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Why agencies need to pitch like pigs

Published: Wednesday 2nd June 2021
We know we win the pitches we commit to. An intention to win is simply not enough. Pitching should be all or nothing. All in or fold. One pitch at 100% rather than two pitches at 50%. Clients want to know you want their business more than the other competing agencies. Saying it doesn’t cut it. You have to mean it. And that starts with you and your pitch team committing to winning it. Everyone wants to win but what does commitment look like? You may have heard the story before. A pig and a chicken were walking by a church where a gala charity event was taking place. Getting caught up in the spirit, the pig suggested to the chicken that they each make a contribution. “Great idea!” the chicken cried. “Let’s offer them ham and eggs?” “Not so fast,” said the pig testily. “For you, that’s a contribution. For me, it’s a total commitment.” So pitching is like ham & eggs, chickens are involved but the pigs are committed. That’s why we all need to pitch like pigs One smart agency we know ensures everyone is committed to winning by using a ‘triage’ system. The senior pitch leaders, who…
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How to Create Pitch-Winning Stories

Published: Sunday 9th May 2021
“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word.  Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”  Emily Dickinson Stories can help us to connect to others at a deep, almost primeval level through the power of their emotional energy.  And stories are the narrative architecture formed by words. Words captivate and influence our emotions; they have stirred nations to triumph and instil hope.  Used carelessly, they cause disappointment or worse still, wreak havoc.  Every relationship we build starts with an interaction, with words.  For us in new business, as in all spheres of our professional life, honing our communications skills, mindful of the extraordinary power of words, is an invaluable talent to nurture.  By being imaginative and playful with words and thus stories, we build our credibility, trust and powers of persuasion.  Facts alone are dry, uninteresting and easily forgettable, but stories we remember. How to create a pitch-winning story. Simply put, a story is about the transformation of a character, the hero, as he or she is tested through the unfolding of a series of challenges and struggles in the endeavour to achieve a particular goal.  The…
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Want better answers? Ask better questions

Published: Friday 1st January 2021
The truth is, most of us are pretty poor at asking questions. We can all do it, of course; we can all ask ‘What’s your name?’ without thinking too much. But once we move up the questioning hierarchy we need to do just that – think. Asking a good question isn’t something we just do and by ‘good’ I mean a question that delivers useful answers. Formulating questions of this kind is a skill that allows us to extract extra value, and therefore learning, during our conversations with clients, teams, mentors, groups – in fact just about everybody. Honing our questioning skills means that we can probe deeper and understand better our prospects’ nuanced thinking and needs. So, how do we ask better questions? The 5 Ws A friend of mine, a journalist at Bloomberg TV, regularly conducts interviews with the global titans of the financial world. When I asked him what he thought made these encounters so successful, even with strait-laced business leaders whom I assumed were pretty tough to crack, he spoke about the importance of doing his prep, of adopting an easy going conversational style (making interviewees feel at ease) and deploying well rehearsed questioning techniques. Chief…
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