Value conversation

The third of Blair Enns’ four conversations in a sale of expertise. Its objective is narrow: determine the value you might help the buyer create, and the share of that value you can command as fees — while holding the expert position. You do it by setting the buyer’s own spec aside and finding their desired future state, the metrics that would prove it, and what that outcome is worth to them (including the cost of standing still). Then you put money on the table early and anchor high, against their upside rather than the market rate. Crucially, you set pricing guidance here, not a final price — and for WPH the actual figures never appear in public, only in the session.

Source: Blair Enns, The Four Conversations: A New Model for Selling Expertise (PRACTITIONER) — chapter 3. Enns argues the sale is a sample of the engagement to follow, and that mastering the value conversation matters more than any pricing model. The “desired future state” opening draws on Dan Sullivan’s three-year question; the anchor-high move is developed further in Enns’ Pricing Creativity.

First used in: 3.1 · The value conversation