Career Boosters is a monthly e-panel discussion led by Boost Agents. We scout out leaders in the marketing, digital, communications and advertising spaces to provide their perspectives on industry topics related to career development, talent acquisition and hiring practices.
For this feature we spoke to Paul Crowe, CEO at BNotions and Andrew Cherwenka, VP, Commercialization at Kinetic Café about agency versus startup pitches.
What are some of the flaws inherent to the traditional pitch process? How can the process be improved?
Crowe: From a building experiences and technology perspective, the biggest flaw is clients are asking their potential vendors the wrong questions. When potential clients invite us to pitch, they bring a very specific need to the table. Typically, the client has already gone deep in assuming what the solution and goals are. This forces everyone involved to assume that all the right strategy has been done up-front and to become hyper focused on a particular need. Clients often feel they’re doing their potential vendors a favour by providing this level of detail, but it’s a disservice because they are restricting the capabilities of the output and ultimately limiting innovation. Organizations that insist on going through an upfront discovery process give themselves the chance to come up with more strategic and out-of-the-box solutions.
What have you learned from investor and new business pitches that you’ve applied elsewhere in your life?
Cherwenka: Treat people like individuals and make the discussion about them, not you. Take the time to learn what makes them unique. In a pitch that means doing some research up front and finding out their interests, common connections, and how long they’ve been in each role or company. It’s all relevant stuff that helps you understand who they are. That same curiosity makes you a better communicator in life.
Crowe: There’s a saying that goes, “If you need a long letter give me 15 minutes; if you need a short one give me 4 hours.” It’s always easier to write something verbose. For pitches, you have to be succinct because your audience probably has a million other things on their mind. Pitching has forced me to learn how to create sound bites that can be used as the dots of a story, and to use what is said in between to connect the dots. I’ve applied this skill to interviews, employee performance reviews and presentations.
What are some common mistakes firms make when pitching for new business? How can these be remedied?
Cherwenka: Be engaging. That doesn’t mean you employ killer presentation techniques, though they help. It means you do everything you can to get the client talking and thinking. As a member of the Ryerson DMZ steering committee, I also see far too many horribly designed pitch decks. It’s our job to see past a weak presenter or bad slides, but most audiences aren’t as motivated. It takes 5 minutes to read up on basic presentation skills and slide design. But I’ve seen companies paying $10,000 to pitch an investor group with a 50-slide deck of ugly 100-word slides.
Crowe: People too often answer questions immediately. They answer based on the best knowledge they have at the time because they are trying to show the client or investor they have all the answers. If you don’t have the answer, my advice is to turn around and ask your audience a question to get them talking about their business. If you still don’t have a strong answer, saying you don’t have that answer today, and asking if you can follow up with them gives you a reason to continue the dialogue and keep building the relationship.
An article in PR Week says agencies spend up to 20% of their time pitching for new business. How can agencies ensure that pitching does not take away too much from existing business?
Cherwenka: First, that’s a ridiculous number. Does that mean a 100-person agency is spending 800 hours/week pitching? But I guess the point is to say agencies are over-investing in outside discussions and it’s taking their attention away from paying clients. I think that’s a more common threat among creative agencies than companies in other industries, but it all comes back to every answer above: be selective, proactive, and smart.
Crowe: We allocate four to eight hours every week for each of our employees to work on either providing better service to existing clients, or to pursue new business. This ensures that 32 to 36 hours each week are spent working on projects for clients. We don’t have a new business team because we know that clients want to work with the team they bought. The people who pitch are also the ones who deliver the project.
