CHARGE WHAT YOU’RE WORTH December 4, 2008
Posted by brainactivist in How to sell creative ideas.Tags: presentations
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I was thinking recently of the best and worst meetings I’ve ever had and what made them so, and this one came to mind. It was a good one.
I was the last agency to pitch an 18 year old company that never had an advertising agency . It was unusual for me, because most of my business generally came from referrals, and I didn’t know anyone here. They contacted me after viewing my website. I found that surprising because I never though any work would come from our website, good as it was.
My presentation was brief, about two hours, and the owners were present. It was a family owned company . After the presentation, they asked me to step outside, then after about 15 minutes they called me back in and said, “We just met with 5 agencies in the past two weeks. You’re 4 times more expensive than the most high-priced. But you’re the first one that actually made sense and proposed a process we think would get us where we hope to go. Let’s get to work on a contract.”
So, on the spot, I made a seven figure deal. I was very surprised at the speed of their decision, and at their willingness to commit the amount to the undertaking. It was a good lesson is never being afraid to ask what you feel is the value of your contribution. I think truthfully, I was only comfortably asking it because I didn’t think I had a chance of getting the account. If I had an inside track or felt there was a chance, I probably would have tried harder to get it which would have meant trying to come in at an acceptable price.
Lesson learned.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FROM THE BEGINNING August 4, 2008
Posted by brainactivist in How to sell creative ideas.Tags: creative pitches, presentations
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One of the worst creative presentations I ever had was with UPS. It was one of the rare times that I participated in a pitch with another company. This was their contact and I was happy to have the opportunity.
The presentation took place in a huge room with theater seating. My co-presenter and I were in the “pit” part of the room and the 8 people from UPS were in one small part of this big room. It was already uncomfortable. The group was very unresponsive and not at all interactive. My partner went through her part which was basically her canned PowerPoint about her company. She was a very good presenter and had done this many times.
Then I presented the creative work. It was mediocre which was truly a first for me. We generally present great work and I’m very fired up and can’t wait to show it. This was different because 1) we didn’t have proper input; 2) there was very little time; 3) the brief we were given actually turned out to be wrong; and 4) there were lots of politics invovled in that there was an in-house agency (present at this meeting) who felt the work should go to them.
This dud of a performance made me truly appreciate the importance of the critical front-end input I was always used to getting, and of being well informed about the situation. If you want something to go perfectly, I believe you have to run the show from the beginning. But that’s just me. How about you?
