Pitching

Advertising Agency: Do Not Pitch That Account!

Peter · November 11, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Hello Advertising Agency Leaders: Do Not Pitch That Account – Yet!

Please, Don’t Do It!

The following blog post on when not to pitch for a new account is from my book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I suggest that you buy the book if you want to (do I need to say this?) win more pitches.

Buy the book – > Here.

Virtually all of the advertising search consultants that I interviewed for the book said that advertising agencies pitch too often. Many agencies seem to pitch almost any account that knocks.

They are inclined to pitch most incoming because (pick one or more): they are feeling the pinch of lower margins; they just lost their big account; they are generally nervous and don’t know the next time they will be invited to a dance; don’t have a serious new business plan that attracts the right clients; haven’t actually identified the types of clients they really want to work with, etc. This pitch anything that breathes mentality really reared its head big time during the recession, but it has become omnipresent in our new world of projects vs. AOR searches.

From the book….

Just Say No!

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 manage- ment 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 short list 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 cost.

12 Mistakes Advertising Agencies Make When Pitching & Presenting

Peter · November 5, 2014 · 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.

Buy My Book On Ad Agency New Business

Peter · October 20, 2014 · Leave a Comment

From The Land Of Self Promotion:

Buy My Book On The Art And Science of Ad Agency New Business And Change Your Agency’s Future.

Imagine spending only $12 bucks on Amazon for the paperback and even less for the digital version to buy a book that will dramatically change how you and your ad agency team creates and runs new client pitches and presentations. Imagine that after you’ve read the book, you will win more pitches!

Imagine not doing this.

No, don’t imagine that. Because, I want you to buy my book…

“The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.”

I want you to win more business, be happy and make more money.

Buy it here.

Why should you listen to me?

You might be asking… Is this Levitan Pitch for real. Don’t take my word for it: here are two reviews from two serious advertising industry dudes: [Read more…] about Buy My Book On Ad Agency New Business

Chemistry Wins Ad Agency Pitches

Peter · October 15, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Here is an excerpt from a chapter on the importance of interpersonal chemistry in winning new business from my book on pitching, “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book Win More Pitches.”

Interpersonal Chemistry Wins Pitches

By now, you’ve seen that there are many ways that an ad agency can win or lose a pitch.

However, there seems to be one aspect of pitching that keeps coming up over and over and rises to the top of almost everyone’s list (especially within the advertising agency search consultant world). That is the idea that agencies ultimately win or lose based on interpersonal chemistry and corporate culture alignment.

My fear with the chemistry thing is that it can appear to be something that just is vs. something that can be managed and created. There is a school of thought that says that you either gel with the prospect, or you don’t. Sorry Ms. Agency Business Development Director, it’s all about a chemical reaction, and that’s why it is called chemistry.

Yikes.

After weeks preparing preparing a smart, tight presentation, are we ultimately at the mercy and vagaries of some mysterious and unmanageable human thing? Pheromones, anyone? [Read more…] about Chemistry Wins Ad Agency Pitches

Pitch Pain (As In Ad Agency Screw Ups)

Peter · October 2, 2014 · Leave a Comment

The advertising pitch column Pitch Pain launched today on the Agency Post blog. Pitch Pain provides a platform for the advertising industry, clients and search consults to tell their favorite good and bad pitch stories. The goal is to help all of us advance the efficiency of the pitch process while being entertained by our often crazy stories.

Each revealing and occasionally humorous story (just think of the schadenfreude) will be accompanied by a brief review of any home runs or mistakes made plus how-to insights to help us all learn form our dear industry colleague’s experiences.

You can read the first post right here on Agency Post.

Here’s Some Background

I wrote The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. to help advertising, design, digital and PR agencies improve their pitch development processes and, rather importantly, win more business. I got the idea for the book from a December 2013 research study of advertising professionals by Provoke Insights that supports the idea that agency employees are dissatisfied with their agency’s pitch process.

“Approximately half (47% of respondents) of advertising professionals surveyed by Provoke Insights say they are dissatisfied with the current internal approach to pitching.”

Other issues include:

“unrealistic timelines” (66%) and “long work hours” (65%.)

Clearly, trying to craft account winning pitches with disgruntled staff is not a great way to kick off the pitch development process.

In writing the book, I interviewed a range of agency executives, clients, presentation experts and search consultants who have sat through thousands of pitches. Most shared very entertaining pitch experiences. These experiences form the basis of many of the book’s ideas and tips for how to build account-winning small and large agency presentations and pitches.

Pitch Pain And You

My friend Jami Oetting, Agency Post’s Editor, and I quickly realized that we all have our favorite pitch stories. That’s why to air these out and provide industry learning, we teamed up to provide agencies, clients and agency pitch consultants with a platform to tell their own pitch stories.

We want to hear your stories. The good, bad and even ugly. To help, there is a simple form on the website that you can fill out. Form shy? Just send your stories directly to me and i will post them for you. These don’t have to be long. I’m at peter@peterlevitan.com

So, agencies, clients and search consultants… don’t be shy.

Send us your favorite pitch stories. You can name names or exclude some of them if you think anonymity is a wise move.

I didn’t go anonymous in my lead Pitch Pain story about the time that Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising blew a pitch for the global Adidas account by showing videos of bloody baby seals.

Our goals are to entertain and enlighten. Improving the pitch process for all of us is a very good thing.