t a good tool for managing sales leads.
04.26.2023
Why We Suck at Negotiating
Blair has six challenges creative agencies face when it comes to being compensated for the actual value they generate for their clients.
04.12.2023
Developing a Client Conflict Strategy
David addresses how vertically positioned agencies can manage a client roster containing multiple companies who are competitors with each other.
03.29.2023
Inbound, Outbound, and In Between
Blair has been getting too much spam lately and sees an opportunity with warm leads that lies between inbound and outbound marketing which is not being mined well among the creative firms. Links “Inbound, Outbound & In Between” article...
03.15.2023
The Perils of "Good/Better/Best" Pricing
Blair wants sales people to stop ranking proposal options in a way that assigns judgement for prospective clients without considering the many tradeoffs that need to be considered. Read the episode notes and transcript at http://2bobs.com/podcast/the-perils-of-good-better-best-pricing
03.01.2023
Reverse Trojan Horse Syndrome
Blair is confused by David’s mixed metaphors about creative agencies being able to sell strategy services up front, instead of entering through the implementation door with new clients and then trying to demonstrate how much more your firm can provide.
02.15.2023
Is Your Firm Addicted to New Business?
Blair sees some creative firms as “black holes” where accounts go in and seemingly never come out, and others as “new business development machines,” consistently generating half of their revenue from new clients every year. Links “Is Your Firm...
02.01.2023
Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors
David has a brand new book, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice. In it he reveals exactly how he manages engagements with his clients, and he’s nervous about how it will be received. Links...
01.18.2023
Innoficiency in Your Agency
Blair has talked many times on the podcast about how innovation and efficiency are mutually opposable goals, and after presenting his first keynote on the "Innoficiency Principle" goes deeper into this idea with David. Links “The Innoficiency Problem” “The...
01.04.2023
Churn, Baby, Churn
David gets flack for his contrary perspective on how agencies shouldn’t necessarily aim for long-term client relationships. So he clarifies how he’s seen the the fear of both client and employee churn hold firms back. LINKS "Reboot Your...
12.21.2022
Reboot Your Culture Through New Business
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...
12.07.2022
Who Should Be Promoted?
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...
11.23.2022
Maintaining the Expert Position...After the Sale
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. Read the epiosde notes and transcript at http://2bobs.com/podcast/maintaining-the-expert-position-after-the-sale
11.09.2022
When Your Engagement Level Drops
David has 16 things for principals to try when they feel the need to do something different from running their firm. Links Play the Game of Constraints Read the epsisode notes and transcript at http://2bobs.com/podcast/when-your-engagement-level-drops
10.26.2022
The Marketing Procurement Problem
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. Read the episode notes and transcript...
10.12.2022
The Agency Gatekeeper
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. Links Slapping Down Your Childlike Glee Mastering the Value Conversation Models Everywhere Critical...
09.28.2022
Prostitutes and Scope Creep
David thinks creative firms can learn something from sex workers about how to run their business. Read the transcript and episode notes at http://2bobs.com/podcast/prostitutes-and-scope-creep
09.14.2022
How Would You Prepare for a Downturn?
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? Read the...
08.31.2022
Selling Should Be Fun or You Aren't Doing It Right
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. Read the episode notes and transcript at http://2bobs.com/podcast/selling-should-be-fun-or-you-arent-doing-it-right Links...
08.17.2022
Models Everywhere
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. Read the transcript and episode notes at http://2bobs.com/podcast/models-everywhere
08.03.2022
How Categories and Positioning Options Might Change
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. Read this episode's transcript and get links to what was...
07.20.2022
The Evolution of a Marketing Firm
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...
07.06.2022
Shortcomings of the EBITDA Multiplier
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. Read the transcript and episode notes at http://2bobs.com/podcast/shortcomings-of-the-ebitda-multiplier
06.22.2022
The Emotional Journey of Buying and Selling
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...
06.08.2022
Hard Lines, Soft Lines
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. Read the episode notes and transcript...
05.25.2022
Designing Your Service Offerings
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. Read the transcript and episode notes at http://2bobs.com/podcast/designing-your-service-offerings

What's 2Bobs—with David C. Baker and Blair Enns about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

2Bobs—with David C. Baker and Blair Enns episodes:

Just Stop Talking

Working With a Maverick

The Dichotomy of the Expert Salesperson

Maximizing Pro Bono Opportunities

Attending the Way

A 7-part Theory of Principal Compensation

The Time Value of Knowledge

Revisiting Remote Work

Ditch the (Sales) Script

Constrained by Artificial Boundaries

A Theory of Leisure

The Death Throes of the Pitch

How Much Should You Spend on Your Own Marketing?

The Conflicting Ethics of Selling and Negotiating

Doing Employee Orientation Right

The War on Payment Terms

What Your Team Wants From You

How to Ask for Referrals

How to Make Referrals

Do You Even Need New Business People?

Predictive Traits of Successful Owners

Six Barriers to New Business Success

Ten Questions I Want to Ask You

Qualities of the World’s Best Project Managers

CRM and the Mistakes to Avoid

Why We Suck at Negotiating

Developing a Client Conflict Strategy

Inbound, Outbound, and In Between

The Perils of "Good/Better/Best" Pricing

Reverse Trojan Horse Syndrome

Is Your Firm Addicted to New Business?

Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors

Innoficiency in Your Agency

Churn, Baby, Churn

Reboot Your Culture Through New Business

Who Should Be Promoted?

Maintaining the Expert Position...After the Sale

When Your Engagement Level Drops

The Marketing Procurement Problem

The Agency Gatekeeper

Prostitutes and Scope Creep

How Would You Prepare for a Downturn?

Selling Should Be Fun or You Aren't Doing It Right

Models Everywhere

How Categories and Positioning Options Might Change

The Evolution of a Marketing Firm

Shortcomings of the EBITDA Multiplier

The Emotional Journey of Buying and Selling

Hard Lines, Soft Lines

Designing Your Service Offerings