Video - Jon Waring of 3sixty on How to Increase Your Pitch Win Rate

VIDEO: 26:14 mins
AUTHOR: Janusz Stabik and Jon Waring

In this GYDA Talks, Janusz talks to Jon Waring. Jon is the Founder & CEO of digital agency 3sixty. They design, build and maintain websites exclusively for the travel industry. 3sixty’s work is recognized industry-wide for performance and conversion rates.

Janusz and Jon discuss pitching. Listen as they give their insight into the process and why they have an enviable track record of pitch wins.

Transcription:

Janusz Stabik  00:40

Welcome Jon Waring. We're here to talk about the pitching process and the creative pitching process before we dive into that, tell us a little bit about yourself and your agency and what you do.

Robert Craven  00:53

Hi Janusz. So what was the question a bit about me and the agency? Yeah,  So I I'm Jon Waring and I'm the owner and founder of 3sixty. We're a digital agency, and we specialize in travel and tourism. We've been going well, in fact, we celebrated our 21st anniversary in February, February 1, which is also my birthday. Yeah, and we're based in Bristol.

Janusz Stabik  01:20

Those are crazy numbers. There's longevity right there. We're still here got the pitching process. So you and I go back a while we used to pitch together and we still have a pretty successful, pretty successful pitching record. I think 100% Yeah, I used to think it was all down to me and my amazing pitching skills. But I think Hindsight is taught me probably down to you. I think we would think we were the kind of technical partner, I guess in the picture. So we did all the nerdy ones and zeros, the web development, and you were the user experience, and you did the creative and all that kind of stuff. And I wanted to talk to you, because I wanted to understand why I think we were successful. And hopefully what you know what our audience can get from that process. And I think my opinion isn't at all my statement to you. I think it was because of the way that you approached the pitch process, and really, really understanding the needs or the needs of the audience. And you showed them some stuff. Right? You presented some work to them that they could see. And they could, you know, envision what their website's gonna look like going forward?

Robert Craven  02:37

Yeah, okay. Well, firstly, I think that's a part of it. I actually think that a large part of it was the chemistry that you and I had, you know, very comfortable. We had a clear distinction between what we were doing, and we were just good at chatting to people. So I think we put people at their ease. And I think that was a big part of it. So, you know, I appreciate you're incredibly me with more than perhaps I deserve. But that said, I think that when you're presenting creatively, it's such a subjective thing. And what I've worked out over the years is that when you can provide clients with a, a solid framework for how you go about it, and a rationale for why you present creative the way you do, it's very reassuring for them, because they don't just think, Oh, it's just your opinion, or do I like it? Don't I like it? You know, you're basically saying, I've really thought this through. And here's why I've made these decisions. And that's why, you know, using frameworks like archetypes, and having a robust methodology that's clearly broken down into stages, I think, helps. So it sounds very dull, but actually having a solid process in the creative.The process actually, is very reassuring.

Janusz Stabik  04:03

Yeah. reassuring. Yes. But the process doesn't went into pitch. Surely, you know, If I am a client, and there's five agencies pitching to me, and four agencies pitch and show me the process, and one agency shows me something to look at, you know, something exciting that tickles my emotions and makes me feel good. You know? The visual thing where wins five times out of five, doesn't it?

Robert Craven  04:33

Yeah, almost certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Frustratingly.

Janusz Stabik  04:38

Yeah, why frustratingly go.

Robert Craven  04:40

Well, obviously, because, you know, it's where we are and this is old territory for people in our industry, but, you know, you're having to do the work before you'll pay for it. You know, in the first instance, I mean, you know, and we joked before we started this that you know, when did we ever get an invite from a plumber to do some work and then decide what Whether we pay them or not. But I think also more fundamentally, it undermines the process, you're saying, Look, you know, we're solving problems. And a big part of that is understanding what's going on in the discovery process. So we can't present solutions until we understand what the issues are. But that said, what I've learned tonight, you know, again, we've talked about this, but the, my my view on it is that you do have to present creative as important, and that you will win more work if you do, because they want to be reassured that you can do stuff they like.

Janusz Stabik  05:36

So we've all been studying those pitches, you know, I've done it with my agency, you know, and pitching with other kind of creative partners. And we get this kind of brief through the door from, from the clients where we want a load of stuff from me, but we haven't got the time to really write, write a brief for you. And it's really impossible to you know, to pitch something I think that's, that resonates. And this is effective when even the client hasn't thought through what they want, very clearly. And so we go into that pitch, you know, and we're adamant, you know, about what you've just said, we need to think this through, we need to go through the discovery process, it would be remiss of us to present you anything, you know, it will be a shot in the dark as to as to whether this, this hits or not. And we feel that this just you know, there's more chance of not hitting the mark than the nuts hitting the mark. And we feel it's the right thing to do, isn't it? It's the right thing to say, No, we need to do discovery first. But think like you say the reality is, if you can't beat them, join them?

Robert Craven  06:38

Well, yeah, partly, I think, again, my view has changed on this, I think the way I go about it is I say, look, here's the process, this is kind of how we go about it, if you choose to work with us. But that said, if we were you know, knowing what we know about you, and it's not very much, and going through the bit of the process, you know, that we would do. Here's an example. Here's the sort of things that we will be doing. Because in the end, I think that it's really about, you know, are you going to do stuff that I like the look of that's gonna make you feel good, that's going to represent the brand. You know, do I have faith in your creative ability, which is cracking us because you know, you can look at anyone's portfolio and go, Wow, these guys are great. Yeah. But for some reason, there's just this dissonance. I don't know if that's the word that, you know, they're not able to relate to that project and say, These guys are capable. It's something that kind of goes, Oh, yeah, yeah, you've, you've, you've got, you've got what it takes.

Janusz Stabik  07:44

Yeah, yeah. I was reading about bit of pseudoscience, you know, I think it's real science, but um, my knowledge of it is layman's knowledge around the amygdala, right? So the   in your brain is the, it's the bit of your brain that controls emotions, and it releases the hormones that makes you happy, sad, angry, fearful, scared, you know? The print? Yeah, and if you have those people who have had their amygdala damaged, and it's not working anymore, you know, they lose emotion. Obviously, secondly, they lose the ability to make any decision whatsoever, no matter how menial or rational, can't decide what shoes to wear, what to have for breakfast, what clothes to put on the list that enables to take action on any menial decision, you know, and the point being that, that every decision that we make, no matter how menial, is right is rooted in emotion. Right. And I think it resonates here with this right is that it's really hard to get emotional, happy, excited, you know, joyful if we're responding purely to a load of rational information and process and that kind of thing on the screen. Yeah.

Robert Craven  08:59

Do you know, my favorite copywriter, brand copywriter John Simmons has a saying the heart decides merely confirms very true. True. You know, it's like when you think about it, I often use the car analogy. Now you've decided what car you want, and what color you want. Before you've made the rational decision for it. You know, you kind of retrofit the rationale. Yeah, I think it's do the same with agencies. They kind of you know, you walk in, they're like, look, have you have a chat? They've probably already made the decision. They want to work with you. Yeah. Rest of the brain is going right. How do I retrofit the make this guy, the person I want to work with?

Janusz Stabik  09:41

Yeah, yeah. It's not just retrofitting is it is complete manual manipulation of the facts in the world, our worldview to confirm confirmation bias, I guess it's

Robert Craven  09:50

Confirmation bias. And you know, perception is projection. You know, you already know what you want before you've seen it. Yeah. Because you have all these prejudices. says, Yeah, and that's the other thing I think about pitching is that I've become so sanguine about it because I know full well how fickle it is. I can do the best work in the world, you know, pitch, knock it out of the park and still lose, because you don't fit the predefined criteria that maybe somebody has. Yeah, yeah. I had a pitch recently, again, utterly convinced that we, you know, I knew we were the right people. There didn't, there is not a more perfect agency for that. And I'm not just saying that, because it's funny, it's actually true, you know, because we're a specialist agency. And this was, if you wrote a brief designed for us, this was it. You know, the chemistry was great, you know, walked out of the meeting, thinking, Yeah, we got it. And they ended up going with someone else. And I looked at the portfolio and what this company had done, and it they had no experience in the sector. In fact, they weren't even really in the right area of digital. But clearly, they had a different agenda going on. Yeah. So

Janusz Stabik  11:05

And what was the difference? Why didn't you win it? And why did they win it?

Robert Craven  11:11

Well, the answer is because you cause you ask a client, don't you when you don't win something, particularly one where you're convinced that you're going to win it? Yeah. You ask them to say, oh, you know, I'm not being funny. But could you give me some constructive feedback? Why? You know, I was a bit surprised, actually, because, you know, I thought we were in a good position. And they said, Oh, well, it was torturous. You use your random such a close second. And that's the other thing I hate coming second, because they just tell me, I wasn't anywhere near. They said, they presented examples of exactly what the sort of thing we were looking for. And even though this agency had no, you know, experience in travel, and tourism, they were all tech, IT and stuff. They had done something which they were able to kind of transpose and say, Yeah, that's the kind of thing we're looking for. So I, I'm sort of like, I'm still struggling to get inside their head and figure out what was that thing, even though they had no experience in the sector? And no brand expertise. And it just felt very, very odd to me. So as I say, you know, I'm sanguine about these things, because I just think, even when you think you've ticked all the right boxes, you've got on well, you've done great work. There are just other things that you're out of your control.

Janusz Stabik  12:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've got to think I think, as an agency, about our return on investment on the time that we're putting into pitch, you know, it's the, if we're going to spend a couple of days putting the proposal together, that's a big investment of of time, you know, would it be better, and we don't want to do that. If we did that five or six times, you know, 10 days or a couple of weeks lost it, and they raise a huge cost. And we have the opportunity cost as well of doing that or not doing the stuff, you know, if we're going to win it and a stripe, let's try and win it. Let's do everything. I think I read, I'm not sure if it's a win without pitching. But an analogy of one of the, one of the big agencies, you know, big global agencies, and I think they win three clients a year, and they pitch with three clients a year, and each client is worth 10 million quid and they spend the agency spends 2 million quid on the pitch. And they rent a theater in the West End, and they almost put a, you know, a Cirque du Soleil type production to win the client, but they're like, you know, we went 100% the value of these projects is worthwhile going forward. And if we're going to win it, let's do everything that we can to win it. Let's not leave a stone unturned or anything to chance, you know?

Robert Craven  13:47

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I totally agree with the sentiment, you know, if you're going to do it, do it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't sit on the fence and, you know, casually sling your hat in the ring and say, well, we'll go and then I think you need to be selective. You do have to choose, you know, because there are certain criteria that I always look for, you know, if somebody just sends an email, which is clearly, you know, your names wrong, and there's a kind of procurement type kind of vibe to it, you know, it's like, yeah, I'm not really interested. If somebody's taken the time to call you or send an email to say, look, I'm interested in what you guys have done for x. Maybe, you know, how can you help us? If you're entering into a dialogue? Then yeah, it's probably worth doing and I, I think I've told you this before, but unless I can speak to the chief exec. I won't pitch because, you know, ultimately, that the decision maker will be, you know, who is the decision maker? Almost certainly not the person who's contacted you. Yeah. Yeah, all right, find three agencies or.

Janusz Stabik  13:49

Yeah, we have a questionnaire that we give some of our clients on that basis because we have these, these gut feelings that we have about whether we should go for them or not. And, you know, this questionnaire goes through, have you got a relationship with the client? already? Have they told you what the budget is? Are there more than three agencies pitching? Have you been given the opportunity to feed into, you know, all these questions, you can score positive or negative based on these questions. And the result of it is, if it's, if it's positive, and a strong positive, absolutely. Go for it, you know, with a really high chance of winning. But if it's negative, and you know, the more negative the number is, you know, the, the stronger the signal is that you shouldn't go towards it. And when we use it with clients, actually 60 or 70% of the, you know, the leads that we get through the door, present a negative number, you know, there's so many of those signals those criteria that are just missing, that, you know, like, you're saying, let's be selective, and if this is a one in five, or if it's, if it's five agencies pitching, and it's one in five, you know, two or three of them are probably going to be presenting some creative and going to hell for leather around it anyway. So it's not wanting five, it's probably one in 12. For you. So let's just go for the elephants, it's good for the big ones.

Robert Craven  16:20

Yeah, definitely. I think we were inverted people, places agency, you know, almost every time you know, because we're in a service industry. And when presenting, whether it's creative technical work, you want to be light. So when somebody says, you know, we're interested in you, the natural reaction is to go great, you're full of yourself to do work. And I think that's a bit of a mistake, I think you have to treat it more like a poker hand, and just say, Okay, what cards I'm holding, what, who, you know, what are the what, who else is around the table? You know, and as you say, ask those questions and be discerning. Yeah, yeah. Difference, and will certainly improve your win rate.

Janusz Stabik  17:02

Yeah. You mentioned at the start, actually, about chemistry and how important that is between, we had good chemistry, and we walked in, I think, and we made the people we're pitching to feel it feel at ease. Why is that? Why is that important? You know, what does that do to the left side of the table? People by

Robert Craven  17:22

people, don't they? That's a cliche, but it's true. I think, you know, you walk in, you meet someone, you like them, you want to do business with them. I think, so often the case that you retrofit your rationale for choosing somebody because you like them. You know, as that John Simmons quote, really the head, you know, the heart decides the head merely confirms you just see someone, you kind of go, Oh, I like them, I can get on with them. I can see myself working with them. And so everything that goes on in the brain after that is how can I...

Janusz Stabik  17:58

Justify almost just.

Robert Craven  18:00

Engineer, everything I do, whether it's the questions I asked, or the situations I put you in, you know, to make me feel like I've made the right decision.

Janusz Stabik  18:09

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, when I, when I first started my agency, I was terrible at that, you know, I wanted to be the, initially the master of my own destiny, I didn't trust any of my team to pitch with me, you know, I wanted it to be all about me, and didn't have a very good win rate. And then I realized that I came to the conclusion that it wasn't all about me. And then I needed the team there. But we had quite a junior team. And, you know, in the first year or so. So I ended up taking some junior members of the team and not realizing, actually, that we need to practice, you know, we need to get comfortable, who's saying what he's not saying? What do I feel that they're experienced enough to be stood in front of, you know, this, this team of Finance Directors and marketing director and be pitching to them and actually, you know, pitching with somebody that senior because I also pitched with some bigger agencies, as a partner as part of their pitch team, you know, and they had the top level 180 people, agencies, they had client services director, the director, the strategy director, the Business Development Director, the MD, an account manager, the chief designer, and the head of UX and the CTO in a room for two days, you know, getting comfortable with that pitching process, and then comparing it to my agency. And it was, you know, at the time it was, it was me and a couple of juniors and if that's if that's what we're up against, you know, in the race not going to be not going to be very successful.

Robert Craven  19:37

Yeah, I think it's the difference between a hobby and a professional, isn't it? Yeah, you've got people who are taking it super seriously. Yeah, of course, the downside, and I think what clients are savvy to is that, yeah, of course, you're a big agency, and you've got a pitching team, who are eloquent, you know, highly versed in the process of communication and persuasion. But these are not the people that are going to work on your project. Uh, so you know, there's a kind of a plus and a minus there. And I think you have to play to your strengths. And you know, you may walk in with a junior team, and you'll go and I do this, I have people, you know, and I put them on the front line with clients. And I say, Look, this is not going to be polished, but these are the people who are doing the work. And they're honest, they have integrity, and they're good at their job, you know?

Janusz Stabik  20:22

Yeah. But I think that's 50/50. I think that splits the room, in that. Some clients want the suited and booted C suite sit in front of them and their pitches.

Robert Craven  20:36

You always know those people because they're not entrepreneurial. They're sort of political animals. They're people who are just thinking I'm here for two years as Chief Marketing. And then my next gig is going to be at x. Brand. Yeah. And that, whereas, and that's another distinction we always make. When we're looking at pitching, I actually want to talk. That's why I like to talk to the CEO because he cares about the bottom line.  Whereas you talked to a marketing officer or something like that. Not always, but quite frequently. They're looking for a badge of honor, you know, they want to work, as you say, with the suited and booted frosh agency to be taken to lunch and all that.

Janusz Stabik  21:17

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Get the decision makers in their own. Right, John, one more, one more question for you, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Now. And I'm going to talk a bit to give you a couple of seconds to think about it. What's your advice? You know, if we're talking about increasing a pitch, win rate, you know, what's the silver bullet? What's the what's the one thing I'm not saying? It's a silver bullet, actually. But what's the one thing you should try and do if you wanted to win more pitches? What's the most important thing that our audience can be doing to increase their pitch win rate?

Robert Craven  21:53

My conclusion on that? That's quite an easy one to answer actually, because it's, you know, I've spent 21 years trying to figure it out. And I'm still working on it. You know, don't take this as for granted, but I think Blair ends has he's onto something to some degree, which is that we specialize in travel and tourism. So when we walk into the room and talk to a client, not only are we able to do the brand, the digital, you know, all the technical stuff that they want, we bring with us another layer of value, which is that we also understand your industry. So the stuff we understand around the context of what we're doing, which is a level greater than anyone else. So when we come in, and we talk your language, and we understand the intricacies of the project, you know, it demonstrates a sort of sophistication and added value, which is hard to ignore.

Janusz Stabik  22:47

I'm so glad you said it. And the other agency that we used to pitch with an agency called sift digital, remember a guy called Nick door day. And I'm speaking to him about this recently, we had 100% win rate as well, for very similar reasons. So they were focused on the third sector, so kind of charities and NGOs and membership organizations. Same sort of thing we went before we got in the room, you know, the coffee beforehand, the questions you ask, right, as a specialist agency, only somebody who is has the experience and the competence within the domain of the client is able to ask the questions, you know, like, hey, it's November, you're going into peak campaign season, you know, is your is your average donation, still 15 pounds and 67 Pence as it as it, you know, you're now at a different level, you know, you know, everybody else can do the digital marketing or whatever the thing is, but hey, this, you understand my businesses, as well as I do with as a client.

Robert Craven  23:56

That's absolutely the primary thing, you still have to do great, you know, fabulous creative work. Yeah. You know, human beings and emotions and all of that. But if you can combine those two things, that that deep sector knowledge with great creative, and be a nice person,

Janusz Stabik  24:16

And be a nice person, as well, but I think two things happened, right. I think there's always a fear with clients that if we specialize, if we become niche, we miss out on all this other stuff. What happens is you attract, you know, more of the leads that are right for you, you know, more more of these that are right for you, when you've exhausted that or exhausted that market and you've saturated that, especially this market, then come back to us and say, Okay, there's no more growth opportunities, please.

Robert Craven  24:42

And of course, because markets are huge, absolutely huge. You know, if you go the broader it gets

Janusz Stabik  24:49

Yeah. And there's no other agencies actually that focus on it initially. So you get more leads. You walk into the room, you're more likely to convert them to win rate is higher, because of its deep domain expertise. And as a client, I'm more likely to pay more for that service because there's value in the knowledge that you have 100% No brainer. John, it's been lovely speaking with you, I think what we have said, we've said, spend the time, if you're gonna go for it, go for it, you know, do spec work, if you can't beat them, join them. Have an awesome pitch team, make sure the camera you know, make sure you just have good people in the room. And the chemistry is good. The more naturally positioned you are, the more likely you are to win and try and get 21 years of experience behind you because that helps to. Absolutely. John, thank you so much for giving, giving us your time today. It's been great speaking with you. I think hopefully we've helped a few agencies with that pitching process and increasing the win rate.

Robert Craven  25:57

I hope so. Yeah. Good to talk to you…