Enthusiasm, energy and problem solving can serve us well in the new business pond – invaluable to those leading growth and things we unlock in everyone in the agency when prospecting and pitching.
But sometimes the very things that keep us afloat can pull us under – particularly when the pressures of the pipeline and pitch ratchet up and we click into ‘urgent sales mode’ – telling our story with increased ferocity and velocity.
For example – we receive the brief, huddle together and agree ‘what shall we say’, ‘what do they want to hear’ and ‘what’s the pitch story’. And we time ourselves hammering through that story within the requested 45mins leaving 15 for ‘Questions’ at the end. Staring at them wide eyed and exhausted during those 15mins then using those ‘Questions’ to reinforce our expertise or to validate the hypotheses we grabbed at when we first received their brief.
We are now deliberately starting from a different place with our prospecting and pitching. Because to be a good story teller you first need to be a good story listener. To stop talking about yourself and ask better questions of the person in front of you…both to understand the real problem they are facing (which is rarely written in the brief) and who they are as people.
I’m a firm believer that relationships in business are no different to any other relationship in our lives. And when was the last time you sat next to someone new at a social event or opposite someone on a first date and they didn’t ask you a single question, or their questions were banal. How did you feel about them? Did you seek them out to spend more time with them later? Not likely (sorry Barry).
So we should stop talking at Clients, smashing through our creds like a wedding album populated with people they’ve never met (a phrase I love from the brilliant Kasia Bannon) and spend that time preparing intelligent, incisive questions that help us understand the people, politics and priorities that will power a response that really hits the mark.
There’s a reason why we have ‘Chemistry’ sessions and why winning feedback states ‘we could see ourselves working with you’ or ‘you made us look at the problem differently’. It’s also the reason why no matter how hard we look there is no ‘pitch winning formula’…it boils down to truly understanding the idiosyncratic people, defining the unique problems and navigating the inevitable politics within each existing and new Client opportunity. And building your story on that foundation.
Working with jfdi, we have built a global training programme to give people the confidence and tools to ask better questions at every stage of a Client relationship – with helpful prompts to frame proactive outreach, pitch qualification, Q&A and the questions to ask our current Clients. To go deeper, to get to what matters and position ourselves as true partners to the people we work for – building their trust and confidence to task us with more problems across more aspects of their business…and seek us out again when they change roles!