Three Ways to Turn Your Agency’s Pitch into a Winning Pitch
Good ideas badly presented put you at risk of losing the pitch.
And that’s a crying shame because it’s likely that you put your heart and soul into making the case that without a doubt you’re the agency the client should hire.
But are you working hard and not smart? And are you neglecting an elemental tool of persuasion that has been captivating humans for millennia?
Let’s take a step back and establish some basics. When I help my clients prepare for a pitch meeting, there are three broad steps we take:
Step 1: Define the “win themes.” These are the top reasons why you are the best agency for the job. It could be knowledge of the category, mastery of a marketing discipline, or a unique methodology, among others. You need at least one win theme and I don’t recommend more than three.
(By the way, this step serves a dual purpose. If the win themes aren't obvious, you might want to think twice about whether it's the right opportunity to pursue.)
Step 2: Choose the evidence to back them up. This includes case studies, qualifications of your team, your unique approach to creative problem solving – all the usual stuff.
Step 3: Build the bridge between the two.
In my experience, agencies excel at step 2. Pulling standard creds slides, grabbing content from recent pitches (which you remember as being perfect for this pitch but probably isn’t), and assigning the new stuff that needs to be created is familiar territory for agencies. But do you ever find that the end product is an unsatisfying mishmash?
That may be because you’re falling short on steps 1 and 3.
Whether out of enthusiasm or a lack of time, agencies rush headlong into building the content. They don’t take the essential time to define the strategy that will dictate pretty much every choice about what to include and what to leave out.
And then, agencies neglect to build a solid contextual bridge for the client to traverse between what you’re good at and why they should care.
And how exactly do you build that contextual bridge? I've found no better way than through storytelling.
As a new business expert, it's a bitter irony to me that the agencies, masters at weaving narratives that inspire a consumer to act, often fail to apply the same mastery to their own new business efforts.
Instead, it’s common to see the familiar recitation of impressive-sounding statements that lack meaning and leave a client ambivalent or at worst confused.
Storytelling is the solution.
And stories are all around us, but I've identified three essential storylines that will make your new business pitch stronger. They are the Tale of Triumph, the Origin-to-Impact, and the Promised Land.
Each one contains the essential elements of a good story:
A hero
A guide that leads the hero to a satisfying outcome
Something at stake–revenue, market share, reputation, category dominance, etc.
Obstacles or resistance along the way that are overcome
An improved future state
Tale of Triumph
Also known as the case study.
Why are case studies so important? Because you're selling an expectation of success with no clear guarantee. That feels risky to a client and case studies offset that risk. They demonstrate that you’ve been successful before overcoming similar challenges and you’re likely to be successful again.
A case study is a story–it follows a story arc point-by-point.
The hero is your client who embarked on an uncertain journey towards a better future. There was a moment when your client realized there's too much at stake for it not to take action–and they couldn’t do it alone.
They needed you, an expert guide, the Yoda to your client’s Luke Skywalker. You lead them with an expert hand through your process to land on a business-transforming solution and bring it to market.
Of course there were obstacles. The creative process is unpredictable and events in the marketplace are impossible to control.
Through talent, expertise and perseverance, you overcame those obstacles to get results for your client and bring them to an improved future state.
While it may seem counterintuitive to dwell on obstacles, it's actually the most important part of a story!
The obstacles provide your audience context. Psychologically, their brains can’t resist. It’s human instinct to engage with a story and not let go until we know how the story ends (binge-watching, anyone?).
Once your audience is engaged in this way, now they want to know how you got your client out of this mess. They’re happy to hear about credentials like your proprietary process, your agency values, or your state-of-the-art tech stack because it’s these credentials that will get them out of the mess they’re in now. Subconsciously they apply your qualifications to their situation.
And voila, you’ve built the bridge.
The case study may be the most obvious use of storytelling in service of winning new business, but there are two other useful story frameworks you might want to consider
Origin-to-impact
This is your compelling story—yours personally and the story of your agency. It describes the forces that shaped you into who you are today–your skills, beliefs, vision, commitment–and explains why you are in a position to make a big impact on a client’s business.
Just like the Tale of Triumph, it includes a contrast between setbacks and successes. Speaking personally, it’s my experiences, both the victories and hard knocks I’ve overcome, that make me a more valuable resource to my clients. Because of them I’ve developed an approach my clients can follow so that they can tap immediately into my experience, avoid the same mistakes, and enjoy victory more than defeat.
My Origin-to-Impact story (and yours too) allows me to instill confidence and get past a creds-heavy pitch that pleads “just trust me, it’ll be great!”.
The other benefit is it offsets the sea of sameness that most agencies find themselves swimming in. Your Origin-to-Impact story is singular and differentiating—only you have been on this journey.
Promised Land
The Tale of Triumph and Origin to Impact are stories that recall events in the past that establish a pattern. You’ve consistently struck gold in the past; it’s highly likely you’ll strike gold in the future.
The Promised Land is a story framework that asks you to imagine a future your client wants to see and to envision a path to get them there. Remember, hiring an agency is risky for a client. There's a lot at stake!
Your success hinges on the client’s ability to envision success given the evidence you present. (That’s why asking for spec work is so seductive for clients. It gives the strong impression that it’ll hedge when, for a host of reasons, it rarely does.)
To tell the Promised Land story, take what you understand about the client’s challenges and embark on a journey of possibility. This journey will be different for every client but it follows a similar arc that, once again, paints an enticing contrast between:
The unsatisfying state the client is in now and the possibilities you envision
The obstacles you’ll inevitably encounter and your methods for overcoming them
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.
Daniel Pink, the author of To Sell is Human (a book I highly recommend) and expert on persuasion, recommends that after you’ve made a case for your qualifications, you follow that up by highlighting a flaw For example, if you’re a small agency pitching against other bigger agencies for a big client, consider calling that out in your presentation:
“You might be wondering, ‘how does a small firm like ours handle a big client like you?’ Well, we can’t offer everything a big agency can, but what we can offer is…”
Pink points to three reasons why this is so effective:
It’s a pattern interrupt–the client is not expecting you to reveal your flaws
It builds trust. You appear honest, transparent and authentic–exactly the kind of team they want to do business with.
By voicing their concerns and getting the issues out in the open, you can offset them.
I’ll add a fourth reason: it creates that sense of contrast that our brains simply can’t resist.
How can you start using storytelling in your next pitch presentation?
Storytelling is a talent we humans innately possess, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take practice to skillfully incorporate it into your pitch.
And telling a story just for the sake of telling a story probably won’t be effective (and may even cause you to feel inauthentic and awkward).
This is where steps 1 and 2 in your pitch-building process are so important. Your win themes (step 1) dictate the choices you make about the content you’ll include (step 2). Only then can you make critical decisions about the stories that are going to be the most effective at building the bridge between you and your future client.