Book review: ‘How To Sell Value – Demystified’ by Crispin Manners

Establishing the financial contribution that public relations makes when helping to achieve a desired business outcome for clients is something the public relations industry sucks at. Crispin Manners’ new book How To Sell Value – Demystified aims to change that and to move agencies away from a time-based billing model.

Whether and how to move away from time-based pricing is a question that comes up a lot with creative agencies.

The debate gathers pace in a downturn when management teams look to address a dip in margin as costs go up and revenues go down.

It’s a subject that Crispin Manners tackles head-on in his new book How To Sell Value – Demystified.

Why read it?

According to research by the PRCA, 83% of agencies don’t sell by value. Manners comments that the book is “designed to help people chart a way out of this painful cycle by adopting a behaviour change that makes the work they do more intellectually, emotionally and financially rewarding.”

Like our work here at Wadds Inc., the author aims to help PR leaders reframe their work so they can better communicate the business case for why what they do matters and therefore secure more fees and increase profitability.

What’s wrong with time-based billing?

Manners opens the book with a list of the eight-deadly sins of time-based pricing.

The first deadly sin is a failure to recognise that time is only valuable when the outcomes desired by the client are achieved. Point two observes that if you connect your work to the customer’s priority outcome, you can start to price your contribution towards that, but only then.

A handy checklist of questions is designed to help agency owners identify why clients should be prepared to invest in their services based on the business value they expect to receive.

Achieving stand out

We wrote a while back about the significant market opportunity for agencies with a differentiated proposition, a point also made in How To Sell Value – Demystified.

This is defined here as being more marmite than vanilla and having absolute clarity in why you do what you do. Manners argues that a strong proposition coupled with a branded methodology gives clients more certainty that you can deliver results, justifying premium pricing.

Manners reinforces the need for real agency-wide expertise. He sets out a process for changing team behaviours, gaining access to client data and, crucially, getting the user buyer to embrace a values-based approach. An entire chapter is dedicated to setting value-based prices, using a case study to illustrate the approach. 

Moving from time-based billing isn’t for everyone and can feel risky for nervy agency owners already struggling in today’s volatile marketplace. However, this book is a compelling argument for making the change and provides a step-by-step approach to starting the journey.

Whichever model you choose to settle on, this is an essential and commercially useful read.

How To Sell Value – Demystified is now available to pre-order here.