In this episode, Blair Enns and I dug into his latest book “The Four Conversations“.
You can find Blair on LinkedIn, at WinWithoutPitching.com, or check out his podcast at 2Bobs.com.
You can listen to the episode here:
Full Transcript:
In many of those other domains, aggressive or otherwise poor selling practices are things the customer accepts that they must endure. It is only in a relationship with an advisor, such as a consultant or financial planner or practitioner, such as a designer or engineer, where the conduct of the expert in the sales role so directly shapes the client’s perception of what they are buying. That was a little bit from Blair Enns’ latest book, The Four Conversations, and here to discuss it today with me is the man himself, Blair Enns. So Blair, welcome to the show. Yeah, glad to have you here.
Blair Enns (00:28.024)
Thank you, Mickey.
Mickey Mellen (00:30.697)
You guys may know Blair Enns. I’ve talked about him some on here before in my blog and stuff. He wrote The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, which was transformational for many of us and has the long running podcast Two Bobs. He puts out with David C. Baker, which is just a fantastic show. The number two, bobs.com is their site, as they say. It’s one of those shows that for a little while I listened to the episodes that sounded good and I learned very quickly just to listen to all of them. Because even if it’s not a topic that I think applies to me, it still applies to me. So it’s fantastic show and we appreciate all you put out.
Your latest book, The Four Conversations, is fantastic because this is something I struggle with personally, is just how to shape those conversations and again, something you’re so good at. let’s kind of unpack, I think, the four conversations and go through. But before we do, I guess you want to give kind of an overview of why you wrote this and what you tried to accomplish here.
Blair Enns (01:13.838)
yeah. So why did I write it? You’d think I think I’d thought of this question before. I don’t know. It is I think of the book as the here’s how to follow up to the win without pitching manifesto. So the manifesto came out in 2010. It’s approaching 15 years old now. And I think of that book as a yes, you can book in 2000. So it’s a little light on application.
Mickey Mellen (01:16.901)
You
Blair Enns (01:42.134)
I mean, it’s a manifesto after all. I think the book has accomplished what I hoped it would accomplish. In 2008, I wrote Pricing Creativity, A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour. That was really a here’s how to book written specifically on the subject of pricing. Now, this is the follow up to the manifesto with a bunch of pricing stuff in there as well. So it really is.
Mickey Mellen (01:42.149)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Blair Enns (02:09.23)
So, okay, the motivation for writing the book, lots of motivations, but a key one was this book is essentially the core of our training program. So when people go through Win Without Pitching training, it is on the four conversations, which is our model for how any expert should sell and we could get into that. And I think anybody who owns a training business who contemplates putting their model out there in the world in the form of the book,
There’s some concern that it will cannibalize training, but actually what it does for us in the training front is it allows us to spend less time downloading information and more time just practicing and coaching to what is in the book.
Mickey Mellen (02:52.121)
Gotcha. And so I think that’s a good lead into the first conversation because the first conversation is kind of a gotcha in a way because it’s not really a conversation you have directly. It’s the stuff you just talked about is having people trained up so when they first meet with you, you’ve already had a conversation without talking to them. Is that a fair way to put that problem of conversation?
Blair Enns (03:09.91)
Yeah, so the first conversation, the probative conversation is the conversation that happens without you present. It is effectively your reputation preceding you. So it’s a function of your business strategy. What business are you in? Where will you play and how will you win? Choose your definition of strategy. Positioning language. So how will you position your offering against the alternatives against your competitors?
Mickey Mellen (03:12.175)
probably.
Blair Enns (03:39.242)
and then lead generation. Effectively, how will you prove your expertise in the public domain and drive inbound inquiries to you with you already seen as the expert? And I’ll make this generalization here as we do in our training and as I do in the book. And so all generalizations are kind of untrue, but they’re helpful. The generalization is in your relationships with your clients and
therefore prospects, you can be seen as a vendor or the expert. So you might think of those as endpoints on a spectrum, but I think of it as one or the other binary. And the goal of the probative conversation is to move in the mind of the client from the position of a vendor where you have very little power in the buy-sell relationship to be seen as the expert, the one they want to do business with. And.
Again, as you pointed out, the proverbial conversation is it’s kind of a construct of this conversation that happens through your agents of thought leadership, the content you put out there and referrals, those who are referring business to you. And the goal is for them to drive inbound inquiries with you already in this power position where you’re seen as the expert. Your expertise is recognized and valued.
Mickey Mellen (04:36.15)
Right.
Mickey Mellen (04:55.459)
Yep. And we see this a lot. We talk a lot with folks about where Google is shifting these days, where people are doing many more branded searches than creative searches on Google because they find their experts elsewhere. They go to Google just say, all right, I know I to hire Blair Ends. I’m just typing Blair Ends versus I need help with, know, and so this conversation accomplishes that. They know you’re the expert before you start and you call it the flip. You see the flip is our name for the moment when we move from vendor to expert. But you also don’t say it has to happen in front. You say if the flip does not happen in the appropriate conversation, we must seek to make it happen in subsequent conversations. So
I think that becomes a little trickier too then I guess we can kind of move to the second conversation or Realistically the first actual conversation the qualifying conversation. So I guess there’s two ways people come in one is you are the expert Blair I want to hire you. You’re perfect. I’ve already seen that or the flip hasn’t quite happened yet And so I would guess at that point they’ve at least
you’re considered one of the experts I would hope. I don’t think there’s many cases where you’ll be just a vendor, although I suppose there’s some. So how does that work in the qualifying conversations? I think part of that is you qualifying them. Are we a good fit for each other? But also making sure that flip has happened if it hasn’t already.
Blair Enns (05:58.102)
Yeah, so there are couple of things going on here. The objective of the qualifying conversation, which is the first person to person conversation, is to vet the lead. It’s the vetting conversation. Vet the lead to see if an opportunity exists and determine the next steps. And there’s a secondary objective of maintaining the expert position in the relationship. the everything that you do works so hard to do. And it really is time and effort to kind of accomplish this probative conversation to have you have reputation.
that drives the flip. If that happens, then your secondary objective while qualifying, while vetting, is to make sure you don’t give up the high ground that you earned in the probative conversation. Now, if the flip hasn’t happened, effectively there was no probative conversation. And you find yourself in that person-to-person conversation, the first one, which we call the qualifying conversation. And you ask the inbound inquiry, somebody reaches out to you and say, well, how did you hear about us?
Mickey Mellen (06:44.037)
Mm-hmm.
Blair Enns (06:56.396)
And they say, I Googled whatever your service, digital agency, Denver, and you came up number seven. Well, the flip hasn’t happened. They’ve just done a search. So you have two different dynamics in play. so the qualifying conversation framework is about you vetting the client. But as you pointed out, Mickey, the client will also vet you. We don’t worry so much about that. We allow that to happen in a certain way, but you’re vetting the client.
Mickey Mellen (06:58.489)
Right.
Blair Enns (07:25.56)
from this position of the expert. And if you haven’t obtained that position yet, that is your secondary objective is to obtain it.
Mickey Mellen (07:33.955)
And you mentioned maintaining it too. So how would someone not maintain it? they see me as the expert, I succeeded, I’m the expert, they have the call, what am I doing that blows that and loses the expert position there?
Blair Enns (07:43.426)
you start behaving like a needy vendor. So we know what needy vendor behavior looks like. You’re smiling, nodding yes while you’re thinking no, you’re not letting the client finish their sentences, but they start talking about what they need and you say, we can do that. Yeah, we’ve done that before. You’re eager to please your E you’re in convince mode. You’re presenting rather than being present. All of these signs. Yeah. All of these signs that say, I’ll borrow
Mickey Mellen (07:45.669)
There you go.
yes.
You
Blair Enns (08:12.662)
language from Orrin Clough, which we use in training and in the book, but all his, his language is I am the prize. All of your language says, you, madam client, you are the prize to be one in this relationship. And I would be lucky to win that prize. The reversal of that is I am the expert. am the prize. And you don’t say that out loud. It’s the way it’s your tone and manner. It’s the way you show up. It’s the way you navigate these frameworks.
Mickey Mellen (08:27.993)
Yeah, let’s go.
Mickey Mellen (08:32.25)
Mm-hmm.
Blair Enns (08:40.268)
It’s not about using the frameworks for these conversations. It’s the way it’s the what version of you shows up and uses these frameworks.
Mickey Mellen (08:47.909)
Yeah, you mentioned the experts mantra that you should sort of have in mind for this and the first one first line of it is I’m the expert. I’m the prize. I am on a mission to help have that purpose. I can only do that if you let me lead and I can accept that not all will follow and I think that kind of gets back to the don’t say yes to everything. I love one of your lines. I don’t know that we’ll get to it today, but if you don’t say no, your yes is meaningless is just a life changing line. Once you really unpack that and the more you can say no and I see that other vendors too. I mean I trust my car mechanic because I’ve gone there enough times where he said no, you don’t need to replace that part today. So when he says yes, you
I’m gonna replace that part because yeah, he’s built that trust but
Blair Enns (09:20.942)
Yeah, and I wish I knew who originally authored that line because it was not me. I don’t know who the original author is. If somebody knows, please let me know. Let me know because it’s a great line. If you don’t say no, your yes is meaningless.
Mickey Mellen (09:24.6)
Okay.
Mickey Mellen (09:28.101)
It is. Yep, love that line. And then you also said something you can say in this conversation is quote, I’d like your permission to challenge something you just said. So again, not saying yes all the time, but fighting back. Almost a little bit of challenger sale kind of stuff in there where you kind of come in with a point of view that may be contrary to what they think, but you’re the expert, so let’s act that way.
Blair Enns (09:49.922)
Yeah, I was just doing an open coaching session this morning and one of our clients was saying, making the point that she’s still overcoming the fact of years of thinking that she’s in the service business. And in the service business, the customer is always right. And I’m fond of saying, I may say it in the book, you’re in the expertise business and in the expertise business, you should assume the customer is wrong until proven otherwise. I mean, don’t overplay it. Don’t be impolite about it.
Mickey Mellen (10:13.957)
Right.
Blair Enns (10:16.418)
but it’s the norm for clients to come to you self-diagnosed and self-prescribed and be wrong on one or both of those dimensions.
Mickey Mellen (10:22.533)
You have people walk a fine balance between being pushy and telling people the wrong, but not being a jerk either. Kind of like the wanting them to desire you more than you desire them, but not to be, I think you say, don’t be aloof and arrogant. Don’t be a jerk about it, but you are the prize to be won. It’s a fine balance, and I think it comes with training and just practice over and over.
Love that. And you also break this into the five categories. I don’t know that we’ll dig in all those, the figure out what they need. And this is, I guess we’ll unpack this a little bit because you talk about the context and desired future state and decision makers and that sort of stuff. Things like desired future state gets tricky to me in my mind here because you’re saying, what do you want to be versus I’ll tell you where you should be. So it’s almost, I don’t wanna say needy, but it’s, are you coming saying here’s where you should end up or should you ask them where they want to be?
Blair Enns (11:08.792)
So we’re into the qualifying conversation framework. This is really a version of BANT, which was developed by IBM in the 70s, which stands for Budget Authority Need and Timeframe. It starts with need typically. And as you point out, we call this desired future state. Anytime somebody is buying anything from you, they are buying a better version of themselves in the future. And what we’re trying to do here is to find out what that better version of themselves is. There’s a school of thought.
in this area of uncovering need that you just keep peeling. I call it peeling the onion of need. There’s an approach that’s commonly used. used to teach it. It’s called the five wise technique. Why do you reach out to us? Sales are down. I need a new website. Why do you need a new website? Sales are down. Why are sales down? I don’t know. Blah, blah. You know, why, why, why? Like a five year old. And I think there’s just a better way to get to the
Mickey Mellen (11:48.867)
Yes, love that.
Mickey Mellen (11:59.301)
Right.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Blair Enns (12:06.958)
When you approach it that way, you’re not necessarily even going to get to the heart of what the human being wants. So there are different ways to do that. But at the core, we’re going to, you know, in a B2B sale, maybe many listeners to this podcast will be in the B2B business selling to other businesses. In a B2B sale, businesses don’t hire businesses. People hire people, right? So
We’re just trying to humanize the sail a little bit more and say, you know, get to the heart of what it is that this human being wants.
Mickey Mellen (12:40.739)
Yep, I like that. So at the end of this step, you mentioned earlier in the mantra, I accept that not all will follow. This is where in theory I would think a lot of them should fall off. A lot of should fall off just because they’re not a good fit, they’re not gonna respect you, you’ve not obtained the flip. Do you see this being a case where you should lose a lot of your leads at that point or many of them? You don’t wanna proceed with a bad fit. So how often should people fall off your chart here, you think?
Blair Enns (13:05.186)
I don’t think there’s a, you I don’t think you can average this out across different business types and industries and get a number. It’s going to change depending on where you are in the lifespan of your business. It’s going to change depending on how you go about generating leads. So if you have a broad based like AdWords program or something that drives a high volume of inquiries, a lot of those inquiries tend to, it’s not necessary, but
Mickey Mellen (13:09.753)
Right, I’m sure.
Blair Enns (13:30.392)
It’s not necessarily true, but they tend to be chaff that needs to be separated from the wheat. If you’ve been building a reputation out there in your market for 20 years, I mean, I guess I’m a good example here. We’re three books, podcasts, et cetera. I have a lot of content out in the public domain for people to sample before they reach out. The norm is that people reach out already having absorbed a lot of our material.
and being quite familiar with their material and what it is that they are buying. So there’s not a lot of weeding out as there might be, say, in some of our clients’ businesses that have these lead generation mechanisms driving a high volume that need a lot of sorting.
Mickey Mellen (14:13.669)
Do you find that most people that have access to that which is everyone actually do absorb your material? Or do you get a lot of calls where they’re like, yeah, I’ve heard you were good. I haven’t looked at your stuff yet.
Blair Enns (14:23.074)
You know, it’s a timely question because something has just happened. We’re recording in early February of 2025, if I’m allowed to say that. And something’s happened in the last 60 days where I ask people, how did you hear about us? And the answer is no longer Google or I’ve been listening to your podcast for a while. It’s I asked an LLM who is the expert at X and your name or Win Without Pitching came up.
Mickey Mellen (14:29.667)
Yeah, for sure.
Mickey Mellen (14:44.453)
You
Blair Enns (14:50.562)
And then my follow up question is, well, what do you know about one without pitching? And the common answer is nothing. Now, this is quite different from how search works. allows you to find the expert. you go, if the expert is publishing a bunch of content, you go deep into that content, or at least a little bit. You go into the content enough to go, okay.
Mickey Mellen (14:57.081)
Hmm.
Blair Enns (15:14.828)
this is the person or organization for me. There’s something going on with the LLMs where people are just taking the authority of the LLM and reaching out. So obviously that changes search, that changes how expertise gets found. And that’s kind of beyond my domain, but I’m endeavoring to learn more. And how do we make our robot overlords work for us?
Mickey Mellen (15:35.877)
you
Right. And think you’ve I think the best way to do that is to have lots of great content for those LLMs to consume, which you have done. And that’s I think positioned you well, if by mistake. But I mean, the stuff you did to rank well in Google is now stuff they’ve absorbed for the LLMs and has put you in a great, great situation. Now it’s the the battle of I don’t want the LLMs to steal my content, but I really don’t want the LLMs to not steal my content because you want them to have it. So you show up there. So you’ve almost unintentionally done a fantastic job of positioning yourself well where they’ve absorbed so much of your content. And again, you guys, one thing I love about your
Blair Enns (15:57.379)
Yeah.
Mickey Mellen (16:06.523)
podcast you have that full transcript. mean immediately I can find your site. I go to that all the time like have this Blair said this thing I don’t quite remember I can search through and find the exact quote but again that’s great for me but it’s also great for Google and for LLMs because they absorb all that written content too so kudos on positioning yourself there but it’s interesting I would have thought people would say that Windmill Outpitching is great then they would go do some research but it’s interesting they’re seeing that saying good enough let’s give them a call so
Blair Enns (16:30.072)
Sample size, it’s still early. Sample size is still small, but something, there’s something about the authority that we grant LLMs that we don’t grant to search. Yeah.
Mickey Mellen (16:39.481)
Yes, which we really shouldn’t, I don’t think, but that’s a whole different conversation too, so yeah. Well, let’s move on to the third conversation, the value conversation. is something you’ve, mean value is something you and David talk about constantly for decades now, which is fantastic, but showing the value. what does the value conversation look like?
Blair Enns (16:56.088)
So the objective of the value conversation is to endeavor to discover the value that you might help to create and then what your share of that value might be in the form of compensation, again, while maintaining the expert position. So if you unpack that objective, what we’re doing is we’re not setting price specifically, but we’re beginning to think and talk about pricing from the position of the value to be created rather than.
the position of the cost of our solutions. And one of the keys to the value conversation is you’re walking through a fairly simple four-step framework and not talking about or thinking deeply about solutions. So this is the hardest thing to learn. You’ve tried it. You’ve had some experience with it. It’s hard to let go of leaping ahead to solutions. Yeah.
Mickey Mellen (17:39.267)
Yes. It is, yes, for sure.
yeah. I have a solution. Let’s go. We’ve got the, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it’s tough.
Blair Enns (17:51.576)
Client starts talking, you think, being the subject matter expert, you think, I’ve seen this before. I know what your problem is. I know what your solution is. I know how much we need to charge to do this right. And you effectively quit listening.
Mickey Mellen (17:56.42)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, I can say I can give you a quote right now. It’s gonna be 20 grand and here’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s go and that’s,
Blair Enns (18:08.161)
Yeah. In that moment, think value conversation mastery is easier. It’s easier to get to the mastery level if you have nothing to sell because our solutions, especially if we package them up, and I’m not trying to make the case to not package up your solutions, but as soon as you have like product on the shelf behind you to sell, most of your brain is spent matching their need to your products.
Mickey Mellen (18:21.187)
Hmm.
Mickey Mellen (18:30.797)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mickey Mellen (18:37.155)
Yeah, gotcha, yeah, that’s very true.
Blair Enns (18:37.836)
And if I took all your products away and you had nothing to sell, all you would have is this simple four-step framework and you would become a far better salesperson.
Mickey Mellen (18:45.753)
Gotcha. I love that. That’s a great way to put it. And again, back to challenger sale. They talk about that too, where you talk about what the client needs versus what you can offer. It’s kind of a step in there before you get to your specific offerings. Let’s talk about what you guys really need. And as you pointed out, there’s what they said they need and their budget. then, well really, it’s what they said they need and their budget is kind of a separate piece often from that and then what you could provide. So I think that’s a good segue to go into the closing conversation.
which I think is fantastic and we’ve talked about this a bit before the call but the concept of offering three options which is pretty simple but you have pushed it so hard for so long that you forced us to do it. So thank you for that because it’s been fantastic. But something I heard differently in this book than I’ve seen before is we’ve always started with the anchor start with a high one. Here’s the hundred thousand dollar option then 50 then 20. But you say no no start with 100 and then go to the 20 and then come back to the 50. So the way I understand it thought I saw I guess it could go both ways but yeah.
Blair Enns (19:36.416)
Yeah, I’m stating my personal preference there. The only rule on that front is you always start with the highest price for us. as what we call the anchor option, it’s effectively employing what’s known as the anchoring effect or the technique of anchoring, which really means that the negotiation starts from the first number stated. And there’s a lot of really good science behind it. And most people are familiar with it by now. So I like to
Mickey Mellen (19:44.399)
For sure, yes.
Mickey Mellen (19:58.499)
Mm-hmm.
Blair Enns (20:05.546)
start high, go to the low option because usually, not always, but usually the client has given me the low end of the pricing range and it’s in the form of their budget. So I start with an expensive, elaborate and creative option, pushing the client to think expansively and creatively about new ways to create the value that they said they were looking to create. And often that transcends whatever solution they said they were looking for when they came to us.
Mickey Mellen (20:15.971)
Yep, exactly.
Mickey Mellen (20:34.031)
Right.
Blair Enns (20:35.488)
So get them thinking big in terms of the value that they might create, what it might take to do that and how much they might invest to do that. And then go to the other end of the spectrum and say, well, you said your budget was X, 20,000 in this example, let’s use that. Here’s what we can do for 20,000. it’s, if it’s underfunded, it’s like, in the context of the anchor option we just discussed, it’s disappointing. is that, it seems like so small now.
Mickey Mellen (20:49.477)
Mm-hmm.
Blair Enns (21:05.302)
And then I like to finish in the middle because on average, that’s where people will land, right? It becomes the new safe zone between overspending and under-investing. So that’s the order I prefer, but the only thing that’s really kind of a rule here is anchor high, start with the anchor.
Mickey Mellen (21:10.053)
for sure.
Mickey Mellen (21:25.541)
Gotcha. And I like the way you broke it down in the book too and you just kind of there too where the big option is here’s the dreamy, here’s what we could do for you. The low option is here’s what your budget said and then the middle one is often here’s what your requirements said, which is you said you want all this stuff which is going to cost 50,000. You said you have 20,000 and then here’s an option for 100. And so that middle option kind of becomes this is the stuff you said you wanted but now here’s the price attached to that which is not what your budget was. What your budget is this other option and you see what you lose. So I like kind of framing that. That gives a good way to kind of break down three options pretty easily.
and both of those look small compared to the big option one, which, and we do sell the option one occasionally, but more often, when she did this last year with a nonprofit, they said, I want option one, but I wanted option two’s price. I’m like, of course, of course you do, yeah.
Blair Enns (22:06.53)
Yeah, that’s common. Yeah. And my response is, yeah, my kids want candy for breakfast.
Mickey Mellen (22:11.349)
Yeah, exactly. In their case, ultimately did. We negotiated and got that they gave some, you know, some free sponsorships and things. They’re a company we really wanted to work with. But yeah, generally, it’s like, yeah, that’s cute. I do too. But let’s talk serious here. So the other thing in the closing conversation I love is you broke down that framework. I won’t go through all the steps here. I’ll read them quickly. But yeah, the time check to see how much time you have for the meeting, just kind of framing the meeting for folks. The roll call, make sure people are there. You know, if you’re missing key people, you know, skip out maybe. State the objective, recap the value, share the options finally.
and then facilitate discussion and drive the next step. What I really like about this though is one, it’s a great framework just to have in mind versus like, all right, here’s the options, what do you think? Let’s make it proper. But you said, we will find it valuable to have this agenda with us as a reference guide. We might even share a client-friendly version with all parties. Experts use frameworks, we do not hide this. And I thought that was fantastic. Say, hey, here’s sharing that you have a framework. think.
You compared it to a surgeon in the book where he said, you may not understand everything the surgeon’s gonna do, but you appreciate that he has a framework and idea of what he’s gonna do versus I’m gonna go in and poke around and see what happens. Like, I want the guy that has a framework even if I don’t get it. So I never thought of sharing this framework with a client. And again, you say a client-friendly version, so not necessarily the same, but say, hey, we know what we’re doing. We have experts use frameworks. You have a lot of frameworks in this book. We have the four overall ones and it’s kind of a mini framework inside each of those two. So.
Thoughts on how you should present some of that to clients versus what you should keep internal?
Blair Enns (23:36.044)
Well, just the idea that in your first job being the expert advisor or practitioner or whatever you are, you’re using frameworks, almost certainly using frameworks to do the work that you do. There is something about the domain of selling where we think that we have to be brilliant. We have to show and we have to work without a net. I don’t know where this comes from. So somebody who’s used to doing using frameworks in their main job, being the expert, thinks they need to eschew them.
the use of them in their second job selling that expertise. It’s a little bit ridiculous. we all understand intuitively that experts use frameworks. If you want to be seen as the expert salesperson, then each of these conversations has a framework. So have the framework handy, be referencing it, take notes, make it obvious that you’re taking notes, glance down at your piece of paper or your iPad or wherever the framework is and say things like, all right, next I’d like to.
Mickey Mellen (24:32.997)
Mm-hmm.
Blair Enns (24:33.344)
ask you about X and just come across as somebody, know, you know, I don’t know how else to say it other than an expert using a framework, you should bring that version of you to the forefront in the sale.
Mickey Mellen (24:44.28)
Right.
And this is why I appreciate you and this book so much is because that’s very obvious, but it’s something we didn’t do very well. And again, I don’t know why. Like we learned years ago that having a framework for our process was hugely important. I remember having a somewhat of an argument with a potential client. said, no, no, I want freedom to create and make something beautiful. I said, yes, the freedom will come through the framework. That’s how we build it. The framework facilitates the freedom. Kind of like Jaco Willink says, think discipline equals freedom. If you have the disciplines, it can create freedom for you. But I never converted that to the sales. Like no sales, we’ll just kind of talk through and see where it goes.
That’s silly. Like, why not have a framework? And this book gives a fantastic framework for that and I appreciate that. So it’s been fantastic. yeah, Blair, this has been great. Any other closing thoughts why someone should pick up this book or some insights along those lines?
Blair Enns (25:30.606)
Yeah, I think you read something and alluded to this off the top. I just want to make this make sure that this that under this point is understood. The book is called The Four Conversations. So we see the sale as a series of four linear and discrete conversations, even though that’s not always the case. It can be helpful for us to think of it this way. So think of it as four conversations. Anytime you’re not in conversation mode, something is wrong.
But the subtitle is A New Model for Selling Expertise. And why do I think the sale of expertise is different than from anything else? It’s because of the quote that you read off the top, which is in any sale of expertise, the sale is the sample of the engagement to follow. It is where the client, two things happen. First of all, the roles are assigned. You will be seen as the vendor or the expert. And if you do not.
Occupy the expert position in the sale itself. You will not be allowed to occupy the expert position in the relationship and The second thing that happens is the try client tries on what it would be like to work with you So throughout the sale they’re keenly or they’re they’re taking all kinds of measure of you of like about your character
about how things are going to work and they’re extrapolating out into the engagement as they should. So if you show up as the polite, compliant, read, needy vendor in the sale, then you’re going to have to accept vendor status throughout the engagement. I think there are some parts of selling or points of selling that are universal across all domains. But in the sale of expertise, how you sell says so much about what the client is.
that they’re buying.
Mickey Mellen (27:16.355)
Yep, love that. Fantastic way to wrap things up. So I mentioned the places people can find you, but where would you like folks to track you down? What website should they go to? What social media do you prefer? That kind of stuff.
Blair Enns (27:25.644)
winwithoutpitching.com, pretty light on social media these days, but LinkedIn, you’ll find me on LinkedIn. And the book is The Four Conversations, A New Model for Selling Expertise. You can find that at Amazon in all the formats.
Mickey Mellen (27:39.269)
Yep, awesome, I’ll have links to all that in the show notes and of course, to Bob’s, yeah, fantastic podcast that all of you listening, probably already listening to you, think the Venn diagram were completely encapsulated within yours in that, so it’s fantastic. Blair, this has been great, appreciate your time so much. Thank you, thanks.
Blair Enns (27:51.97)
Thanks Mickey, I had fun.
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