EVAC (Ensure Victory Avoid Catastrophe)

EVAC is just one of the strategies in my consulting toolkit.

It originated from a lecture I attended by Rory Sutherland in which he explained that our fear of failure is a stronger motivator than our desire for success. A risk aversion bias.

As someone who has spent a career selling ideas, I realised that the pitch I was making was always biased towards the promise of success rather than avoidance of failure.

When I began employing this strategy in presentations, I saw an uplift in pitch wins (especially in a digital marketing technology agency).

Because when you consider the mindset of someone looking to make an investment, in any area, their primary motivation is to not lose money. Their secondary motivation is to make more money.

So when presenting, the first thing to do is to explain why you won’t fail.

Because almost everyone you are pitching against will start by promising to succeed. And probably not even bother to mention failure. Which will result in failure for them.

You’ve already won the pitch by promising to avoiding catastrophe. So when you then promise to ensure victory on top of that, the investor or client associates you with a double positive, and your competitor with a single negative.

EVAC strategy doesn’t just mean you win, it means the competition lose.

Email me if you’d like to know more. And there is a lot more!