When you make the CEO look good, you end up looking pretty good yourself.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Everybody who’s worked on more than a few pitches or at multiple agencies has his or her favorite CEO horror story to tell. Mine happened quite a few years ago. The pitch was in the bag, we were told; higher-ups at both client and agency had long-standing relationships, and the pitch was more a formality than a real competition.
The instructions, however, were firm. Each pitch had exactly two hours, because the agencies were lined up to present like 737s waiting to take off at dawn from LaGuardia, and all presentations were to be held on a single day.
The agency CEO’s ‘brief opening remarks’ ended up taking a full 48 minutes (I counted). Feverishly improvising, dropping slides left and right, the rest of the team struggled to trim the pitch on the fly but still hadn’t finished when the client called, “Time.” It took a full year to repair the damage and finally win the account.
Don’t blame the CEO. These are people with many, many responsibilities, precious little time, and typically a thick wall of insulation from useful feedback: many underlings are too afraid of them to level with them. But that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. So it’s useful to anticipate what’s likely to go wrong with the CEO’s part of the pitch, and preempt it to help him or her make a great impression.
Here are some of the most common ‘boss’ problems at pitches—and how to keep them from happening.
Missing in action. No client thinks it’s too small to deserve top-tier attention… and a missing CEO at a pitch telegraphs that they’re never going to get the attention they feel is owed them. Almost as awkward is the CEO ‘fly-by’, where Mr. or Ms. Big greets the client, mumbles the opening remarks, and vanishes to what is obviously more important business. Yes, everyone knows the CEO is unlikely to play a key role on the team. They know how busy the job can be. But if the pitch isn’t worth the boss’s time, don’t waste your client’s time—or your own—by staying in it. You’ll be hard pressed to win.
Brief top execs on what to avoid. CEOs don’t have time to dig deep into prospective clients’ businesses. When you meet to prep the boss, start by reviewing what the team has learned doesn’t work in marketing the client’s product. That will pre-empt on-the-spot ‘brilliant ideas’ (sarcasm intended) that can erupt spontaneously from those with large egos and can doom the credibility of your pitch.
Help the CEO’s section be about the client, not about him/herself. Most CEOs are justifiably proud of the firms they’ve created through their sweat and toil… and eager to talk at length about them to anyone who’ll listen. What prospective clients want to learn, though, is “what’s in it for me?” (the WIIFM principle). Chances are good that you and your teammates are closer to the clients’ interests and needs than your CEO, so help him or her judiciously select which agency features are most relevant and compelling. In some pitches, the CEO can introduce the agency through a series of statements addressing client interests: “You told us you’re looking for category experience… that’s why we’ve hand-picked this team, with great experience in (etc.)”.This keeps everyone focused and grounded.
Help the CEO be visual—and visionary. Few CEOs (other than Steve Jobs) are adept with slideware, so their visual aids are often dotted with bullet points and dense text. Yet the CEO’s role in an agency is usually to inspire and guide, not to lecture. Assign your best visual thinker to work closely with the CEO so that the slides or boards used in this section of the presentation are the most powerfully visual of all of yours (except perhaps for the creative recommendations). Never, ever, allow the CEO to use canned clip art or other shortcuts that make his visuals look like something the client could do. If you can’t make your own CEO look fantastic with visual aids, how on Earth will you be able to make the client’s product look great?
Make the CEO rehearse with the team. At least urge the CEO to rehearse his or her opening remarks… and, ideally, with an outsider who can coach the pitch presentation without bias. Most CEOs talk too fast. Some unintentionally talk down to their audiences. Few tell enough engaging stories with interesting (and credibility-enhancing) specifics; many are addicted to fuzzy and unconvincing business-speak (“leveraging the opportunity”, “out-of-the-box thinking”, and other cliches.) A little coaching can make a huge difference in winning the pitch. And even if said CEO dashes from the rehearsal before anyone else speaks, you’ll still have a better idea what’s going to be said, and how to adapt to it.
Make the CEO proud of you. There’s nothing quite like the sincere admiration of an industry heavyweight to inspire confidence—not just in you and your team, but in your prospective client that you’re the right team for the task. Find out (ask!) your CEO what would make him or her most proud of the team in the pitch, and make sure you do whatever it is beautifully. Unearth the boss’s most urgent interests, needs, and concerns—and answer them. Because whenever you make a pitch when the boss is in the room, you’re not just pitching new business: you’re pitching yourself, and your promotability.
