It’s no secret that agency new business pitches can be very costly! This results in incredible new business strain and an extended period of time needed for the agency to amortize back those pitch investment costs. I share with you here 10 ways to help you control both internal time costs as well as external out of pocket:
- Assign a pitch budget and proactively manage it.
- Bigger collaborative teams, from all disciplines, convened at kick off, moving quickly to a more cohesive smaller team to complete and execute.
- Fewer more effective meetings with only those people required that start and finish on time.
- If travel is required, book it as soon as possible to lock in lower travel costs.
- Assign a junior person responsibility for the presentation template and avoid senior talent wasting their time on it.
- Be judicious with external research costs. Identify what you really need and what will help you deliver true value and impact in the presentation. Do not tell the client what they already know.
- Repurpose any existing content or research that you may already have. It might be just as relevant to this client.
- Limit external production and freelance costs. If used, assign strict budgets and expectations.
- Target the optimum number of slides reasonable for the time allocated. If it’s a two hour presentation, target no more than 60 slides and make each one count. (The time cost preparing 60 more slides that are either cut or add no value is enormous)
- Start off every meeting doing a quick recap of the client brief. This will help you avoid going off at a tangent and then having to re-do work at the last minute, with an all hands on deck working all hours of the night and day. (I have seen pitch budgets that were looking good completely blown in the last 36 hours before a pitch)
It’s really not that hard to reduce your pitch costs. It just takes proactive project management, a process and internal discipline.
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Hi,
you have some pretty good views on the subject.