Pitching to win: alternative practices
Laura Holme, marketing director at Draftfcb and member of the IPA New Business & Marketing Group, says the key is to focus on a client’s emotional state rather than rational need…
When it comes to pitching, agencies need a 360 approach; they mustn’t just think about the rational needs of the client, but must also turn their attention to their emotional needs, which is why the IPA’s New Business and Marketing Group held an event last week looking at ‘Pitching to win: alternative practices’.
The speakers included Marcus Corah, NLP trainer and master practitioner, and Michael Lewis, managing director of Different Dynamics, who discussed the ways in which agencies can gain an insight into their clients’ emotional needs.
Michael Lewis talked about the seven regions, which allow you to understand people’s motivational values – with the three key character types being: Altruistic, Assertive and Analytical. So when putting this into practice, agencies should assume their audience is made up of these composite types and vary their pitch argument and conversation around: the result, the science and facts behind it, and what and how it will work for their company. If they move through this cycle, then they will ‘hit’ everyone.
Another idea discussed was that as a collective jury, what clients have in common is that they work for the same organisation… so agencies have to assume they share the ambitions, beliefs and values of that company. This point was supported by the subsequent client panel session, which agreed that they appoint people who seem to hold and share the same beliefs and values of their organisation. They see a partner who will work with them in a way they value, and who will help them to achieve what they want.
John Owen of Dare proffered a view, which is to reverse the thinking of focusing on why clients want to appoint your agency. Instead, think why would they not appoint you? This will allow you to neutralise these reasons through a technique which Marcus Corah calls ‘re-framing’.
Sanjay Nazerali , brand director at BBC Journalism, also provided some wise words, which are that agency people possess the skills to make an audience both ‘think’ and ‘feel’ positively. This is what we do for a living day in and day out with our communications campaigns. So next time you are pitching, think of yourself as the brand, and the client panel as the audience.
Having digested the content from this event, my first thought is that rather than these being seen as ‘alternative practices’, what is deemed as ‘alternative’ is actually absolutely essential, and arguably should be where a great deal more effort should be placed.
I am not intending to be factitious, instead I am professing that as an industry we have been masters at pitching at providing solutions to business problems through insights, strategies, creative, and brand activation proposals . So I’d say we are accomplished at providing content for our prospective clients’ brands and businesses. Though what we often forget about is a well-researched and well-delivered contact strategy for our target audience – the people we are pitching to.
In the hierarchy of business, brand and the individual, we touch upon our audience – but merely that.
Could this be that we believe so strongly in our solution, that we believe that this, in isolation, is enough to convince and persuade clients to appoint us as their agency partner? Possibly.
Could we weasel out of this by blaming the artifice of the pitch process not allowing us to get close enough to make a gamble? We could.
The reason is because it is probably easier to focus on the rational needs of clients, rather than determining their emotional needs. But, as discussed at the event, this is an extremely powerful way of persuading a client.
By focusing on their emotional state, you can make them believe that you can help them have they want. That is certainly a winning proposition.