eBook

A New Advertising Book?

September 12, 2019 By Peter Leave a Comment

Should I Write Another Advertising Book?

Should you write your advertising (agency) book?

I’ve written and produced four books since I sold my Portland advertising agency in 2012. I am now thinking of “writing” a new advertising book based on a tight edit of the best thinking I’ve delivered on this blog. I currently have well over 300,000 words here. The blog posts have been viewed over 340,000 times.

I’ll discuss why to bother turning the blog into an advertising book a bit later in this post.

Some History. Books I’ve Written.

These include:

Boomercide: From Woodstock to Suicide. This was my training wheels book on the, dare I say it, interesting subject of using suicide as a financial planning tool. When I sold my agency, my accountant said there are two things we can control: how much money you have and how much you spend. However, there is another major factor we cannot control: how long your money has to last. I went, um, why can’t I control the length of my life. Buy Boomercide here.

The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I have read every book on pitching and presenting. This is without question the best book on this subject. Join thousands of other agency leaders and buy this book here. Or, pitch against the agencies that read my tome, and, dare I say it, possibly lose.

Potlandia and Jointlandia are two photo books I researched and shot about the early days of the burgeoning legal cannabis market. I shot these because I am an in investor in Portland’s cannabis industry and was fascinated by the early attempts (almost hippie-like attempts) at product and retail branding in what is now a billion-dollar marketplace. You can see these books right here. While you are at it, take a look at my other photographs. I am currently traveling around the world to photograph people on every continent.

Why Write A Business Book?

I think that there are four reasons to write a business book – an advertising book by me, a consultant, or your agency. [Read more…] about A New Advertising Book?

An Irresistible New Business Sales Pitch

July 15, 2015 By Peter Leave a Comment

Love Our Sales Pitch

Imagine running a business development program that is so powerful your potential clients can’t ignore it. I am talking about the new business power of creating a brand position, business proposition and messaging system that becomes a must read. And, even better, a must read that must be passed around entire organizations. Mission Impossible? No.

L2 and Me

A bit over 10 years ago when I was running the advertising agency Citrus, I discovered New York’s L2. L2 is a research company that has been zeroing in on a handful of client categories since its inception. Today, L2 concentrates on the luxury, drinks, beauty, auto, retail, CPG and travel categories.

Here is what L2 says about itself on its website: [Read more…] about An Irresistible New Business Sales Pitch

“The Levitan Pitch” Ad Agency Book Video

January 23, 2015 By Peter Leave a Comment

“The Levitan Pitch” Ad Agency Book Author Video — On Amazon

I’ve written and talked about why and how your ad agency should write a book. You can see my presentation “The Agency Book. From Idea To Published In 6 Months” below.

In the presentation I mention that video is a great way to promote your agency-built book and that the video can go up on your author page on Amazon (very easy to do.) You can see how it fits in right HERE. But, to make your life easier, I put the video below.

As I discussed in the presentation, interviews are a great way to create lots of content – easily. In fact, my author video is an interview I set up with my friend Rebecca Armstrong, the leader of Portland’s ad agency North. The whole experience took about 45 minutes and it was done in one take. Again, very easy.

Here is my SlideShare presentation.

Yes, You Can Write and Publish A Business Book in 6 Months from Peter Levitan & Co.

The Video: How To Write An Advertising Agency Book

December 8, 2014 By Peter Leave a Comment

My HubSpot Inbound Conference Video: “The Advertising Agency Book – From Idea To Publication in 6 Months”

Here is a video of the talk I gave at HubSpot’s Inbound 2014 conference. Watch my presentation to find out how to write an advertising agency book by mid 2015. Yes, you can do it.

The video will show you how to get a good head start on adding this special arrow to your new business quiver. I discuss the multiple benefits of writing a book; that it can be done relatively quickly (I wrote my 65,000 word The Levitan Pitch, Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. in less than 6 months); how the book will drive your thought-leadership program and how your agency is particularly well set up and well endowed to get a great business-building book out the door.

Writing is a good thing

As I’ve written before: I got the speaking gig at Inbound 2014 because I write for HubSpot’s Agency Post. Using thought leadership to gain broad awareness of your agency is, well, its a very good thing. Here’s my earlier post on the value of guest posting: “Why I Guest post On Agency Post.”

Here is my dedicated post on writing an advertising agency book and how it can be used for new business outreach. The post includes the PowerPoint presentation I used in the following video.

To help you find the gems in the 30 minute talk, I’ve put some highlights below.

Video Timelines

This are approximate…

Intro: :00 to 1:30
6 Months, Really?: 1:30 to 3:00
The how to: 3:00 to 7:00
Mistakes: 7:00 to 10:50
Objectives and Strategies: 10:50 to 25:00
Recap: 25:00 to 30:00

OK, Buy The Book – I wrote my book for you. I want you to win more pitches.

If you read the book you will pitch better than your competition.

Here’s more:

You will mange your agency’s pitch process much better.
You won’t burn out your employees.
You will plan better.
You will reduce your pitch budget.
You will strategize better.
You will arrive better prepared.
You will present better.
You will win more pitches.
You will retire earlier.

Buy multiple copies of the book as Christmas / Hanukah gifts right here: Amazon

Buy the “How Not To Win A Pitch” poster here: Society6

12 Mistakes Advertising Agencies Make When Pitching & Presenting

November 5, 2014 By Peter 4 Comments

Here are my 12 favorite advertising agency pitching and presentation mistakes. Delivered as a ‘must do’s’ cartoon poster.

I’ve purposely served the pitching mistakes up as advice, as things to do. Why? Because as you will see throughout my paperback and eBook, The Levitan Pitch. (especially in the interview section) many advertising agencies, pitch leaders, and team members, make these crazy mistakes. According to the 18 agency search consultants interviewed in the book, these pitch mistakes are made all the time. Agencies make them despite knowing that they will lower the their batting average. This is quite baffling.

Here are five of my all-time favorites:

The agency hasn’t worked at being distinctive. There might even be a fear of being “too” different. Strange, but true.
The agency hasn’t done a good job of planing the flow of the presentation. They haven’t approached the pitch as theater.
Agencies often leave their best presenters behind because it is someone else’s’ turn to go to the pitch. Huh!?
The agency presents way too many strategic and creative ideas.
The big one: the agency spends way too much time talking about themselves and not the client. Here is an example from the book:

“Agencies spend far too much time talking about themselves and not enough time addressing the problems of the client. Clients want to hear solutions to their problems, not how great the agency thinks it is. Best advice to agencies – focus on the client, demonstrate real understanding of their issues, unearth commercial as well as consumer insight, keep it simple, and make it memorable!”

Brian Sparks, Managing Director: Agency Assessments International, UK and Ireland

How did we all get to this not so special place? I think that some of the primary issues haven’t been addressed:

The speed at which agencies start to work as soon as they are invited to pith an account. Rarely do they stop and think through the entire process before all hell breaks loose.
Most agencies do not have a clear methodology for how they are going to run pitches. It is almost as if they are starting with a blank page every time they are invited to pitch for new business. I recommend a few things to do to manage the pitch including having a standard agency checklist. You can see one in my Pitch Playbook.
Worse, most agencies don’t even have a master business development plan.

To help resolve this dilemma, I offer my 12 deadliest mistakes as counter- intuitive must dos illustrated by series of cartoons from my friend Steve Klinetobe and his company The Cartoon Agency.

Yes, you can buy the poster.

According to David Ogilvy, this poster will help you win more new accounts, have a happier staff, add more vacation days for all (OK, maybe management) and it will get a few laughs that, I think, will be good for your pitch batting average.

Get it up at your agency.

It is for sale at Society6.