At upriseUP, we welcome the opportunity to pitch for new business. However, completing the processes to our own very high standards typically results in significant costs to our business.
To streamlining the process we apply a filter to new business invitations. This is to ensure that we can continue to keep overheads down and that we aren’t distracted from what matters most, fantastic work for existing clients.
Factors that we consider before accepting an invitation to tender are:
- We ask for our Terms and Conditions and Service Level Agreements to be read and approved before starting a pitch process.
- If a considerable amount of work is required for the pitch process we may request a ‘pitch fee’.
- There may be too many competing agencies. We are very transparent and have a great deal of information about who we are, what services we deliver, client testimonials, details of awards, the results we achieve and how we work on our website. This is supported by an extensive array of blogs, service pages, vlogs, procedural infographics, the whole gambit. Our belief is that if clients still want more than 3 companies to pitch, they might not be clear about they type of solution they are looking for. As such, joining the pitch process at that stage wouldn’t be an effective use of or time. If clients are looking for an initial conversation to understand the types of services more – or to run through what problem they are experiencing then we are more than happy to jump on a call as an initial step.
- There may already be a competing agency that has a favourable relationship with the client, like the incumbent agency. We may respectful turn down an opportunity to pitch if we feel like our role would be to make up the numbers for a procurement process.
- We would usually request a needs assessment meeting with the key decision makers of any organisation to be able to fully understand the requirements and to judge if both organisations believe the other to be a good cultural fit before committing to a sizeable pitch process.
- We need a full brief before preparing for a pitch. We are often asked to prepare a menu of options. Actually relating different media channels to one organisation takes a great deal of effort and so we are only able to do so for the services we think appropriate. And to do that we need a clear brief! An extensive menu of our services can be found on our website – and we would be happy to give an initial indication of costs for these services in an initial conversation.
- We need to have a clear budget for any work we are being asked to pitch for.
- We need to be satisfied that the amount of work required to pitch is realistic against the size of the job. For example, a pitch request that would take 10 working days when actually the amount of work we would win would only be 20 working days in total would not make business sense for us.
- We may turn down the opportunity to pitch if we believe that the scope of work is too large for our agency. To ensure that we don’t get distracted from our regular clients and that the business isn’t destabilised by giant client requests, we are unable to accept commissions that would amount to more than 20% of our total company revenue.
- We may turn down the opportunity to pitch if we believe that the scope of work is too small for our agency. For example, there is little point in paying us a £700 fee for media placement when the total project budget is only £800. The amount of media spend left available (£100) would not justify our fee (despite how good we are!)
- We don’t enter any pitch process where any questions must be addressed to the client in an email and that all other pitching agencies would also receive the question – and the answer. We don’t believe in surprising clients in a pitch, we believe in keeping in touch to make sure that our ideas are aligned with their requirements. And we don’t intend to share these understandings with competing agencies before a pitch.
- We need a jar of M&Ms at any pitch or chemistry meeting with all of the blue ones taken out. (Just joking!)
We hope you don’t see this statement as indicating unhelpful or arrogant intent. We genuinely welcome the opportunity to work with new organisations, it is just that the most important thing for us is to continue to do excellent work for existing clients. We believe that asserting these requirements on new business helps us to do that.
