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Pitching

Is Your Advertising Agency Pitching Too Much?

Peter · April 5, 2024 · 3 Comments

Is Your Advertising Agency Pitching Too Much? Maybe You Need To Say No!

advertising agency pitchingHere is an excerpt from my book on advertising agency pitching and presenting. This tidbit emphasizes the importance of not (allow me to repeat myself) not pitching every account that whistles. You can’t afford it. It costs too much cash, time, energy, and agency staff pain (BURNOUT!). Pitching too much causes one more problem. You will reduce your business development ROI.

There is lots more in  “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book Win More Pitches.” You can buy the paperback and eBook on -> Amazon.

Yes, No, Maybe?

Before you embark on a new pitch, you should be asking yourself one extremely important question…

Should we be pitching this account?

I know what you are thinking… Levitan’s kidding right? We’ve made it through the RFI and RFP stages, and now he wants us to ask if we should even be going to the finals.

It’s still ok to say “no”, and now is the time to take a deep breath and review a go-no-go decision. You are about to spend a great deal of time and money. Are you sure that you should go through the next step? Are your colleague’s groans getting louder? Looking in any way ambivalent about the pitch will not help your pitch team feel good about charging into it. Passionless pitches don’t win.

Pitch or not is usually one of the most difficult decisions agency management has to make. There is a good chance that you think that you’ve already answered this question if you participated in an RFP that led to your selection as a shortlist candidate. I believe that even if you’ve performed a sound decision-making process, now is the time to stop to determine if this potentially expensive pitch is worth the time, effort, and human and cash costs.

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The Advertising Agency New Business Pitch

Peter · March 22, 2024 · Leave a Comment

How To Run An Advertising Agency New Business Pitch

advertisig agency new business pitchA high school teacher friend asked me to help her with a study plan about how an advertising agency manages the advertising agency new business pitch process. She asks her students to run their sales pitch for an imaginary client. I thought, what the heck? I’ll share some of my thoughts with you. If it’s good for high schoolers, it should work for y’all.

Why me? Well, I did write the definitive book on ad agency new business pitching which included a detailed look at the advertising agency pitch process. What to do and what not to do and how doing the what not to do will cost your agency money, time, staff pain, and heartbreak. Somehow this teacher found my book. I guess Google works.

A Very Simplified Look At The Advertising Agency Pitch Process

Before I start, I have to say that the current way many clients select an agency, as in having multiple agencies pitch against each other, is too time-consuming and costly for both the client and the agencies. I’ve seen large pitches drag on for weeks and months. One would think that a savvy client should be able to look hard at the agency’s expertise, past work, case histories, culture plus a couple of conversations to make a decision. Of course, pricing is also a factor, especially if the client’s procurement department partially runs the pitch. A department focussed on costs – not necessarily an assessment of agency skill-sets.

OK, nuff said about the inefficiency of many pitches.

There is no such thing as a ‘standard’ pitch. Some clients are large and others small. Some large theoretically sophisticated clients have no process, and some small clients are super organized. Here is a look at what is often the process.

Some clients are looking for the whole enchilada (an agency that will do everything from branding to social media) and some clients are just looking for one specific need – often a project. For example, a new name, and logo. Some clients want to work with category experts (as in needing a healthcare specialist) and some are looking for a great ‘creative’ agency.

Quick FAQ.

I asked ChatGPT to summarize this blog post for agency leaders in a hurry (or just the ADHD types). Here is what I got.

  • How do you define a winning agency pitch strategy?
    • It hinges on showcasing unique creative ideas and demonstrating how these can solve the client’s specific problems, backed by data and case studies.
  • What should be the focus during pitch preparation?
    • Research the client’s business, understand their market challenges, and develop tailored solutions that highlight your agency’s unique value proposition.
  • What are the critical elements of an effective pitch presentation?
    • Clear articulation of the client’s problem, your proposed solution, proof of your agency’s capability, and a compelling story that connects emotionally.
  • How can an agency differentiate its pitch from competitors?
    • By emphasizing creativity, insight-driven strategies, and a deep understanding of the client’s industry, going beyond surface-level solutions.
  • What steps are crucial after delivering a pitch?
    • Proactive follow-up, offering to clarify doubts, providing additional information as requested, and maintaining a positive, engaging relationship regardless of the outcome.

How Does The Client Find Agencies?

Here is my master list on getting found and contacted:

You get a referral from a happy current or past client. Hopefully, your agency has a referral strategy to help make this happen.

You get a referral from a friend or family member. For example, my nephew was once the publisher of Men’s Vogue – he introduced me to someone who became a great client. Maybe your mother plays bridge with the mother of New Balance’s marketing director.

Word of mouth (WOM). People have heard of you inside the general marketing universe. Somehow, you’ve gotten people talking.

Your agency has won a prestigious marketing award. The right third-party recognition is a good thing. No, do not enter every ward show.

The press writes about you, your agency or asks for your expert opinion. I have a friend at Adweek who occasionally asks for a quote. This has been a good thing for my brand awareness.

You know how to use social media to get the good word out and make connections. That means you use one or just a couple of blogging, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok; Facebook, you podcast: or utilize whatever the latest social media platform that makes sense for your audience.

You advertise your services. Yes, imagine an agency that actually uses advertising.

You wrote a well-targeted advertising or marketing book that gains industry fame – like my: The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

You are an expert and the specific categories that you rule (tactical or business categories) know about you.

You speak at the right conference, were in that smart podcast or write for trade publications. I used to write for HubSpot and ‘borrowed’ their enormous audience.

You know how to do what is often called Account Based Marketing. This means that you have created a list of the type of clients that your agency ‘should have’ and you contact them directly. Intelligently and gently. Often you will send them hard to resist, I call it unignorable, insights.

A professional advertising agency search consultant put you on the prospective client’s list. This is a very good thing. It should not be an accident that the consultant knows about you.

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Advertising Agency Sales Meeting Insanity

Peter · March 21, 2024 · Leave a Comment

Yikes: Advertising Agency Sales Meeting Insanity

Advertising agency salesYup. Sometimes even a super smart marketing agency does not seem to know how to run an effective advertising agency sales meeting. Power sales acumen, style, and delivery are a learned skill set. So…

This is a shoutout to RSW/US’s Lee McNight and his mind-blowingly sad video about advertising agency sales: 3 Takeaways Ep16 – 3 Reasons Why Initial Agency New Business Meetings Go Nowhere

I watched this video on my mobile phone in the dark at 6 AM in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, waiting in a long line to fill up my gas tank. Lee’s message kinda blew my mind.

Other than Lee’s points about how some agencies do not know how to run a sales meeting, I am most perplexed that an agency making any of these three points is still in business. As an ex-major league agency business development director and growth-obsessed agency owner, I cannot believe that by the time an agency leader is invited to a sales meeting, she or he has not prepared for the meeting. At this point, I suggest that you buy my book: “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.”  250 pages on how to win new business.

One more quick point. Think interpersonal chemistry. Chemistry is often the deciding factor when a client gets pitched by finalists. In some ways, lookalike agencies. I’ve even heard that an agency won a new account because it sent a handwritten thank-you note. This is from Lisa Colantuono, President of the agency search firm AAR Partners

Back to Lee and RSW/US.

The 3 Reasons Why An Initial Agency Biz Dev Meeting Can Go Nowhere…

“You didn’t do your homework.”

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Using ChatGPT And Grammarly For Blogging

Peter · October 23, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Yes, I Am Using ChatGPT And Grammarly For Blogging

ChatGPT and Grammarly for bloggingI wanted to see how ChatGPT and Grammarly would work for me to have them help write a summary of my book, “The Levitan Pitch: Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.” The bottom line is that ChatGPT and Grammarly for blogging — works.

A simple process: I prompted ChatGPT-4 to summarize the book and then loaded it into Grammarly to check for any lingo improvements and to detect any ‘plagiarism.’ I then rewrote elements for clarity and to use my own voice and style, and here you go.

By the way, buy this best seller (aren’t all books best sellers LOL???). In this case its true. OK, onto ChatGPT and Grammarly for blogging.

“The Levitan Pitch: Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.” by Peter Levitan is a guide for advertising agencies of all types to understand and refine the art of pitching to clients. While I can’t reproduce the entire book, I can provide a high-level summary of its key points and takeaways:

  1. Importance of Pitching: Levitan stresses that the pitch is the moment of truth for agencies. It’s the culmination of a lot of hard work and is the point where the agency can make or break a potential business opportunity. He also stress that agencies DO NOT pitch everything. have a strategy and a set of criteria for who to go after. 
  2. Understanding the Client: Before making a pitch, it’s crucial to understand the client’s business, their needs, their customers, and their industry landscape. This deep understanding will enable you to tailor your pitch to be more effective and resonate with the client. Please, do the research. Determine the client’s pain points and make sure you understand their FUD – fears, uncertainties and doubts.
  3. Differentiation: With many agencies vying for the same client, differentiation is key. Levitan suggests that agencies find their unique selling proposition (USP) and communicate it effectively to stand out from the competition. Be unignorable!!!!
  4. Pitch Team Selection: Only some are great pitchers, and that’s okay. Selecting a pitch team based on strengths, presentation skills, and compatibility with the client’s team is essential. Plus, train your pitchers all year long. Not the day before.
  5. Preparation and Practice: The best pitches are not impromptu; they are the result of thorough preparation and practice. This ensures that the presentation goes smoothly and that all potential questions or concerns from the client can be addressed. Practice. Please.
  6. Engagement and Storytelling: The way information is presented can make a huge difference. Engaging the client through storytelling, providing relevant examples, and drawing them into a vision of a successful partnership can be very effective.
  7. Handling Objections: It’s not uncommon for clients to have reservations or objections. Levitan provides strategies for addressing these concerns gracefully and turning potential weaknesses into strengths.
  8. Closing the Deal: The final steps in a pitch are crucial. Levitan offers techniques for sealing the deal and ensuring that the client feels confident in their decision to work with your agency.
  9. Post-Pitch Analysis: After the pitch, it’s beneficial to analyze what went well and what could have been done better. This reflection will lead to continuous improvement and more successful pitches in the future. I always made a deal with the clients i pitched… they had to give me post pitch feedback.
  10. Real-world Examples: Throughout the book, Levitan draws from his vast experience in the advertising world, providing real-world examples, anecdotes, and case studies to illustrate his points.
  11. In essence, “The Levitan Pitch” is a comprehensive guide for agencies to refine their pitching process, from understanding the client’s needs to effectively closing the deal. Levitan’s insights, drawn from decades of experience, offer valuable advice for both new and seasoned agencies looking to win more business.

So, do you agree???? Was my using ChatGPT and Grammarly for blogging a good idea?

Oh, have you bought my new book yet? — “How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency”

 

12 Advertising Agency Pitch Mistakes 

Peter · September 6, 2023 · 3 Comments

12 Advertising Agency Pitch Mistakes

Advertising Agency Pitch Mistakes Here are my 12 favorite advertising agency pitch mistakes. Delivered as a ‘must do’s’ cartoon series – see below.

Now that my new book How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency is on the market (and doing well, thank you – buy it) I thought I’d revisit a core message from my first advertising agency advice book.

The fact is that way too many agencies continue to make avoidable mistakes – especially in the world of Zoom-like meetings.

One of the biggest mistakes is that advertising agency leaders do not recognize the importance of interpersonal chemistry. The agency pitch consultants I interviewed for The Levitan Pitch book all told me that many agency selection decisions are made by the client determining that they LIKE the agency and its people. This is because way too many agencies are kinda look-a-like. OK, and sound alike. Work on YOU, INC.

Here they are… The 12 Advertising Agency Pitch Mistakes

I’ve purposely served the pitching mistakes up as advice, as things to do. Why? 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 their batting average. This is quite baffling.

Here are five of my all-time favorites:

  1. The agency hasn’t worked at being distinctive. There might even be a fear of being “too” different. Strange, but true.
  2. The agency hasn’t done a good job of planning the flow of the presentation. They haven’t approached the pitch as theater.
  3. Agencies often leave their best presenters behind because it is someone else’s turn to go to the pitch. Huh!?
  4. The agency presents way too many strategic and creative ideas.
  5. 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!”

C/O 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 advertising agency pitch mistakes as counter-intuitive must-dos illustrated by a series of cartoons from my friend Steve Klinetobe.

 

Mistake Poster

 

 

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