Pitching is a dialogue, not a monologue

The need to keep your audience engaged has been mentioned before. Avoid the temptation to get so wrapped up in what you know you want to say, that you fail to read the audience. The art of pitching is also the art of dialogue. A former colleague had spent a couple of weeks’ hard work preparing a closing presentation. This was going to be the final pitch to close the sale; the contracts had even been sent over to the prospect and this was now the endgame. Nothing was going to stand in the way of him giving the pitch of his life. It was going to be brilliant.

The decision makers assembled and he started. He was good. In fact, he was very good. He noticed that the prospect’s finance director wanted to say something but, not wanting to destroy the flow, he asked him to hold any questions to the end – some 30 minutes away. Thirty minutes or so later, he finished and turned to the finance director, inviting him to ask his question. ‘At our board meeting this morning we signed the contract you sent over to us last week. I just thought you might want to know that!’ In this case not a failure to read the audience, just a denial of the findings. Not a disaster, fortunately.

I wouldn’t want you to assume that advertising pitches always go swimmingly well and invariably end up with Cristal champagne all round, following yet another triumph of the art of pitching. It’s not like that. Things do go wrong, at all points in the process.

Check the room

One pitch went wrong simply due to the room décor. This was reported to me by a witness from a large American digital agency ‘who were great at talking a good game’, but not so good at making sure the office was in good working order. One Christmas, they were busy working on a monumental pitch, the kind that keeps half the company there for several consecutive weekends. In a distracted moment before the pitch our witness noticed there was a strip of plastic jutting off the wall. ‘I pointed it out, and someone half-heartedly put some sticky tape over it and went back to talking a good game.’

Come the day of the pitch and a 12-strong marketing team from a major telecommunications company enter the room. The pitch goes to plan. Finally, the clients file out of the room in a haze of handshaking, at which point the most senior client – a not unattractive lady in a dress – catches her leg on the jutting plastic, really hard. So hard it draws blood. Oh dear. All that good work undone in a moment.

Dramatise the proposition

‘Mistakes’ can, however, be a deliberate part of a pitch strategy. The agency ABM famously pitched for the British Rail business back in the days when the service left a great deal to be desired. The clients duly turned up at the agency’s office to hear what they had to say. The reception area was somewhat shabby, actually extremely so. The receptionist was busy manicuring her nails and completely ignored them when they came in. They spent some time sitting around waiting; no refreshments were offered and they had to take care not to get their elbows caught in the cigarette-butt filled ashtrays. A pitch seemingly about to turn into a train wreck. Except for the fact that, as was revealed with some dramatic value by the senior management of the agency, it had all been done to make a point. This, they pointed out, is how you treat your customers. It doesn’t feel great, does it? Now we’re going to tell you how to fix it.

Any cloud can have a silver lining

Mistakes can also occasionally be salvaged and turned to your advantage. Dominic O’Meara, CEO of innovative Anglo-Dutch agency The Community, reminded me of a pitch he was involved in for the Central Office of Information, for a campaign to combat car crime. The creative team had come up with an idea and decided to shoot a test film to show at the pitch. Good idea – and one which has paid off handsomely on many an occasion. They persuaded the young account manager on the pitch to let them use his beaten-up, ancient VW Golf as a prop. Absolute assurances were given about reimbursement in the massively unlikely event of any damage (even though the car was clearly on its last legs anyway). The lad agreed (the director being a personal friend) and handed over the keys. The director and creative team, plus drama student, made their way round to the back of the agency to find the car and set up the camera.

The director, now fired up and ready for a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular, decides that to get more realism the drama student should throw a house brick through the passenger side window and then break into the car. ‘It’s worth the sixty quid it’ll cost to replace,’ he points out to the worried creative team, adding, ‘In fact you could buy the whole car for sixty quid.’

They prepare.

Just as the drama student has thrown the brick clean through the window an oldish couple appear and run over to the scene in fits of rage. It’s never nice to hear old age pensioners swearing, is it? This pair were effing and blinding like a platoon of paratroopers. Wrong car. The account manager had for once in his life found a parking space in the agency car park. It became, however, a highly authentic portrayal of the real-life distress that can be caused by car crime!

The seeds of success (and failure) get planted early on

Pitch disasters can sometimes be caused by events that occurred many months previously. An agency, which had been responsible for a campaign on behalf of the Financial Services Authority, found itself pitching to a private sector financial services client. The FSA work had followed the pensions mis-selling scandal, and had been, shall we say, somewhat severe in its treatment of financial services companies. On pitch day, during the very initial stage of the pitch, it became apparent that this formed part of the agency’s ‘experience’ within the sector. The client homed in on this immediately: ‘… so you did that campaign, did you?’ was the immediate query. ‘Yes, we did that,’ was the reply. The client at this stage literally put his head in his hands, and with a slight rocking motion the head stayed in that position for a minute or two more. Finally, the head emerged and the mouth exclaimed, ‘I am beyond angry!’ The pitch itself continued for a further two hours. And yet neither party, I suspect, was in any doubt whatsoever about the eventual outcome from that moment onwards. Sometimes it’s just better to cut your losses and simply say, ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Yet at other times, pitches can be won due to events that had occurred many months previously. Many years ago, the agency Lowe Howard-Spink was able to build its business with a major bank over a period of a couple of years, from a tiny initial project to taking control of the entire account, worth around £30 million – a very substantial sum at that time. The final pitch was against a very large incumbent agency. The key to victory was the way they had operated in the preceding 18 months. The LHS team had been specifically instructed to spend as much time at the client’s offices as possible. Even if there was no good reason. Over time, gradually, they began to make friends around the office and they would chat about what was happening. Sometimes, one of the clients might share that they were struggling with some problem or other (meaning, the other agency was struggling with it) and this would provide an opportunity to ‘take a look at it’. Eventually, LHS were able to force the issue and suggest that they take on the whole business, and it went to a pitch. A pitch they subsequently won. The time spent with the client building and leveraging relationships did not merely get them to that point, but had also been instrumental in securing victory when the pitch came.

Commitment is something best demonstrated

It is not always the pitch itself that proves decisive. Just because your pitch is finished doesn’t mean it’s over. There is still more to do. This can range from seemingly trivial things, which might make the prospect’s life easier, to more strategic things that need to be addressed urgently on completion of the pitch. Even the little things can make a difference, and their worth shouldn’t be underestimated. Rick Sareen, an agency coach, told me the story of how a former colleague once had an important group of prospects waiting for a taxi following a pitch. There had been some hitch with the booking arrangements – no cab. It was raining, and there would be a long wait before a replacement taxi could arrive. As it was raining heavily, all the black cabs that went past were occupied. The solution he came up with was to stop an occupied cab waiting at the traffic lights, bribe the occupant to get out and also bribe the driver to turn round and pick up his clients. As any good customer service specialist will tell you, every problem also presents an opportunity to impress, and the clients were certainly impressed by this display of resourcefulness and commitment – qualities normally very hard to communicate to people who don’t already know you!

People do appreciate it when you go out of your way to accommodate them. One London-based agency had been trying with little success to get a pitch date in the diary with a prospective client. At the latest attempt, the client explained that while he would be in London that week, he had no spare time and would have to go straight back to Manchester on the train. Undeterred, the agency team bought themselves return tickets to Manchester and met with him on the train. The pitch went so well that they were able to get off at Stoke-on-Trent and head back with the business in the bag. I dare say the effort that went into securing the pitch opportunity had some bearing on the outcome.

Watch the small details

Little details make a big difference, because people can react to things in unexpected ways – seemingly small things can mean the difference between success and failure. A marketing manager once attended a pitch accompanied by his boss, and they were ready to make a decision on the spot. They walked into the room and the boss said, ‘So, no coffee and biscuits then …?’ Blank looks on the faces of the pitch team. ‘OK, I’ll be off,’ was the conclusion. The boss explained to his junior colleague that, in his opinion, if that was how they were going to start off the relationship then he felt there was no point in continuing with it.

It’s never over until it’s over

Don’t forget the big, important things either. The immediate aftermath of a pitch is an opportunity to regroup and address any important but unexpected issues that may have emerged. Your prospects may be wavering – perhaps they liked everything else, but … Don’t leave any ‘buts’. A follow-up call, email or letter can give you another chance to clarify, reconsider and, above all, close the deal. Prospects will not take this as a sign of weakness. In a world where everything is negotiable, do not be shy of continuing the negotiation. Many times I have seen victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, often by a last-minute offer straight to the top. An agency that specialises in below-the-line work ‘won’ a competitive pitch against similar agencies. At the death, the head of the client’s above-the-line agency (which had been pitching for the advertising) called the senior client with a new proposal. If they were given the advertising work they would ‘throw in’ the below-the-line work for free. It was, to anyone in our industry, a ludicrous offer, but the client actually gave it serious consideration.

Post-pitch communication requires careful thought. While it represents a chance to offer up some new alternative, I have also seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by overthinking a client’s comments made during a pitch. Your proposal might have been, by comparison with your competitors, the one that stood out for being different, innovative, perhaps ‘risky’. You may well have faced challenging questioning and some overt initial scepticism. But they may have warmed to it; they might quietly be coming round to your point of view. If you can discern any evidence that this may be the case, stick with your proposal. After all, if you don’t have the courage of your own convictions, you can hardly expect your prospects to come along with you. Think hard about this as a team. If you believe your position is valid despite the prospect’s reservations, go back and tell them that you have thought carefully about their position and want to reiterate your absolute conviction that your proposal is the right thing to do.

Some things are best left unsaid (or at least unwritten)

If the date of the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor is a date that will ‘live in infamy’, the ‘spectacles’ pitch to a major telecoms company must surely occupy a similar place in the pantheon of advertising agency war stories. This is an old story – it must be 20 years ago when I first heard it. It began innocently enough, with the agency presenting to the client in the traditional presentation room environment. The curious thing about this one is not what happened in the pitch but what happened afterwards. After the agency had been through, at some length, its full and exhaustive submission, the client decided as a body (there were a number of them in attendance) to make a request. Not an unreasonable one, by any means; they simply asked the agency to vacate the room so that they could confer amongst themselves and ponder upon the deep and wise thoughts the agency had put before them.

The agency took their leave. The conundrum of clients (I believe this to be the correct collective noun) remained in the room to deliberate. Left behind by the agency were various notes, printed documents and other pitch paraphernalia.

One in particular caught the attention of the client. This was a note that had been passed around earlier in the pitch. What could it be? Human nature being what it is (and, as you will have gathered by now, there is no pitch ‘code of honour’ that prevents such things), the clients uncrumpled the note to examine the contents.

The note read: ‘WATCH THAT **** IN THE GLASSES. HE’S TROUBLE.’

As it happened, the chap (not the original noun used) in the glasses went on to occupy a role of significant seniority within the company. He must also have possessed not only a sense of humour, but also the ability to take a longer term view. There was a second round of the pitch. The agency was asked back. The entire client team turned up wearing glasses.

Once again we find we have learned something from a bunch of comedians.