Submitted by Melissa Wildstein on | 0 Comments
I received an email from a client this week, Jason Melone of Digital X Bridge, and he posed a REALLY good question about the pitch and proposal process (which you can learn more about in my class, Writing Winning Proposals). What do you do when pitching potential new clients. Do you go for it with gusto or just do enough to get on first base? And how do you make sure you're hitting it out of the park as opposed to fouling out?
Have I beat the baseball analogy to death?!
See below for both Jason's question and my response.
HIS QUESTION:
Hi there. I have a question and I'm hoping to get your expert opinion. Remember how we talked about all of the time we put into upfront research and analysis to arrive at a cost for projects that our leads approach us about? The level of input, coaching and consulting is something many would pay big bucks for. Yet we're giving this away for free. Many other agencies seem to spend a few hours and provide a ballpark cost. If the client approves then the clock starts and they do all the research and maybe refine the cost then or maybe they give a ballpark number but in the end, it's time and money. I just find that approach so inadequate. And our clients immediately fall in love with us because of how much effort and energy we put in from Day One.
But for us, it's EXTREMELY time consuming. I have one lead I've been working with for six weeks. We put in a detailed quote and they were close to pulling the trigger but decided last minute to rejigger the entire business and now I'm starting over with them and they'll expect me to do the same analysis all over again, for free. Yikes!
How would you do things differently?
MY RESPONSE:
J, I totally know how that works! When I worked for large advertising agencies, we were constantly pitching new business and it was always all hands on deck. We would sometimes work on pitches for several months and spend up to $250,000 in lost time. And we weren't even guaranteed to get the business. It's one thing to do that when you're working for 'the man' and another thing when the man is you and those are dollars and time that you can't afford to lose.
In the end, you really have to weigh the pros and cons of spending the time upfront for the potential of getting it back on the back end. I personally spent about 40 hours working on a proposal, flew out to CA to present to the client and never heard anything back. He knew that I flew out there for the sole purpose of meeting with him. He knew that he was asking me to pull a rabbit out of a hat and do three week's worth of work within a week's time. It's been three months and he's yet to return a single call or email (and it was a darn good proposal so I know it's not that!) But, I knew that the likelihood of his project getting passed Sr. Management was low. I knew that he had a pattern of having an urgent need and then falling off the face of the earth. I chose to do the proposal and the pitch anyway because it demonstrated the committment that I had to his company's business.
And, he has recommended my firm to other people within his organization and I have turned that into a steady stream of small projects.
So at the end of the day if he asks for a miracle again, will I do it? Probably. Because I have faith that it will pay off in one way or another.
BUT that's where you have to be strategic in deciding who to do that for and who not to. And when it comes to your clients, they need to be 1. Strategic, 2. Profitable and 3. Loveable. They don't have to be all three, but they need to be at least two outta three!
What I usually advise my small business clients do is to create a 'Brand Audit' or an 'Initial Assessment' or a 'Strategic Blueprint' or some kind of something that they can name, some tangible report or analysis that they can send to the client and that then becomes the first piece of your process.
You get paid for your process.
Only in Major League Baseball do you get paid to pitch.
If you'd like more on how to take your proposals from good to great, sign up for an upcoming Writing Winning Proposals Teleclass.
