Episode #7: How to Stand Out in New Business
In this episode, we reveal some of our secrets and insights into winning new business. From reading the room, to preparing a script, focusing 75% on solving their problem, to the importance of theatre and a gotcha insight, this episode has dozens of new business best practices and ideas. Our personal pitching stories of wins and losses and key takeaways including why we study comedians will inspire you for your next pitch.
How to Stand Out in New Business – Advice on Pitching Episode Recap
One of the best things about pitching, once you get through the awkwardness of learning curves and finding your voice, is that there’s always a surprise at the end of the tunnel. There’s a hint of fun around the corner. An incredibly helpful tip that was once given to Kelly is that “when you come to a client, always act like you’re giving them a present.” Generate excitement by packaging your pitch in a way that seems as if they’re unwrapping a gift!
The truth is that when you come to their office to present and pitch new ideas, you’re most likely the most exciting part of their day (or at least you hope so), so use that to your advantage. New business is the ultimate form of giving that present, so make your pitch a little spicy with a hint of drama that makes them want to unwrap it. Keep in mind; you’re not there just selling your services, you’re solving their problem.
The key to pitching is not talking about your sales the entire time. They’re not concerned with your process or how many awards you’ve received and what you received them for. Show up with an inside scoop on their target audiences, their current positioning, and exploit that information throughout your pitch.
They may ask you to solve ‘X, Y, and Z,’ but along the way, you may discover another problem that also needs a solution. Solve that problem and show them how they can better their positioning or present an insight on how they’re not hitting their target audience. You can give your gift to them by reframing the actual problem they need a solution for rather than what they think they need. This isn’t necessarily asking them to rebrand, but it is a key to helping them reposition.
Tips for Winning New Business
Sometimes the client goes and does the opposite of what you’re pitching, and that’s okay. It helps you learn to pinpoint what you can improve on for your next pitch. When winning new business, know your audience and be prepared for the oddball challenges. In many situations, you may not be pitching to a room of people. It may be a request for proposal (RFP) where you’ll need to compete and win business based on something written and a bidding system. At all times, be prepared to stand out with these helpful hints, whether you’re pitching in person or through an RFP.
Rehearse
Go in with a game plan. Ask people to prepare a script to help organize their thoughts on paper even if they’re not going to read from it. This instills confidence and sets you up for success.
Make a Personal Connection
Whether it be through a personal reference or you’re pitching to a returning client, make sure you build that connection. They will watch how you interact and pay attention to whether you look like you have comradery. This is where you create a strong sense of chemistry. You don’t want to come across as too sales-y, but you want to make your pitch inviting and personal.
Keep it Realistic
Being creative is only as good as finding the right balance in providing a solution and going a little too far with your ideas. Understand your percentages and provide a strong expertise in an area. You can present your solution in a fun, exciting way while still giving them the solution to solving problems with their target audience or positioning.
If you’re able to get a list of who’s going to be in attendance, do so and try to do a little research on every individual beforehand so you can pitch to the entire room rather than just one or two people. Knowing who you’re pitching to allows you to properly organize your time and resources with both your budget and theirs.
Whether you’re in a room pitching alone or working as a team, always expand on your ideas. Be creative, have a plan, rehearse, and make that personal connection.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Challenges and Success Stories
In the last couple of years, Kelly noticed many pitches for branding and rebrands clients list all of the things they want and ask for a new brand architecture. The issue was that they only had one brand, which showed us they didn’t fully understand what brand architecture was. So, we took from that and spent several weeks creating graphics that explained brand terms and what they mean, such as “what is a brand,” “what are brand perceptions,” and “what are brand insights.” By taking this little bit of information and building a framework, we included it in our pitch and provide our client with an “Ah-hah!” moment.
Each client is unique, and sometimes you’re going to go in with a slam dunk pitch that you’re sure will be the winner, and then you’ll find out it didn’t win. The trick is to keep building and welcoming new ideas. For quite a while, Kelly shared that they were going in and winning the pitches they thought they would lose and losing the pitches they thought they were going to win. “It was very eye-opening, but it allowed us to see where we could’ve improved on pitches for specific clients.”
Thank you so much for sticking with us and exploring a few of the many ways you can stand out in new business. Be sure to share your thoughts with us and come back for more tips, tricks, and advice.
Episode Transcript:
Julia
In this episode, we reveal our secrets and insights into winning new business, our best pitching advice, and of course personal stories of victories and losses.
Welcome to the TwoMarketingMoms podcast. We are two women with more than 50 years of marketing and advertising experience between us and we want to talk about the struggles, the fails, and the wins that we experienced while building our careers. Being a boss, juggling work and home life, and arguably the hardest and yet most fulfilling job, being a mom. This podcast was created for marketing and advertising professionals, especially the up-and-coming marketing stars of the future. We hope these tips tricks and advice will help you navigate work in life and get ahead.
I am Julia McDowell here with my co-host, Kelly Callahan-Poe. Today is a very exciting episode, because it’s something that everyone encounters in their career. And, it changes from the beginning of your career toward when you’re experienced. So, this is how to stand out in new business. And of course, we will talk about some stories because who doesn’t have one. But we really wanted to start out with lots of advice and our POV from our experience. So, with that said, Kelly, take it away.
Kelly
So, there’s three things that we’re going to talk about today. The first is kind of one of the main factors of winning based on what we’ve learned from the past as to why we’ve won. The second thing we’re going to talk about is our pitching advice, our personal pitching advice that we’ve learned over the years. And the third, as she talked about is kind of our personal stories, the good bad, the ugly, we won’t be able to reveal everything, but at least we can give you an idea of some of the crazy things.
I never understood those agencies that decided to be on that TV show called The Pitch because you never want people to see what really happens behind the scenes because it goes between chaos to last minute changes. And I can’t imagine showing all that on TV, but it probably does make good drama.
Julia
Oh, man, I wish they had continued that show was so good. It was a really good show.
Kelly
So, what I love about pitching…I didn’t love it until the last five years or so I think maybe
eight years. I mean, I think you get into a groove with it. I have never seen myself as a salesman, and pitching is really kind of the ultimate demonstration of salesmanship. But it’s combined with theatre. And for me, that’s the exciting part of, of being part of a pitch is there’s a surprise, there’s some fun. One of the things that I used to have a creative director that said to me, every time you go to the client, you need to act as if you are giving them a present, and that they are opening the present and you’re generating this excitement to get them to love that present.
Because they that when you come to their office is usually is the most exciting part of their day. So, you need to package it beautifully. And you need to make some drama, about how you provide the present. So, new business is the ultimate form of giving that present. And you’re not selling your services you’re selling you’re solving their problem. And when it’s done well you have heads around the room nodding in agreement. And you’ve know you’ve nailed it. And the key to pitching is not about talking about yourselves the whole time. And that’s the lesson that I’ve definitely learned over the years, they don’t care about your process, they don’t care about your awards, you need to focus on covering an insight about their target audiences, about their positioning and explain it in some way, shape or form. A lot of times with pitching, it’s not just about…they may be asking you to solve XYZ problem. But along the way, you may realize that that’s really not the problem they need solving. Maybe it’s the positioning that’s an issue or maybe they’re not reaching the right target audience. So, when you can reframe it in a different way that’s another way of an AHA — giving the present to them to say –we see this is the real problem, not what you think it is. It’s not necessarily a rebrand, it’s a repositioning. So, lots of things to talk about…
Julia 4
I feel like the present thing is so smart, because I think also it reveals like the vulnerability in pithing because you really don’t know if they’re going to like the present you have to give them.
Kelly
That’s true a lot of times…
Julia
I worked with a creative director for so long, who didn’t like pitching and did not see it as a present. And so, trying to hype up the team was an uncomfortable place for me for a long time. So maybe that’s part of why you didn’t like it to begin with either because it feels salesy.
Kelly
It depends on who’s leading it, and on your CEO. So, if your CEO is a creative director or comes from a creative background, it’s a whole other ball of wax. And you know, you’re up till midnight, coming up with ideas, and really pushing the envelope to make sure that whatever you’re providing to them is very creative. If it’s a new business person, or a general CEO with a with a business background, it’s all about strategy. And it’s not necessarily about a creative solution. I’ve seen different approaches, and some are more fun than others. And I think a hybrid approach is probably the best. But I think that’s the first thing that I wanted to look at. And I know most of you, most of these you’ll agree with, and I want to hear what yours are.
I’ve had an opportunity to kind of look down the list of all the things that I’ve won over the last five, eight years, and it’s come down to several main factors as to why we’ve won something. The first is an obvious one, we’ve had some sort of connection or a personal reference, a formal client of ours, some sort of reference that somebody provided to that client that that gave a positive reaction, this is the agency that you should choose. The second thing is because we’ve had a strong expertise in a specific area. So, for Williams Whittle, it’s nonprofit, we are the agency for nonprofits. And not only that, we are the agency for PSAs. And so, for PSA campaigns that makes it very easy for us to go in as an expert.
Then the third one that I have is we’ve worked with them in the past, they trust that we’ve been able to deliver and there’s a trust factor there. So, you’re not selling yourself there you have a relationship that you’ve already built on. Another one is having a similar case study makes it very easy if we had something that we’ve done very similar to them and a specific category solved a similar problem that also made it easy. I think those are my top four, what about you?
Julia
I agree with all of those, I do think it’s worth mentioning, even the ones I’m about to mention, too, is that sometimes the client does the opposite thing. So, for instance, you have a great case study, you’re pitching to someone in the food industry, and you have food experience, sometimes on the call you feel really good about that, like this is our edge. And then the clients say we want to go with someone with a fresh perspective, and we really feel like the XYZ industry is really interesting, and then you’re like, oh man never see those ones coming?
I would sum up the first one that you said, the personal connection foot in the door, also understanding your percentages of your chances to win, right? So, you always like talk about this, can you find out who the incumbent is, who have they worked with? Is it a pitch that they have to do, just because of procurement, or they actually going out to look for a new partner, because they’ve never had a partner or the partner they’re working with just doesn’t tickle their fancy anymore? And keeping it realistic, right back in effect, like how much time and resources do you put against it? I would also say chemistry. This one is hard if you’re in a situation where you don’t get an in-person pitch, right? So, a lot of the times, and you and I both work in the nonprofit arena. A lot of the times they send out RFPs and don’t have pitches. Like if you live in New York and you work for BBDO, you’re going to be on a pitch. You’re not going to just fill out a proposal and maybe have an interview right? A lot of the proposals that I work on at least don’t necessarily have that component.
Kelly
There’s an email saying you won. You’re like, what?
Julia
When you get into the room, having the right people and having people who can really tune in to like that chemistry component. That’s so important and not everyone can do that. They can’t read the room; they can’t read if they’re really jiving with someone. I’d add to that creative because sometimes if people, like creative will just win, period, like you can have the crappiest strategy and some clients will just go for creative. And then last, I would say also being priced right. And this might not be like this is probably reserved for like a few people on putting together a pitch, right? Not everyone gets to put their two cents into the being the price, right. But I think that’s huge.
Kelly
Absolutely. And I actually didn’t even have that one on my list. And it’s an important one, it’s a very important one. And I think a lot of the points that you just mentioned, kind of lead into our pitching advice, which also is kind of the same things that go for if you actually go after an RFP, if you are among those who actually complete RFPs. Not everyone does.
So, let’s go back to some of the things that you said, which is chemistry. And it’s really important because they watch how you interact with each other. They watch it to see if you look like that you have that camaraderie, if you look like you’ve worked together forever, I mean, I’ve had pitches with for example, a new business person, where afterwards they say to me, how long have you guys worked together, you guys just have this great energy and you are like actually three months. But you know, you have to have that chemistry and you have to make sure that you are having different points and playing off each other. But I think one of the big ones, beyond the chemistries is rehearsing, making sure that you’re supporting each other, you’re not talking over each other. Another one of my pet peeves is not answering the same question at the same time. And adding on no add ons. That’s my major rule. No add ons, answer the question and move on. Because sometimes people just go on and on and on. And here’s another point. And here’s another point, and it just becomes completely.
Julia
I was at a pitch I was being pitched to. And the add ons literally went for 30 minutes. And I was, please stop the clock.
Kelly
So, what else? You have some more?
Julia
Okay for pitching advice? Yeah.
I don’t have like a clear POV on this. But you and you mentioned it at the beginning is theater versus gimmicks. And so, I’ve had so many conversations over the years, where people think theater is gimmicky. And as someone who started off my career in sales, and someone who, is very comfortable in the sales role, right? Like, I’m on my own. I am selling me and myself all the time. So, I’m good in that space. But maybe now I see it different. I don’t see them as gimmicks. I see them as theater. So, I’m interested to see how you feel about that.
Kelly
Well, that’s interesting, because I have a really good gimmick story.
Julia
Okay, good. Right. Everyone has a good gimmick story.
Kelly
But it’s a fail, it’s a massive fail and I’m not for gimmicks and it wasn’t me who did it and I will not say who did it. But I did have a boss, who at the end of the presentation actually said the words. “And now for the ginzu knives set…We’re going to provide you a consultant deal, we’re going to offer you a half day seminar for free to go over your brand positioning…act now…” You know, literally said ginzu knives– lost everyone in the room.
Be careful with the gimmicks which leads into another point. And this is my point. And we’ve talked about this before. I have presented creative or our teams that I’ve worked with presented creative unsolicited, many times. I never ever remember a pitch where we actually won with unsolicited creative. And I presented some fun, fantastic stuff. And I can tell those stories here today. But I’ve never actually won with unsolicited creative except in the event of we were the incumbent and we knew a lot about that particular client. So, I always push back. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be creative. It doesn’t mean you can’t be, you know, demonstrate your strategy in a creative way. But just coming up with the campaign idea that’s not asked for is stepping into a pile of who knows what?
Julia
Agreed. And I actually wrote down, you really want your pitch? And we’re talking about pitches in person, right? So, I think you want your pitch to be focused on. And I think there’s a book called this. A mentor of mine really lives by this is –the one thing. Like, you have to keep it clear and concise, and focus on the one thing and how is it a tree versus a stump, right? Like, the tree has multiple branches. And but that core is the one thing that’s going to get you to where the client said that they want to be. And as you said, sometimes where they say they want to be might not actually be the place, it might not be the thing. And maybe that’s your angle, right for the pitch, but I really do think it has to be the one thing. And from that, I think at least one of the branches has to be something really new and cool. Like, I think you can pitch using tried and true strategy. But there has got to be something shiny in there. And I think that’s where some people get confused with gimmicks. The shiny thing can feel gimmicky to some people. But I think you just have to, as a group have to figure out, is it really a gimmick? Is it really shiny? Is it really like something that we can own? Is it also something that is really doable, right, because some people go into pitches pitching things that are just so out there just to get the attention? But it’s not really realistic.
Kelly
Or pitching what wasn’t asked for and trying to get additional work for things that they didn’t ask for…
Julia
Which is like the creative, you have to make that decision. Like, what is that little above and beyond thing that you’re going to do? And, do you really 100% feel like it’s going to be the tipping point for you in a pinch?
Kelly
I love your analogy of the tree and the stump. And it reminds me of something that I’ve been studying lately that you might find interesting. I’ve been studying comedians.
And just from a perspective of, if you look at Chris Rock, if you look at Amy Schumer, you look at any of those comedians, they’re telling a story, and it’s a narrative about something and maybe something every day and something so ordinary, but there’s a thread of that story from beginning to end. And they continue to bring that thread through in a funny way. And that’s a lot of what we’re doing in pitching and so I keep looking at comedy as a way to inspire me for presentations. And almost like as a model, not that I’m going to, you know, be a comedian in any way, shape, or form. But I think it’s the way they learn comedy is something that advertising people could really study because that storytelling aspect is really held true on the on the comedy side and bringing that through, and I love that about comedy.
Julia
When did your comedian research start?
Kelly
Probably in the during quarantine. Having all these moments like, oh my gosh, they’re just telling a story from start to finish. And it’s, it was just this aha moment, like, okay, that’s how I need to do it. And, the other thing that I’ve learned over the years, and I’m sure you’ve learned this already, is that there used to be a formula about…Okay, first we talk about ourselves, then what’s our process, introduce them going around the room. What’s their expertise? What’s their case studies, and then we talk about you.
Julia
Yeah, flip that around.
Kelly
And anytime I’ve been successful in the last couple years, it’s flipped. You’re in the room because you’ve already made the cut, right? They know who you are. You need to back it up at the end with case studies that are relevant. But a lot of that stuff is already in your RFP. So, it’s you need to focus 75% of what you’re presenting on solving their problem. So that’s something that I’ve definitely changed over the years.
Julia
Agreed. And I at one point when I started doing new business proposals and these proposals are 30 pages of intro on the agency, before anything is even addressed about the client, their issue or their challenge. And so, I changed it up.
Kelly
Yeah.
Julia
I’m not down for that. It doesn’t make any sense. How does this turn on the client? You know, they want to hear about themselves. I don’t in a selfish way, but it’s just the way psychology works, you know?
Kelly
Well, the only thing that’s interesting is, you have certain people in the room, right, and you need to acknowledge everyone that’s in the room. And one thing you need to know up front is who’s going to be in the meeting? So, for example, can you get a list of all the names? Can you research them ahead of time, see who they are, if you know, for example, there’s going to be all women, and you bring a team of men, that’s probably not a smart idea. And vice versa. So, making sure that you’re paying attention to everyone. And of course, everyone wants to pay special attention to the CEO or the decision maker, but the CEO may or may not be the decision maker. And I’ve been in a situation where the CEO is completely and utterly disinterested, and texting the whole time. And so, I’ve changed tactics in the middle of a presentation just to get their attention.
Julia
Yeah, you have to read the room.
Kelly
And that’s important, because you want to make sure that, that you’ve made some sort of connection with them so that they’re interested, and they care about what you have to say. And that’s, and that’s…
Julia
A challenge sometimes… And, I also thought about pitching advice for newbies to the industry, right. So, I think a lot of the reason why I was always so intimidated by new pitching or new business, in general, when I was new to the industry, a couple years of experience under my belt was like, Oh, my gosh, I’m just new, I don’t know, I don’t have all this experience, I don’t have the war stories. And the older voices in the room should speak more. But, I mean, there’s lots of ways to be a newbie and be involved in new business. I think one of the hugest things is to offer really fresh and new ideas. I always felt that’s what I was looked to for, what’s out there, that’s hip, what’s new, what are the trends. And that’s where I could really shine. And then if anything of that got incorporated. And what I did not do was fight for the opportunity to actually present during the pitch, because if you have just two experienced people pitching, and speaking for most of the presentation, it becomes droll, or it can become, and it doesn’t really show off the team. As an experienced person, I want to show that we have a range and that newer, fresher younger voices are equally as important as experienced voices when it comes to serving a client and solving their problem in both experienced and then new ways.
Kelly
One of the challenges with that, which was another point that I was going to make is — I’ve been to pitches where we brought eight or 10 people. And it’s, it’s ridiculous. I mean, you don’t want to have more people than the client brings in. And the other rule that Rob Whittle, the CEO of Williams Whittle always says is “no potted plants”. So, everyone has to have a role, you can’t just come to the pitch without having some sort of role. So, I tend to minimize the people that come over the last couple years because of that reason, because it ends up getting overwhelming and you know, the clients on one side, and you’re all the way across the other side, and there’s too many of you and you don’t know where to focus. And so, making sure that you bring the right people to the pitch is extremely important.
Julia
Yeah, agreed.
Kelly
And then of course, if you are presenting creative, which if it’s an unsolicited, you should not but if you are if you’re presenting past creative or case studies try to get the creatives to present the creative, the creatives are the best at actually presenting as they provide the most drama, especially because of their concepts and making sure that they you know that’s their time to shine.
Julia
I mean, who to bring to a pitch is definitely strategic decision, it is because you want the right people. And again, also if you can do research on who’s going to be in the room and it’s really hard, but like trying to figure out who is really going to have the best connection with them, usually it is your new business person, that’s definitely in the room. And they should be the person that can read people and make connections. But you never know.
Kelly
I’ve had new business people who have sales experience, but no advertising experience. So, there’s no angle there, you know, they rely on us to come up with solving the problem. And that’s a challenge at that point. What are they there for? You know, other than making the introduction?
Julia
Yeah, that’s a challenge. And then you also brought up one thing about rehearsing., I have always asked people to prepare a script, even if they’re not going to worry, read from the script, just the act of organizing their thoughts on paper made me personally feel so much more confident that we were at least set up for success from my point of view, right. Like I agree, having someone winging it can work 50% of the time, and then cannot work 50% of the time.
Kelly
Also, you also have to give notes to your CEO who’s going to be there. Because frequently they may not want to prepare. Which is fine, they’re usually good at quite good at winging it. But that’s where it’s important. You have a communications audit, and you’ve done that for every single pitch. So, who pitching? What do they do? Why do they do it? Why is it important? All that stuff, so you understand the basics. So, they’re educated before getting into the room and have some insight that they can add that is related to past experience. So, prepping your CEO is a huge port part of pitching as well.
Julia
And again, someone who’s new to the industry, can be that person that takes all the notes and prepares it, and perhaps that person at least gives them all the background that they need to know.
Kelly
I think one of the last things that I wanted to mention, which is an obvious one, but not always done, is ask for the business at the end. It demonstrates you want the business. We’re here to earn your business. And we’re excited about the category, we’re excited about your products are excited about your services, and here’s why. And we hope to have the opportunity to be your agency.
Julia
And to piggyback on that, to follow up, and to keep tabs on it and don’t just sound or come across as ungrateful for the opportunity or whatever.
Kelly
And also, if you don’t win, to ask those questions as to why not, because you need to know, so you can do things better. And many clients are very hesitant to give that feedback.
Julia
Yeah, very hesitant. It only happens I would say one out of every 10 times will actually get real feedback.
Kelly
It’s tough. Yeah. And disappointing.
Kelly
But when you do get it, it’s sometimes quite a surprise of something that’s happened, or the way people have interacted with each other that you didn’t realize. And then they noticed how those interactions happened. And then that really kind of gives you something to work on.
Julia
Agreed. So, I want to also give a couple of pieces of advice to go along with that. That I actually pulled from a presentation that I that I was an audience member of one of the big national ad firms was giving this presentation. And they kind of boiled down their pitching advice. And there was a couple of things that I thought were really good. I went back to this because I was like, Ooh, this presentation that I saw five and a half years ago, I still remember it. And two of the things that I love that they said about their advice afterwards was one, the client just might be smart.
Kelly
Oh, that hurts.
Julia
I think a lot of us don’t go into pitching a question. Like, oh, we are smart. And we are going to give them the magic pill to their to solve their pain point, right. And sometimes, we need to consider that the client really is just that smart, give them the credit, and build out the dream campaign or what it is whatever it is, as a solution. Okay, that doesn’t work every time. But I thought like for this case study they were giving it totally was an insight. And I thought that was really smart, because I have definitely worked on a couple of pieces of business where the client really was super smart and knew exactly the insight they wanted to drive towards.
Kelly
Well, and that’s, you know, you also have to kind of skate that line with your expertise, intelligence and not acting like you’re the smartest person in the room because they know their business better than you do.
Julia
Agreed. So that gray area… And then the last one we both kind of already mentioned was the gotcha insight. And sometimes that’s just like a gut feeling. Sometimes you don’t really know without a doubt what it is…
Kelly
I want to talk about that, because that, to me is the most fun part about the pitching process. I feel like, it depends on how much time you have. So, usually, maybe it’s two weeks if that, that you have time to prepare. So, I feel like the first couple of days, I’m swimming, I’m dog paddling, I’m, like, you know, reaching for air trying to figure it out…what’s my idea?
And I’m learning…
Julia
Trying to make sense of it all.
Kelly
And, and then all of a sudden, it becomes clear to me, and it’s something just comes out of the blue when I’m not at work, when I’m doing something different, or, you know, in a conversation collaborating with people, and this is the approach. And so that’s the hard part of it is trying to, grab towards that area. One of the things that in the last couple years, I’ve been seeing a lot of pitches for…can we move into the storytelling?
Julia 3
Let’s do it. It’s time.
Kelly
So, in the last couple years, I’ve seen a lot of pitches for branding, and rebrands. And in the course of maybe six months, I got some interesting questions as because they usually give you a list of questions that you need to ask answer as part of the pitch. So, one of the questions that I had in the last couple years was “what is a brand?” Another one of the questions was “why is branding important.” And then another one of the RFPs that I got this is going to tell a story in a moment.
Back to my comedic storytelling idea was one client asked for, we want a brand architecture, they listed all the things that they wanted, and they wanted a brand architecture, but they only had one brand. So, they clearly didn’t understand what a brand architecture was, right. And so, I sat down with our creative director, and in the course of three pitches in a very short six-week period, and we came up with these graphics. And the first graphic was answering the question, “what is a brand” and really what we came up with, it’s on our website blog, I wrote about it, but we had this idea of the brand being the sun, and your customers kind of standing there on earth and looking out to the sun. And we believe your brand is how your customer perceives you. It’s initial feeling, it’s a gut reaction. And it’s the center of the universe in space, so we had the sun, and then we had the earth. And that was what is a brand and that evolved into what is branding. And we had the whole solar system with eight rings around the sun. And that at the center of this is at the center is the sun, which is your brand. And then you have brand essence, and brand positioning and brand personality and brand identity, strategy, brand equity, and then we go through and explain each of these concepts as part of the universe, the branding universe, right?
And so, people really get an understanding of what all the brand terms mean. And that leads into the next slide, which is why is branding important. And so, we created this set of three slides that really tells the story of branding and what we are, after you talk about what is a brand, it’s really a natural way to talk about what are the brand perceptions about your particular brand? And that’s when we bring in some of those insights. Because obviously, you’re always looking for those insights, what are customers saying, and people do it through looking at social media or listening tools, or Yelp reviews, or Glassdoor, etc. And one of the pitches that I worked on; I happen to know two different customers of that particular client. And I was able to pick up the phone and call the customers to get the insights directly and include those in the pitch.
And it was kind of like an aha moment for the clients and things that they hadn’t heard before. Some of them are hard to hear. But I think in terms of putting the concept that you’re working on in a framework that it’s easy to understand, because people do get very confused about the various marketing terms. And so that’s one of the strategies that I’ve used in the last couple years, it’s really too dumb it down. And so again, my branding explanation is as if branding is in space, and explaining planets in relationship to each other, and how each on each individual plane with each other and how they relate. And that’s helped. I think a lot of clients that we pitch, explain the process and why it’s important. That’s one of the stories that I’ve used in the past. And another way to gain entry into explaining what your perceptions are as part of that.
Julia
It’s interesting, would you say that it has been successful tool?
Kelly
it definitely has. And it’s funny, because, you know, I got asked those questions. Now, I’ve been asked those questions multiple times. So, it came out of client questions that I was asked, and I want to continue to build on it and turn it into something different, but I kind of evolved into a bigger story. But yes, it’s absolutely been helpful for us.
Julia
Well, one idea that I have, or something that we did with the client was and really like it, the idea came from an actual client have something we did, and then turned into a new business idea. And that is creating a war room.
Kelly
Oh, yes. Love the war room.
Julia
And so, for a client we had one year, just so much going on so much like just really an amazing groundswell of support in terms of marketing, development, comms, , and the client was like, how do we organize all this? How do we make it make sense of it? And so, with them, we created this amazing war room, and there was just stuff all over the walls, where we were able to just visualize all these components coming together. And it makes such a great idea for a new business pitch, because it kind of creates this like zone. But anyone, even if you’re doing it by yourself, I normally pitch by myself, yeah, these days. So even creating that space creates the energy, but you need everyone to focus on to really put their best foot forward in whatever they’re doing for that pitch, like creating ideas, writing particular sections of a written document, coming up with ideas, for pitches or whatever. I just think the energy is really what can make a pitch, just like feel different. Because if people are really dialed in and plugged in and invested, it sometimes really makes the difference. Like once you get to that client, whether it’s in the form of a written proposal, or an in-person pitch. And again, this is something that literally anyone on the team can facilitate creating a war room. So anyways, I love that idea.
Kelly
Yeah, it’s also when you have everything up on a wall, it might give you a different way to associate things versus in a document because you’re looking at different things, and you’re standing back and other people looking at it, you …I’m a big True Crime aficionado. And so, it’s almost like putting the suspects on the wall and you’re linking the string. You know, and coming up with how are you analyzing that particular thing, which kind of leads me to what another idea that we did for a transportation client years and years ago. And there wasn’t necessarily a problem to solve. It was a client that we were had repitch as part of a process — many years you had to repitch and we were the incumbent and they were celebrating their 25th anniversary so it was kind of really a time for introspection, you know, where have you been the last 25 years? And we had a hard time coming up with that one thing, right. And so, what we did is, one of the things that particular transportation company was focused on is innovation. They had electric buses, and they were using solar and all sorts of really interesting innovative things. And so, what we did is we built some brand pillars for them for the next 25 years. And we took those brand pillars and we put them onto like a little Rubik’s Cube. And we wrote each of these brand pillars on a different side of the Rubik’s Cube, so like, innovation, or, you know, responsiveness or safety or something. And we had these Rubik’s cubes that we gave each of the key players for them to remember where they’re going to go for the next 25 years. And they loved it. And that’s something small and creative. But that’s just kind of another way for you to look at what is behind what a company is doing. And those brand pillars are really important. They’re beyond, you don’t promote those brand pillars necessarily an advertising. But there’s something that really is to the heart of where the client what the client represents, and how they’re positioned. And so sometimes those are the things that that can be an insight that you can pull out for them.
Julia
I’m totally stealing that idea. For a pitch that I’m a part of in two weeks. It is exactly what you described. Thank you for the idea.
Kelly
And let me know how it goes.
Julia
I’m one of the cool ideas that we did for…what a controversial pick. We needed to stand out. And everyone is going to come with a PowerPoint and put it up on a screen. And I was like, how do we do it more old school. And so, we literally brought in a foam board that was like 15 feet long. And put it on, like several easels. And then each point that we made, we pinned up with just a push pin. And obviously each slide quote, unquote, was a piece of paper. And it forced us to keep it so simple, right? Because if you’re just placing it eight and a half by 11, like you can’t put five sentences on that, like it would just be too small. And I really loved that because I felt like that was a pre-Pinterest idea, right?
I just, I love bringing in old school, like I love marrying new school with old school and pitches, because I just I personally feel like, it all has a place for every client, even if you’re talking about social media, and all of these digital tools these days, there is a place for old school somewhere, even if it’s just like a gimmick. People said, Oh, that board that inboard is so gimmicky, but it was just some something that was different. That didn’t hurt us, but definitely helped us be memorable.. Okay, any other stories? Because I actually, I had a great way to wrap this up. And I forgot about it, literally. So, think about it again.
Kelly
Well, I think going back to your idea about old school, I think the old school idea that we’ve been doing since the 80s is creating a video and going to customers and getting customer testimonials, tried and true ideas. And then the other old school idea is having your agency experience that particular client. And I’m sure, I think every ad agency in Washington DC can tell a story about pitching Metro.
Julia
There’s a couple of clients and one of them is WMATA.
Kelly
Yes. You’ve got your pictures taken on the metro, here I am on the bus. And here I am. I see. So, you got to take something new there. But that’s definitely some old school ideas. I’ve done fun things like creating a rock song for somebody.
Julia
I did one of those too.
Kelly
We’ve done multiple songs; songs have been a big thing. And we’ve actually sang the song and another one we had the rock band sing the song. So that was fun. Another fun thing that we did for another transportation client is we created a train. This was for one of the Amtrak clients that I pitched, I won’t say which one, because there’s so many of them. And inside the bus that we had little stick figures with our faces on them on popsicle sticks and so they would sit inside the windows. So, each of you have your face and they would remember you based on where you sat in the train and then you’d grab your stick as you were about to speak to say “Here I am on the train.” Here’s my idea. Creativity knows no bounds. When you come up it must be memorable. How are they memorable? Do they have personality? Do they have creativity? I’ll give you one of my last fun ones. It’s actually not fun. It was a surprise. You know, I think a lot of times you get very impassioned, when you’re pitching, right? And you get hundred percent really excited, especially when it’s a nonprofit idea.
Julia
I get super invested.
Kelly
Sometimes it really works. And I had on two separate occasion, years ago, not recently, it worked so well, that I made the client cry.
Julia
Oh, that’s, that’s the Holy Grail.
Kelly
And so, the CEO kept saying, “Okay Kelly down, your goal is to make them cry”. And then we know, we’ve made it, you know, because then they get so excited because they want to be able to execute it. And especially if you can do that in creative or something that’s very moving. And in the nonprofit world. That’s not that hard. In fact, real clients that we worked with, that was their goal is if you present me a concept, it must make me cry. If it doesn’t make me cry, it’s not approved. So that’s an interesting, fun way of looking at things if your goal is to make them cry, then, you know, it’s taking your presentation skills to a whole other level.
Julia
Although I was never the one to make them cry, it was always someone else on the team. I can’t imagine if I actually made them cry, probably get really uncomfortable. Like, Oh, my gosh, I just want to give you a hug now.
Kelly
Absolutely. So, a lot of the stories I can’t really tell because you can’t say who the clients were, and you know, so it’s, those are kind of generic.
Julia
Well, the one thing that I wanted to say is like, I do definitely get super invested. And I remember every detail of every loss. Yes. And like, the losses, like really stick with me forever, that’s the reality of our business. If you’re a person who is a sore loser, this is not the business for you. You are most likely never going to get the real feedback; you need to make adjustments. And so, you just have to live with that. And hope for the best and not burn your bridges, if it doesn’t go your way. And, but I’ve always seen a loss as an opportunity to learn to file it away with the good ideas that you know, I loved. And, you know..
Kelly
Keep it moving. That’s, that’s wonderful advice. And I’m just going to add on to it a funny note, which was..
Julia
No add ons. Oh, sorry. I’m just kidding. This is a podcast.
Kelly
…2018 and 2019. Were a little bit of crazy years, because they were years that every single pitch that we did, there were certain pitches that we thought we were not going to win. And there were certain pitches that we did that we thought for sure win, that we lost. And everything came out backwards, everything we thought we’re gonna win, we lost everything we thought we were gonna lose, we won. And I felt like it was a really kind of a precursor to 2020. But then it all kind of went upside down. And here we are. And my new business radar was off because sometimes you’ve got the gut feeling you’ve made it and maybe you made it but there’s so many other things that come into play as to why a pitch is won and lost and you’re obviously not aware of all of them. But hopefully some of the ideas that we shared today will be helpful and the personal stories might be a little entertaining.
Julia
Well with that we will see you in the next episode of TwoMarketingMoms. Wonderful. Bye, bye. You can learn more about us and follow us on social marketing moms.com. Please also smash that subscribe button or leave us a review. We want to talk about what so please give us your feedback. Until next time.
