During this month’s New World of New Biz, we discussed how you can supercharge your new business pitch notes and maximise your pitching potential. Our Founder, Katie Street, was joined by:

The following was covered in the session:

What big brands look for in the pitching process

The webinar started with a discussion about what it is that big brands look for when it comes to an agency pitching to them. Holly starts off this conversation by talking about how upfront credentials are crucial as they leave more time to talk about the important information during a pitch. She states that “So I think those upfront credentials, which sometimes might take the first 10 minutes of the pitch, I do think that they could quite often be shared as a pre read; and then you could kind of say at the end, by the way, if you want to read more about the case studies you can have a look later. I think for me, like the do’s which are brilliant are to use that time for the more meaty discussions and to and to kind of really ask those questions which you couldn’t do if you were just going to read it via an email format.”

Katie then adds to the conversation by talking about the importance of answering the set brief. She says that “So you’ve got to go in and grab their attention,  And start with the impact and talk about the things that matter, that answer their brief.”

To finish off the conversation Katie talks about how it can be beneficial to put your credentials in the background or even send them in advance. “And I would say actually, maybe even pop the credentials at the back or like you said send them in advance or say look, we could do a bit about the agency handout that you give to people or something like that, so that you’re still telling the story about the culture, but right up front it’s more about the impact.”

 

Breaking the process

The panel then went on to talk about how breaking the process that brands often have can be beneficial to you winning a pitch. Katie starts by saying “One of my favourite things to do in the pitch process is break the process. When you’re often asked to come to pitch, there will very often be a format that the brand has put together. I’m not saying just to break the process for the sake of breaking the process. However, if you think there’s a better way that you can show up, there’s a better way that you can help them and there’s some way that you can give them more from showing up on the pitch in a different way. I would really, really encourage people to challenge how they answer the brief.” 

Jody then adds to the conversation by saying that if you don’t challenge a brief you can often miss out on opportunities. “I think sometimes agencies can look at that brief from the client, and they say, well, if a client is asking for this, then that must be what they want.  And yeah, I think there’s some real opportunities that’s missing there to build a relationship; it’s your opportunity to gather intelligence, and from that intelligence, you can then develop or refine your strategy to win the business.”

 

How an agency can stand out

Katheryn shared what makes an agency stand out, and emphasises how important it is to be authentic. She adds that “And then I think just being yourself and being really authentic. I think if you come across as robotic and fake and smiley, it’s very sales like and I know we are doing a sales, but they buy to you as a person and I will preach this from the rooftop! They’re buying you, they don’t buy into the business.”

Holly then adds to the conversation by reiterating how authenticity is one of the best things you can bring to the table, and shared some of the pitches that stood out to her while working within the team at Deliveroo. “So a couple of pitches which stood out to me when I was at Deliveroo was, for example, if an agency is introducing their team they introduce the different members. And then underneath they’d say, account manager, but then they’d say ‘huge Wagamama fans’ so they basically personalised it with having their favourite restaurants, so it could potentially be tailoring it to the company that you’re trying to work for.”

 

The biggest turn offs from an agency during a pitch

To finish off this month of The New World of New Biz, the panel talked about the biggest turns off from agencies during a pitch. Holly talks about how it is vital to have a brand strategist be a part of the pitch in case the brand has any follow up questions. “ If there are follow up questions, I think it’s just really important to get the brand strategist to be on the pitch to be able to answer those questions rather than just having a sort of leading representative for the agency, because at the end of the day, most of my contact isn’t going to be with that leading representative.”

Holly later adds how it’s important to remember that this is a two-way conversation, and your deck does not have to be shared within the pitch. She says that “You can always share the deck as a follow up if you don’t manage to get through your slides, but I think getting that engagement is key and I can see people leading pitches almost getting a bit frustrated by questions and wanting to continue with their sort of pre-planned and rehearsed deck, but it’s not meant to be this big jazz hands performance.  It’s meant to be a really good two-way conversation, to help both the client and the agency figure out if they could be the right fit.”

Katie rounds up this conversation by agreeing with Holly’s point that a pitch is not meant to be a show and tell. She states that “That is so true. It shouldn’t be a show and tell it should be a conversation and a collaboration. So if there’s anything that you can do in your pitch process to make it more conversational and involve the client. I think that is probably my number one tip.”

We hope you can go into your next new business pitch, armed with all the knowledge and advice from our amazing panel of experts. If you liked this webinar make sure you sign up now to secure your free place.

We also do Tanba only events just like this one that are filled with tons of Marketing tips and tricks, so to find out how to get access to our future content filled Tanba events, you can check out our Tanba website here.

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