Pitches need huge amounts of time, effort and work. They’re incredibly stressful and costly.
Then in a few years, you’re doing it all again, with a re-pitch.
It’s not always as clear-cut as that. Some accounts you’ll keep a long time before a re-pitch, some the client leads will change meaning the account does too and on some you’ll have procurement to keep happy alongside marketing.
Whatever the circumstances every account is ultimately heading towards a pitch from the point you win it. And while you can’t put off the inevitable you can make sure it stays as far off as possible.
By going into pitch mode even when there’s not a pitch.
Every now and again on an account take a pause and do the things you’d do if you were pitching.
Imagine all the work you’ve been doing is by another agency. How would you pull it apart? What’s working and what’s not? What would you do different? What problems are happening? Where’s the friction?
Come up with new solutions and ideas that will change things up.
Focus minds and reinvigorate the relationship and work.
Stop the day-to-day approach and the decay that can kick in.
Invest agency time in this. It’s a smaller cost now that can avoid the bigger cost a pitch will bring or, even worse, the possibility of losing that account altogether.
In the past, we’ve often triggered ‘pitch mode’ if we had a concern the client was beginning to drift. Maybe after spotting issues in a quarterly or yearly review.
It’s handy even on accounts with set re-tender points. Head into that process with the client’s mindset being ‘Why would we move?’.
Just make sure ‘pitch mode’ doesn’t include everything you’d do on a pitch…
So absolutely no late nights, weekends or pizza.
