Your Power in the Pitch
In every transaction there’s an exchange of value. One person has the money, the other has the goods or services that the first person wants.
If you’re the one with the money, you might also feel a certain amount of power, especially if there are plenty of people who are eager to make the sale. You get to call the shots on who you’ll hire, how the product or service will be delivered, and when you’ll pay for it.
It’s the same in a new business pitch. The marketer holds the purse strings and the agencies pitching for its business tend to fall in line and do what they’re asked to do, even if it’s unreasonable or irrelevant.
They’ve got the power and those with power are reluctant to give it up. It’s risky. Unless there’s a promise of:
Maximizing gains (such as a killer campaign that will bring a marketer riches and glory)
Or minimizing losses (such as a high-performing agency that’s easy to manage and won’t overtax the client team).
When you can demonstrate to a prospective client how you will maximize their gains and minimize their losses, you may find you go from taking part in a beauty contest to negotiating an exchange of value.
So… how do you do that? By having a deeper understanding of your client, which includes:
An awareness of their motives—as a team as well as individually
Discerning what information they’re really asking for at different stages of the pitch
Remembering that they’ve made an investment too—one they might not be willing to walk away from
1. What are their motives—as a team as well as individually?
In most cases, when you’re pitching a new client, you’re not dealing with just one person but a team of people. They represent a range of responsibilities and seniority levels and they each bring to the table their unique personalities, desires, and insecurities.
There will be power dynamics for sure between the boss and her reports and very possibly between the leaders of different departments or disciplines. They each have their personal power in this pitch and all will be reluctant to give it up.
Your job is to determine where the power lies. Sometimes this will be obvious; other times less so. The “decision-maker" isn't always the one that wields the most power over the decision. For instance, on paper, if the CMO tops the list, it implies they’re the one with the most power. But if the pitch is for highly specialized marketing services, the person in charge of those disciplines might actually have more influence. They may not make the ultimate decision to hire you, but they probably have the power to eliminate you.
There are a bunch of subtleties you’ll want to take into consideration that are impossible to capture in this article. But if you’re not already thinking strategically about the client dynamics, then start simply by going beyond the brief and asking probing questions like:
Why are these particular people involved?
What is their role in this pitch?
How will they be interacting with the agencies?
Is any one discipline heavily represented? Why?
Does the client team make sense to you as far as the scope of the project is concerned?
Why is the team so small/large?
That’s just a start. Each situation will result in different questions. And of course the answers are what really matter because they’ll help you determine where each person is along their personal risk-reward scale.
Someone more junior may be concerned with avoiding risk by keeping their job or seeking a reward by securing a promotion. A CMO may be more motivated by the reward of global recognition or a larger profit-sharing deal. The scale is different but the stakes may feel the same to each one.
By taking the focus off yourself and your agency to consider the motivations of the humans on the client side, you can now make strategic decisions about what’s most important to communicate and to whom.
Does this sound manipulative? I imagine some of you feel that way and it makes you uncomfortable. But I’m not suggesting you do this in an untrue or inauthentic way. Just the opposite.
Think about it this way. If you had a life-saving cure for a disease, wouldn’t you exert your power and appeal to your patient’s desire for spending more time with their family, or regaining the strength to win another marathon?
Advertising isn’t life or death, of course, but my assumption is that if you’re in this pitch, you have a legitimate solution for making this client’s life better. Why not make sure they understand that too?
2. What stage of the pitch are you in?
There’s a linear arc to the pitch process, from the moment a client becomes aware of your agency to the point when you both sign an agreement, with points along it that lend themselves to establishing your power in different ways.
Investigating
This might occur when a prospect stumbles upon an article you wrote or sees you speak at a conference. Or maybe she learns of you through a creative award you won for a brand she admires. Or even as a result of asking a trusted colleague for a recommendation.
What all of these have in common is that they can happen without your knowing it..
So how do you exert your power over a situation you don’t know exists yet? You have a strong messaging strategy that’s targeted to a well-defined audience and you’ve been ruthlessly consistent about getting the message out there. That means that no matter where your ideal prospect is learning about you, whether on your website or through a referral, they will see themselves reflected in your messaging. This gives them reason to believe you have the experience to solve their problem. You’re dropping clues that you’re in a position to maximize their gains and minimize their losses.
Wooing
Next stage: the client contacts you as the result of her investigation and now the dance begins. Now, you and the client are in an active dialogue, whether it’s an overture email sent from you or an inquiry from them.
The client starts to validate the impressions she’s already formed. At the same time, she’s establishing guardrails, especially if it’s a formal agency review, around when they’re willing to communicate with you, through what channels, and who else on their team will be involved.
Is it your default position to let the client lead? Or, like a good dance partner, do you play an active role? And how do you do that?
One way is to talk about more solutions than credentials. This is not to be confused with doing spec work or offering ideas for free. Rather it is framing what you do best within the context of their business and their challenges. You offer an informed vision of a better future, validated by your expertise and the client team feels like they’re in good hands. Because of that, they’re willing to relinquish some control and transfer some of the power to you.
Briefing
At some point, the client must give you enough information to yield a viable proposal. But clients don’t always do this well, do they? I’d venture that most of us have seen way more badly written RFPs than well-written ones. To be fair, a good RFP is difficult to write (possibly because the clients are uncertain of what they’re doing but also because they’re unwilling to yield power to the agencies).
Here, the chance to shift the balance of power comes with good questioning on your end–probing for root causes, challenging assumptions when it’s valid to do so, and offering better approaches.
Closing
At the risk of giving short shrift to all the important stuff that must fall into place to win the pitch, I want to focus on the final presentation. There’s still the risk the client will make the wrong decision despite all her due diligence.
One way to assure her you’re the best qualified to maximize gains while minimizing her losses is to use your formidable storytelling skills. And I have a framework you can borrow. I call it the Promised Land and it’s one of three essential storylines that go into a great pitch (the other two are the Origin-to-Impact and the Tale of Triumph–read more about them here).
To tell the Promised Land story, take what you understand about the client’s challenges and embark on a journey of possibility. What does a better future look like? This journey will be different for every client but it follows a similar arc that paints an enticing contrast between maximizing gains and minimizing losses by:
Reminding them of the unsatisfying state the client is in now
Describing the possibilities you envision for them
Being candid about the obstacles you’ll inevitably encounter and your methods for overcoming them
Acknowledging the consequential decision they must make in hiring you versus your competitor and the steps you’ll take to ensure a smooth, risk-free transition.
3. Remember, they’ve made an investment too
While the client may be calling the shots on how this whole agency pitch thing is going to go down, she also wants to get this deal done. The more you can leverage that, the more power you have in the pitch.
This is really Pitching 101, and no doubt there are many of you who take this into consideration every time, but I also see a lot of agencies lose sight of this, especially the closing stage. They’re so near the finish line they don’t dare do anything to screw this good thing up, even if it results in a loss of power in the relationship. (Outspoken procurement expert Brett Colbert has been known to say that negotiating agreements with agencies is like “bringing lambs to slaughter” because in general they are unprepared to negotiate with skill.)
Agencies sometimes forget two very important things:
The client is feeling pressure–there’s a business issue or three she’s gotta solve that are driving this pitch.
The client is invested in the process too—just like you, she and her team have put weeks or months of work into this, writing the RFP, reviewing hundreds of pages of documents, sitting in review meetings, and trying to keep her team focused and on the same page.
Where can you exert some power (with integrity) to close the deal?
For the answer, consider a variation on the old trope: do they want it good, fast, or cheap? In other words, is there a sense of urgency around the scope? Is the work tied to…
…a product launch?
…a media deadline?
…Wall Street expectations?
…competitor activity?
…a tentpole event with a hard date?
Or, are they under pressure to execute flawlessly and can you help them do that? Is it a high-stakes project? Or a high-end product with a demanding end-user (a Rolls Royce customer has different standards than those who buy Toyotas)?
Or, is funding an issue? Does the client have more time than money? Is it a necessary but lower-stakes project? Is the client in start-up mode? Or are they being squeezed by poor sales or a weak economy? An under-funded project is not the most attractive for obvious reasons, but, if it’s desirable for other reasons, you have the power to negotiate a favorable timeline or a share of equity or another form of value.
I suppose this is all just a very long way of saying: don’t underestimate your power in the pitch. But don’t take it for granted either. For most of you, finding opportunities to transfer some of the power to you will mean changing the way you pitch new business. It may feel foreign and presumptuous at first, but in the end I think you’ll find that you’re not only maximizing your own gains and minimizing your losses, but your clients will value you more too.