Search Results for: pitch mistakes

New Reviews For The Levitan Pitch

Peter · September 11, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Wow, Nice Reviews Are Coming In

Here are some early reviews of The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. that are up on Amazon. Very cool to read. Well, for me that is!

No, I don’t know all of these people.

Russ Stoddard:

You get it all in this book. Peter Levitan presents insights gleaned from global pitches for multi-national brands all the way down to the local and regional level. Hey, some aspects of pitching transcend client size. With the significant funds you invest in pitching, how can you not afford to make a small investment in a resource like this? It’s a gem.

Jerome Seljan:

I found this an invaluable handbook for a small business operator who handles all his marketing. I owned & operated a restaurant & jazz club for 25 years. This book would have greatly aided my strategy in marketing my business. The book is clear & concise & gets right to the point.

Big Jim:

Advertising Agency Pitch Book Update

Peter · July 9, 2014 · 1 Comment

A Quick Update On My Advertising Pitch Book

People are banging down my door to get their copies of my book on pitching. LOL-Not. Well, they might be when it gets published (later this summer) and the word gets out. Again, a bit of LOL.

The book will be about 60,000 words, has a few deep interviews with experts (search consultants, the 4A’s, the ANA, an IP lawyer and more) and has a list of pitch mistakes garnered from a range of USA and beyond agency search consultants and… Because I really like to point out mistakes, the book has a series of 12 cartoons that highlight what I think are the most egregious mistakes agencies make when pitching. These are mistakes that all agencies make at some point. I try to make these errors go away by telling you that if you want to loose your pitch, then go ahead and make them.

Don’t Be Distinctive

Here is a sneak preview. One of my favorite cartoons is above. This one is about the advertising agency’s fear of sounding too different. Too distinctive. Too bold. You know, “What if we sound too assertive, have ideas that scare the client, take a too strong position, are wrong…” This thinking leads to sameness. The sameness that My friend Steve Klinetobe and his The Cartoon Agency (check them out) illustrates in his 12 cartoon series.

These cartoons will be in the book and will be animated for the web to increase their virality (is this a word?)

Pass Along Help Please

One of the things that I talk about with my agency clients is that they should ask their clients, ex-clients, suppliers, partners, family and friends to refer the agency when appropriate. You know, just ask politely.

So in the interest of asking: Please pass this post on to your friends and ask them to sign up for my weekly newsletter below so that they hear about the book before it is sold out. Uh, yeah, another LOL. But one that I want to happen.

12 Ad Agency Presentation Mistakes – Why?

Peter · April 2, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I interviewed Tony Mikes, Founder/Managing Director of the 800 strong agency network Second Wind today (my agency used to be a happy member.) The interview will be one of ten expert interviews that will be included in my book on ad agency pitching. You can see the title I slaved over at the very bottom of this email.

The interview confirmed the sad truth that many agencies are making serious presentation mistakes when they pitch for new business. I already knew this because I’ve talked with many agency owners, agency search consultants, presentation experts and… clients that have sat through mistake ridden presentations. Tony reconfirmed it.

I can’t wait to publish Tony’s insightful comments. They come from firsthand experience when he recently sat on the client side of the table during the RFP and finalist process. The pitch was for the National Aquarium account and the interview with Tony is (pick your word): revealing, sad, unnerving and any other word that you can come up with that describes the lunacy of avoidable agency failure.

Tony hit on the almost all of my twelve ad agency presentation mistakes. Each of these will be discussed at length in the book.

Immediately bore the audience
Don’t have a distinctive message
Don’t have a logical flow
Load up the room with agency people
Bring poor presenters
Don’t deliver any WOW’s
Bring tons of ideas – make many of them irrelevant
Spend too much time talking about YOU not THEM
Don’t rehearse
Misuse PowerPoint
Don’t stage manage
Run out of time

Yikes. As I said, sad but true. By the way, if you search my site for other articles on pitching you will find ones like this: Half of Advertising Agency Staff Hates Pitching. This research was the genesis of my book’s reason for being.

Oh, the title…. The Levitan Pitch: Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

Now, please sign up for my email newsletter below to make sure that your competitor down the street doesn’t read my book before you read it. I want you to win more pitches, not the other agency.

A Zoom Cartoon Just For You

Peter · May 23, 2024 · 11 Comments

A Zoom Cartoon About A Zoom Pitch Problem

To help illustrate the “mistakes” that often accompany the act of an advertising agency’s new business pitch, I included 12 pitch mistake cartoons in my book “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.”

I love the fact that cartoons are a fast way to reach overloaded brains and evoke emotion. A cartoon can be remembered well past fleeting podcast interviews and blog posts like this.

Possibly the most memorable Internet meme is the 1993 (!) cartoon “On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog,” by Peter Steiner in the New Yorker. To help my GenX readers, it’s at the bottom.

My Zoom Pitch Cartoon Just For You

Here is a Zoom cartoon I commissioned from master cartoonist and brilliant Creative Director Steve Klinetobe. Steve was a CD at my Portland agency Citrus.

Steve’s nostril cartoon illustrates one of the worst uses of Zoom. It’s about where people put their camera in relation to their face. In this case, it is the camera that sits below a face and looks into your buddy’s (or future agency client’s nose. YUCK!

When Zooming, pay attention to camera placement + lighting + sound quality + your background. You know this right?

That said, I too often look up way too many nostrils.

Here is the most famous Internet cartoon. No Nostrils.

Advertising Agency Sales Meeting Insanity

Peter · March 21, 2024 · Leave a Comment

Yikes: Advertising Agency Sales Meeting Insanity

Yup. 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.”