How many times has it happened to you that after you show creative work to your clients, one of them turns to you and says, “What’s the agency’s recommendation”? Careful. This question has explosive potential, although handled well it can help you a lot. When I coach agency rehearsals, I spend a lot of...
Marketing, Strategy, and Obedience Training
It occurred to me today that marketers often approach communication strategy the way puppy trainers deal with the family pooch. It’s a question of which commands to give, and how to reward good behavior. For example, marketers of new brands often tell customers, “Fetch!” Drop what you’re doing, go out and grab the latest,...
Catch-22, Procurement Style
I sat next to a strategic sourcing (‘procurement’) executive at a recent industry luncheon, a lovely woman wearing a stylish pink suit. Once she found out what I do for a living, she was intrigued — she hadn’t encountered pitch consultants before — and we fell into a conversation about how clients ‘procure’ agencies....
What if we ditched the pitch?
One of the ironies of new business pitches has got to be this: The agency that presents best, not the agency that does the best work, is usually the one that wins. I’d guess more than 98% of the value agencies provide their clients has nothing to do with their presentation skills. The unique...
Introductory thoughts 15 Dec 2005
This blog will be about the art of pitching business. Its primary focus will be advertising and PR agencies, but I hope it will also be useful to people in other service industries who pitch creative communication ideas. For example, I imagine architecture firms, design firms, training companies, and medical education companies will find...
