Leveraging Existing Networks to Strengthen Your B2B Pipeline with Emma Thwaite

Mike (00:31.178)
Emma, thanks ever so much for joining me on Hegel, the B2B Sales Club podcast. It's great to have you.

Emma (00:36.302)
Lovely to be here, thanks for the invite Mike.

Mike (00:38.57)
It's a pleasure. We've known each other for quite a while now. We're always talking about bits of new business development and how it works. This should be a fascinating conversation.

Emma (00:47.31)
Yeah, it's good to catch up again. I know we talk a lot in our own Pimlico group about new business marketing and how we deliver for clients. Yeah, it's good to talk in more depth. I'm excited about it.

Mike (00:53.418)
Yes.

Mike (00:57.354)
Great. So before we kick off for the people listening, just describe kind of who you are, kind of what you do and something unusual about yourself.

Emma (01:06.19)
Cool. So my name's Emma, Emma Thwait and I run a consultancy called Beckon. It's been going for the last three years. My specialist area, I suppose, is new business and marketing. So I've been doing new business for about 25 years. I've worked in large network agencies, independent creative agencies, independent media agencies. And my consultancy is around drawing the right type of clients to agencies.

and supporting them through that new business growth period. Something interesting or interesting or exciting about me, if I wasn't doing this, I would definitely be in a little small holding in sort of Wales, probably with a few pigs, couple of horses, a couple of sheep. So my heart really lies in the countryside and growing things. So although I'm doing new business with agencies, which is still kind of growing things, that's where I would be if I wasn't in this corporate world.

Mike (02:04.042)
Fascinating just have interest to kind of why is there a background there or?

Emma (02:09.07)
Yeah, I think we've always had them. When I was growing up, my mum would always have various different animals around. It was a bit of a dural kind of household, pigs and sheep and that sort of stuff. And I had a horse and yeah, so not very privileged background, but we always had animals running around. And so it was really a great time, a great childhood.

Mike (02:18.346)
Right.

Mike (02:27.434)
Sounds lovely. Yeah, and going back to that would be fantastic. So to get there, let's start off with some questions. So let's just talk first of all about how do you build long -term client relationships and trust before getting into a pitch process? What does that look like? And why is it so important?

Emma (02:35.626)
Thank you.

Emma (02:44.334)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (02:49.518)
Yeah, for me, it's the fundamentals of new business growth really for many agencies. And I think it's the one thing that agencies feel sometimes that they can outsource and give to a consultancy that promises them the earth and promising lots of credential meetings, but doesn't really spend the time and effort that they need to in building that long term pipeline. So yeah, for me, building that trust is about first of all,

understanding who the right type of client is for you, making them acknowledge that you exist, telling them why they should be interested in you, building the trust between you and your people and your work and sharing everything that you do with them. And then getting that sort of level of engagement so that you become a trusted partner that when they have the right brief for you, you're top of the list and you've already built that long -term relationship.

So for me, that's what new business is truly about. Of course we have the tactical pitch opportunities arise. But for me, building the relationship prior to pitching and having that sort of six to nine month lead up to a pitch is so important because it puts you in the front running, I believe, when they do come to pitch.

Mike (04:04.65)
Definitely. And again, like you, I talked to a lot of agency leaders. I'm always trying to build kind of longer term relationships. I was on an email chain this morning doing exactly that with someone I don't know, but I know of them. And we've said, let's just go for a coffee and have a chat. But what I see a lot of agencies talking about is, well, what about cold calling? And should I be doing LinkedIn outreach in the thousands? And isn't that a quicker way of getting business?

Emma (04:22.19)
Yeah.

Emma (04:28.558)
Yeah.

Mike (04:34.635)
I can't afford to wait and I can't afford to wait and build relationships. How do you have that conversation with an agency to calm the mind and the anxiety of my pipelines looking thin?

Emma (04:38.382)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (04:44.142)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (04:47.918)
Yeah. Well, I think the place that we start is that you already have a pipeline, even though you don't think you have one. You think you should turn to the cold outreach. You already have a lot of trusted partner agencies. You have a trusted media owners. You have past clients. You have people that you're connected to on LinkedIn. You have pictures that you've come a close second in or you've lost and you want to revisit. So you've already got a pipeline. You just haven't organized it in the correct way.

So one of the first jobs that we do when we go into an agency is we uncover all of those opportunities really. We are pulling up rocks to see what is the past relationship you might have had with a client two, three years ago and you haven't spoken to them for a while or you haven't told them about a new piece of work or a new team that you might have hired or a new piece of tech you might be doing. So you've already got a pipeline.

It's about organizing that into a more of a weighted pipeline to see which ones are the right ones to be chasing. And then you layer on. So new business is like, it's like an onion, really. You've got the outer layers, which are the broadcast, which is the sectors that you want to go after that are spending the right type of.

money that are active in the right type of areas for you that know nothing about you. So you have to raise awareness and start talking to them. And that's where the cold outreach, I suppose, comes in. Less of the cold calling, but more of the cold outreach on raising awareness, inviting them to events, sharing your latest work. And then for me, the next layer in is that narrow cast, the 10 clients that you're close to in some sort of way.

and you want to become truly obsessed by and make sure that you have that bespoke one -to -one conversations with them. And then the right at the inner layer is your ecosystem and people you already know, that already trust you and that will care about what you're doing. And it's about pinpointing them as well. And we class those as super referrers. And we also class them as, you know, lapsed, lost and LinkedIn, which is the three main buckets that we go after. So, yeah.

Mike (06:34.314)
Yeah, yeah.

Emma (06:48.59)
Building a pipeline is definitely not just there's 200 targets, let's cold call them or let's send them a random email. It is really about what you're saying, who you're saying it to, what's the value proposition you're trying to get across and also what's the value exchange between you and that individual. So it's not about, hi, I'm from this agency, we do this, can we come and see you? It's very much about

Mike (07:08.074)
Exactly.

Emma (07:14.222)
Hello, I know what you do. I'm interested in how your business model works. We think we've got something relevant to you because of this, this and this. So it's bringing clients, drawing clients to you, which is my mantra.

Mike (07:25.226)
I think that certainly rings true for me. I was talking to someone last week, I think it was Kevin Hoppe, I think it was, and he was saying, look, take the 200 list. You've got 200 potential clients that are in your ICP, but they've never heard of you and you haven't spoken to them. At this moment, I think Marcus Kauke says the same, they don't need you right now. If they needed you right now, they'd have either found a way of contacting you,

Emma (07:49.742)
Now

Mike (07:54.73)
or you just wouldn't be on their radar and you wouldn't get access to the opportunity. So the very idea that you're going to cold call your way into an instant opportunity is a bit ludicrous really, because the timing's wrong. So you've got to find a way in to build a relationship.

Emma (07:54.958)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (07:59.054)
Yeah.

Emma (08:03.79)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (08:08.014)
Yeah, the timing's wrong and you're only ever going to really be a filler agency then. You're not really a trusted agency. So you've got to really, a pitch level is really smash it out of the park as it were. You've got to bring them something that they've not seen, heard or done before in order to win out on that one. So yeah, for me, you have to...

Mike (08:24.298)
Yes.

Mike (08:32.234)
Exactly right.

Emma (08:35.406)
Make them aware of what you do. Tell them why they should care about what you do. Explain to them who your people are. Get your people connected with their people. It is, you know, it is a slower burn, but the results are much better.

Mike (08:48.49)
Yeah, definitely. They're much better. They're much higher quality and the results are much better. Definitely. But it takes patience.

Emma (08:51.79)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It does take patience. And I think some business owners, certainly some of the clients that approach us for the consultancy that we deliver, some come to us with, I need to achieve X by Y. And you think, why do you need that?

Is it believable? Have you done that previously in your last year? You know, that those are the business questions that we ask them. And it's just to explain to them, you know, there is no magic.

golden bullet that you can shoot from a cold outreach point of view. There's no magic email that's going to make people say, right, I must, I must appoint you or I must see you. It is a lot of small incremental gains to gain their trust and understand their business issues. I think are the key thing really for me.

Mike (09:25.194)
There isn't.

Mike (09:42.634)
Exactly. And I was talking to a cold outreach person the other day and they said the same. It's like, you know, even on cold outreach where you're, you're, you've got an auto dialer, you've got your list set up and you're hitting the phones. Even then, you know, the, the, I think the current wisdom is more about, well, they don't know who you are. There, there isn't a problem right now. So you've got to find a way of just building a relationship of getting to the point of them saying you're a valuable person to talk to.

Emma (09:51.342)
Yeah. Yeah.

Emma (10:02.478)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (10:07.662)
Yeah.

Mike (10:12.01)
I'll keep in my network and that's probably all you want out of that first initial call is to get to the next call.

Emma (10:12.174)
Yeah. Yeah.

Emma (10:17.454)
Yeah, exactly. And that comes through value exchange. That comes through giving them something valuable. And that could be a report that you might've done. It could be inviting them to a event. It could be inviting them onto your podcast. It could be, you know, lots of different things, but they're the softer elements of, hi, I'd like to meet you. And I'd also like to get a brief from you. You know, it's not going to happen. Yeah.

Mike (10:29.514)
Exactly.

Mike (10:40.714)
Exactly. I mean, I love, I mean, you mentioned podcasts, Emma. I do this because I love the format. I love meeting new people, new agency leaders and having a discussion. I don't do it because, maybe one day, Emerald give me some business. That's not, it's the opposite of why I do it. I do it because I get to have an interesting conversation with people who are in the industry that I work in. And that starts to build a relationship. And then you happen to know people and you bump into someone.

Emma (10:45.582)
Thanks for watching!

Yeah.

Mm.

Emma (10:56.43)
Yeah.

Mm.

Emma (11:02.702)
Yeah, but it exactly that way.

Mike (11:09.738)
who maybe wants a conversation with me.

Emma (11:12.59)
But I think it's that key thing that you just said, you're building relationship with the individuals that cover your podcasts. They're trusting you, they're hearing how you think, what your view of the world is. That's what's really key about forming relationships through a podcast. And that's why it is a useful tool from a new business perspective, creating podcasts. But yeah, it is about long -term strategy and looking to...

build a weighted new business pipeline that can be trusted. I think lots of new business pipelines are very much met them for credentials. They haven't given us a brief, therefore we need to move on and hunt for the next one. It's not about what you have to do between the credentials to the brief. You know, you have several times, you have to give them several reasons to engage with you, talk to you. And I think moving clients along a pipeline and waiting them throughout that.

Mike (11:50.57)
Yes.

Mike (11:55.722)
Exactly.

Emma (12:06.158)
pipeline, giving them the score of where they're at in their own journey is really important.

Mike (12:13.13)
I mean, you mentioned just we'll touch on the credentials piece and then we'll go to the next question that we thought about. If I think about being an ex buyer, if I've given you half an hour, 45 minutes of my time for you to talk through your credentials, I've done that for a very particular reason. It's because I might need you in the future or something like you, or you've got access to knowledge that I don't have that's going to inform me about the next buying decision I make.

Emma (12:17.454)
Yeah.

Emma (12:22.446)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (12:34.542)
Yeah.

Mike (12:41.77)
I wouldn't do that if I didn't think you were worth it. I just wouldn't. Because I get, as an ex -buyer, you get 10 inbound emails, 20 inbound emails a day from potential suppliers. So you pick carefully who you actually have a creds meeting with. So I think that's absolutely right. But if you then have a creds meeting and then vanish and you never talk to me again, well, I'll forget about you.

Emma (12:41.774)
Exactly.

Exactly.

Emma (12:57.581)
Mm -hmm. But then I think...

Emma (13:03.95)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And also what the agencies are trying to do in that credential meeting as well is find out what they need from the buyer. You know, you're asking the buyer key questions that gives you some ammunition for the next meeting.

Yeah.

So you're finding out, you know, what's their personal drivers, what's their drivers in the business, what's their drivers from their particular agency relationship. You know, you're asking all these questions subtly to be able to go, right in two months time, I know that Mike is doing this or, you know, and then you engaging again. So credentials meetings are not a one way street. They should definitely be a two way street. And I think agencies sometimes when they get that credential meeting in the diary, they think God must tell this client as much as I possibly

Mike (13:38.826)
Exactly.

Emma (13:52.88)
can in this 45 minutes about me, but it's not, it's much more about them and you're on a scouting mission to find out how you can maintain the relationship, deepen the relationship and get them to the point of where they're interested in you for a brief or a pitch.

Mike (13:53.514)
Ha ha ha.

Exactly.

Mike (14:10.186)
So a challenge to the audience maybe is if you've got a creds meeting coming up, take six slides for a 45 minute session and have a discussion instead. Do not take your 30 slide deck. I'm not interested.

Emma (14:23.342)
Yeah. And a good friend of ours, David Meikle, obviously taught me years and years ago, you know, what do you want to get out of the conversation, Emma? Go with the objectives you've got for the credential meetings. What do you want to learn? And what do you want the client to think, feel and do after the credential meeting as well? So how do you want them to feel about your agency? What do you want them to think about your agency? And what do you, and ultimately what's, what do you want them to do? You want to give them, give you business.

Yeah.

Mike (14:41.514)
Exactly.

Emma (14:50.222)
But what's the next step and what's the step after that and the step after that?

Mike (14:54.474)
Exactly right. Good. So the next question, how to identify the right clients? So based on agency strengths and client benefits, as opposed to what some agencies would call trophy brands.

Emma (14:57.486)
Yeah.

Emma (15:01.262)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (15:10.67)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we talk to a lot of different agencies, media agencies, creative, design, digital, and our portfolio is made up of lots of different agencies as well. And for us, the most important thing when we start that conversation with the senior leadership team and the agency is understanding what their ideal client is, but also

confirming that through talking to their existing clients. So you can say to me, my ideal client is Airbnb, but then if I speak to all your existing clients and interview them one by one, and they tell me that you do X, Y, Z, that is not relatable to Airbnb, then I would question your logic in picking that as an ideal client. So for me, it's very much about understanding what you offer your clients and then,

Mike (15:54.922)
Yes.

Emma (16:00.75)
authenticating that through the clients that you're talking to as well, to just check that what you feel you offer is right with the existing client portfolio. And yes, of course, sometimes from a new business perspective, you want to move beyond your existing portfolio, you want to go into a different sector, or you want to change what you're offering. But I think your existing clients will always give you that North Star of what you're like as a team, what is so valuable about you that they can't do without.

and what makes the relationship work so well. Those are the things you need to uncover.

And then you take all the information and you map that against the client personas. So, you know, the titles of the clients, how much budget they might have, the sectors they're in, but you can also map it against the much more emotional triggers within a client. You know, do they move every, do they move a job every 18 months? Are they quite maverick in their choices? Do they like to shake things up when they go in? Do they like to be a steady, safe pair of hands? What was their objectives and what's the emotional drivers for them?

Mike (17:00.714)
Exactly.

Emma (17:04.75)
And then out of all of that comes an ideal client persona. And then you map that against the targets that you'll be going after. So it's much more, it's not just finger in the air, here's the five that I want to go after for these reasons and their trophies, but here's believable for me as a business and here's what excites my team and will make us money.

Mike (17:28.874)
I mean, I spoke to Becca from your team a while ago. We had a couple of workshops talking about exactly this for me. So, you know, so who's my ideal client? So, and when we went through the workshop process, you know, it becomes very, very clear, you know, so for example, I've got this thing about, and I have for years, there's a crosshair and the crosshair normally is sector with kind of discipline stroke problem statement. So, you know, for me, I work with agencies over

Emma (17:31.438)
Yeah.

Emma (17:51.118)
Mm -hmm.

Mike (17:57.93)
kind of 50 people up to about 2000 people, their full service agencies and the problems they normally have are around qualifying opportunities, around improving their conversion rates and opportunities and on negotiating more profitable deals. So I've got a problem statement that I solve and I've got a particular type of agency client that I work with and the dynamic of the agency tends to be they're either in growth mode and need more capacity or

they're on a bit of a downwards trend, things aren't going well, and they need to turn things around. And that, just that workshop that we had was like, it was great. Because then it's like, okay, yeah, it's become really clear. I know who the people are, like, typically it's the CEO. You know, why is it the CEO? Well, often because the sales director doesn't want to admit there's a problem. So they'll often be the CEO saying there's a problem, but the sales director's not necessarily open to a discussion at the moment.

Emma (18:36.974)
Yeah. Yeah.

It's C.

Emma (18:53.806)
Identify it. Yeah.

Mike (18:56.234)
And just doing that basic stuff, even the basic stuff I've found is really helpful.

Emma (19:00.398)
Yeah, but then you think about your existing clients as well, and I expect they are quite ambitious and they're always looking for that incremental gain as well. So, you know, you wouldn't, and they are probably not a CEO that's been there for 10, 15 years and is set in their way. So there are elements that you can really identify with your existing clients that you can then mirror into your new targets for new business. And it makes it much more believable.

Mike (19:07.018)
They are. Correct.

Mike (19:15.882)
Exactly.

Emma (19:24.846)
I think for me also, the other thing that we do a lot of at Beckham when we go into agencies for the very first time, and we're starting in that workshop phase, which is getting under their skin and...

Mike (19:24.874)
It does.

Emma (19:34.862)
deciding who they are and what they are offering clients. We asked them to do what we call a superpowers exercise, which is really, you know, what are your superpowers? What is your villains in the market? What's your kryptonite? And I think it's so interesting. A lot of that exercise leads into the type of clients that they're right for, because if they're explaining their superpowers correctly, it should be beautifully mirrored against the right type of clients that they should be talking to in terms of what emotional drivers they have. Yeah.

Mike (20:01.066)
Exactly right.

Emma (20:03.982)
So for me, absolutely, you know, the ideal client is the kind of North Star. It is the foundations in which you build any new business and marketing plan.

Mike (20:04.458)
Definitely.

Mike (20:16.234)
Yeah, agreed. And I think the time it gets really hard practically is when your pipeline is not as good as it should be as an agency, you get an inbound inquiry. It's from a very high profile brand, but you've never had any relationships with them. You don't know who the people are that sent the RFP in or the brief and you're tempted to go for it. And it's nine times out of 10 wrong, I would say. What do you think?

Emma (20:17.934)
Yeah.

Emma (20:28.974)
Yeah.

Emma (20:34.606)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Emma (20:41.838)
Yeah, absolutely.

I agree with you. I think, you know, we mustn't underestimate how difficult it is for leaders of businesses to turn those opportunities down though. But I think I'm very up for exploring those opportunities, but I want to get that client on the phone or in a face -to -face meeting where they're really pre -qualified and you're pre -qualifying them not in terms of how much money you've got to spend and how many agencies you've got on the list. But the question I like to ask is,

Mike (21:02.73)
Exactly.

Emma (21:15.054)
what is not in the brief that I should be aware of? What's driving this inside of the current brief? You know, how, how can, what attracted you to us as an agency? So those are all the questions I ask at pre -qualification stage, because I don't want to just say to business leaders out there, if you don't know them, and they've approached you, that you're on a hiding to nothing and you're going to lose because they might have been looking at you and they might be interested in you.

Mike (21:18.09)
Correct.

Mike (21:24.873)
Yes.

Mike (21:37.098)
No, no.

It's more subtle, isn't it?

Emma (21:42.51)
But yeah, if you ask them, why are we on the list? What attracted you to us? And they have no answer. Then that's a different situation. But if they say, because we know you did it for X or because we know you've had this piece of tech, we'd love to see that impacted on our business. Then you know, there is a predisposition to you and there's an interest in you. So free qualification is absolutely key because the market is difficult at the moment and owners and founders of businesses.

Mike (21:49.45)
Correct.

Mike (22:03.338)
Exactly right.

Emma (22:12.334)
are being tempted a lot, but they need to be tempted with a bit of science behind it and make sure that they're making the right decision for the business by pre -qualifying the lead.

Mike (22:21.546)
Yeah. And again, if they, one of the things I talked to a lot of agencies about it's very basic, but it's a surprising how many it's a, a qualifying question that knocks out quite a lot of random in bounds inquiries is look, if you get an inbound inquiry from a big brand, or even a medium sized brand, and, if they won't give you access to a human being until you get down to the last three and

Emma (22:37.038)
Yeah.

Emma (22:40.75)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (22:48.078)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mike (22:51.786)
It's a brief document and, or it's an RFP, it's a brief, but they won't give you access to a human being and they say, just send us your best proposal. And then if we think it's relevant, then we'll get you through to the last three. I'm like, just don't bid for that. That is a definite no.

Emma (22:53.742)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (23:01.07)
Yeah.

Emma (23:05.198)
Yeah. Just say no. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If you can't get a human being, if you can't get some time with them throughout the pitch process, if they're not happy to engage with you and answer questions, because all of those interactions that you have is going to make your pitch better. And what I tend to say to any client, and that's not the agency, that's client direct, I tend to tell them very early on that the way we work as an agency is this. If we don't get this from you, then we're not working in our...

Mike (23:26.218)
Yeah.

Emma (23:40.302)
best way. So then for we're going to pull back from the pitch process and leave you to it. Because if you're not going to be collaborative, you're not going to be the client that we want to work with at the end of the day and you won't bring out the best in us.

Mike (23:47.082)
Exactly.

Mike (23:53.034)
Now, and look what we talked about at the beginning, the very start of this conversation. It's about building relationships. Well, so you've not heard from this brand before. They don't know any of your people. You don't know any of their people. And they won't let you talk to a human being until you've written a proposal that's going to take you 30 person hours. Well, that's just ludicrous.

Emma (23:57.006)
Yep. Absolutely.

Emma (24:11.374)
Yeah, exactly. And you're giving away your costs because they're bound to be asking for rate cards or cost per person or hourly rates or something. They're benchmarking. Yeah, they're benchmarking. Sorry, I think if clients were more honest in that exercise, I think agencies would be happy and go in with their eyes open and go, fine, I'm happy to benchmark.

Mike (24:17.706)
Exactly, they're benchmarking.

I spoke to someone last week. That's exactly what they were doing.

Mike (24:32.746)
They would. Yeah.

Emma (24:35.662)
I know that you're not really interested in us and I know that you, but they're benchmarking for a reason because there's something going on in that client agency relationship that is not working for them. So if they were just said, you know, I'm interested in what the market looks like at the moment. Will you complete this form? You know, the SLT, the CEO, the new business director can make that decision and complete the form if they think that there is something in it for them. And it might be the start of a long -term relationship rather than thinking.

Mike (24:42.89)
Exactly.

Emma (25:04.622)
the end and the pitch.

Mike (25:06.282)
Exactly. I always say to people, if you're going to turn something down, don't just turn it down. If you've looked at it, you've decided it's not for you, you've run your qualification criteria and your spreadsheet and it's come out with a low score and you say it's not for us. But the way to turn it down is to say, look, we're not going to bid for this one. However, we've got some really interesting insights. We think there's some questions you've not asked. And if you want some, just some benchmark data on a limited basis, we can provide you with certain stuff. But we do think there's a different way of solving this problem.

Would you like a conversation? And if they just ignore you, it was never real in the first place.

Emma (25:36.622)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah, no, I completely agree. I completely agree. And it comes back to the, the much more human on human intellectual relationship, doesn't it? It's much more of a pre -qualified relationship. It's a respectful relationship. And I think that's a key word. I was talking to a client the other day about, a RFP that came in and it's about respect. If they're not giving you the respect to have a conversation with them and answer their questions, then it's not the right relationship to be in for sure. Yeah.

Mike (26:09.898)
Exactly. So let's get on to the last question, which is, so let's assume now that you've built some relationships, it's gone really well, you've had the opportunity to pitch, it is competitive, you've got through to the last three. Now, how do you build a winning pitch team?

Emma (26:18.797)
Yeah.

Emma (26:30.222)
Yeah, I mean, I've worked on lots and lots of pitches in the past and I've done lots of pitch doctoring for our existing clients and other agencies. And I think for me, the key element of building a winning pitch team is two things and two things we've touched on already. Number one is trust. So that team needs to trust each other. And in order to trust each other, they need to have worked with each other and

have time on the brief and time with the client on the brief. And that is one of the most important things because I think a client can really spot an agency team that hasn't had enough time to digest the brief themselves, to work together as a team and to answer the brief. And they can really spot commitment and chemistry, I suppose is what I'm getting back to. So building a winning pitch team is

for the senior leadership team in the business to allow that pitch team to have the space to think about the brief, talk to the client, make sure that they experience the brand, whatever it might be, and really get under the skin of why and what they're doing.

in terms of what they're answering from the brief, but also why is the business asking this brief in the first place? So that's building, that's building successful pitch team for me. And it's a squad. It's, you've got each other's backs. You hold each other up. You know, you are concentrating and listening when your strategy director is delivering the strategy. You're engaged when your trading director is delivering what he or she is going to do on TV. You know.

you are excited about the answer that you're giving back to that client. And that's by building a really close, tight knit trusted squad that likes each other and gets on. Now they don't all have to be the same type of person. That's, I think, where sometimes agencies go wrong is they build a squad team that are all very similar.

Emma (28:30.35)
They need to have differentiation. They need to have their own individual speciality and their own individual kind of personality and view of the world. But when they come together, it is a magical moment of a team that are all pulling in the same direction and delivering a brilliant client answer.

Mike (28:47.274)
Exactly. And I've always thought the pitch lead, whoever the pitch lead is from the agency, their role should be the conductor, not the one man band. There's nothing worse than the one man band show person. And the rest of the team sat there not saying anything. Clients hate it.

Emma (28:53.39)
Yeah. Totally.

Emma (29:01.902)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, because a client when they're doing a pitch, it's A, it's really stressful for the client. You know, they're having to give up lots of time to go through this process when they've got lots of other stuff that they could be doing. They're sitting in front of four or five agencies that they've never really met before. They're trying to build rapport and they're hoping that the client, the agency is going to deliver a brilliant response.

Clients are not willing you to fail. Clients are willing you to succeed. So that's what you've got to have the mindset of when you're going into a pitch. And that pitch owner is absolutely the conductor of the orchestra. They are absolutely letting their team shine for the very right reasons. And they are making sure that the client feels the...

Mike (29:34.346)
Correct.

Emma (29:54.03)
team are delivering as well. So they're monitoring and making sure that the client is at home and engaged and comfortable with the answers that are being articulated in the pitch.

Mike (30:04.586)
Exactly. And there are a couple of things that I know when I've been on the, on the buy side, I've always looked for is, where we've got very particular problems that are very deep rooted, and they're complex. what I was looking for was kind of two things, one, have you got subject matter expert in the room? So have you brought someone that has worked in this domain, solve that problem for other clients? Cause I want to see that you've got that expertise because I'm buying expertise.

Emma (30:10.03)
Mm.

Emma (30:23.95)
Yeah.

Mike (30:34.282)
But what a lot of people, I think, mistake, mistakenly did was they tried to absolutely get the answer there and then to that particular problem. And that's like, that's not what I'm looking for. I need to know you're an expert in your domain, but I want to have a discussion with you. I want to solve a problem interactively. I don't necessarily need a conclusion because things will change anyway, but I want to see your thinking and how you solve problems with me, how you collaborate with me.

Emma (30:34.382)
Yeah.

Emma (30:47.886)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Emma (30:56.334)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think lots of agency leaders and lots of pitch leaders forget that, actually. I think that they go in and say, we must give them the answer. It's all about the answer. And I would say 95 % of the time, it's not about the answer. It's how you feel as a team, how you work together and how you make them feel. Again, it comes back to what I talked about before, which was this, how do you want them to think?

Yeah, it's not a problem.

Emma (31:23.598)
about you when they walk out of the room? How do you want them to feel about you when they walk out of the room? And obviously, what do you want them to do? You want them to appoint you? So if you can think about those three things first, before you put pen to paper on what the answer is for the said brief.

If you can nail those three, that is the jumping off point for the actual pitch presentation itself. And I think years and years ago, I heard a client say to me, actually, Emma, it's not the answer. I'm just asking you to give me hope that there is a better way. And that element of hope is something that we forget in our pitch meetings and our pitch presentations.

Mike (31:43.85)
Exactly.

Emma (32:02.702)
Agencies I've seen win have offered clients the hope that there's a better way, not necessarily the answer, but there is a feeling in the room that you can work together collaboratively to deliver great work and deliver the answer for whatever the client problem was.

Mike (32:20.458)
And I think a couple of things to people that are listening that I just kind of add to that would be go back to when you were kind of 16 or 18 or 21 and you were taking exams. Marks were normally given for yes, the answer counted for something if you're on a science paper. But what they really wanted to see was you're working. Show you're working. So in a pitch, the client wants to see you're working, how you work things out. And secondly, try and make sure there's a whiteboard.

Emma (32:30.318)
Yeah.

Emma (32:39.421)
Yep.

Emma (32:45.71)
Yeah.

Mike (32:49.834)
or a flip chart in the room when you pitch, because then you can show them. You can start to draw diagrams. You can start to engage with them. The best piece of business we ever won when I was at KPMG, we used to pitch big pieces of business, multi -million dollar contracts. And we did it using brown paper on a wall, slides stuck to the brown paper, chairs moved out of the room when we could control the environment and have clients walk around the room with us. We give them all pens.

Emma (32:52.366)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (33:05.038)
Mm -hmm.

Emma (33:16.334)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Mike (33:19.69)
We'd give them all post -its and the conductor, the pitch lead would walk around the room and you'd get people writing comments and you'd walk backwards and forwards and it's a very well structured room. That's so engaging because it's a collaborative way of solving problems.

Emma (33:25.038)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yes.

It is a collaborative way of solving problems, but I think, I think that many pitch leaders, it's about confidence as well. So sometimes agencies don't feel that confident and believe in themselves as much as they should do to be able to do that interactivity. And I think, yeah, all of the agencies that I work with, it's about, you know, if you've got two hours, I don't need 80 slides. You need 30 slides and some really good conversation and some really good points where you ask them their opinion.

Mike (33:50.954)
Exactly.

Mike (33:58.218)
No.

Emma (34:04.91)
You know, they want to be heard. They want to engage with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (34:07.818)
They do. And what have they tried? What have they tried that's not worked? What have they tried that's worked? Why on earth are we all here in the room? We're here because something isn't working as well as you wanted or something has stopped working. Well, let's work out what you've tried and let's work out what we've tried and let's see if there's a new way forward.

Emma (34:27.406)
Yeah, comes back to the hope. They're just asking for hope that there's a better way. They don't need you to solve the problem. They just want to make sure that there's a team of people out there that can look at it differently and can uncover some new insights and deliver on the brief. So yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think, you know, make sure you've got strong characters in the room to go back to the question about what builds a winning pitch team.

Mike (34:29.674)
Exactly.

Mike (34:38.794)
Exactly.

Emma (34:51.854)
Strong characters, but by strong characters, I'm not talking about loud, I'm talking about strength and speciality, which is what you talked about, and make sure that they've got different roles to play. Who is the strategist? Who is the scientist? Who is the delivery person? The clients need to, in their mind, identify their team in the team that you are putting in front of them. So don't make it hard.

Mike (35:15.786)
Exactly.

Emma (35:16.558)
them don't have all business directors and them not know who their point person is don't have four strategists and then you don't know who the strategic lead is and these are the questions and these are the problems sometimes agencies do is that they confuse the client by bringing too many people into the room or the people that are in the room don't have clear roles.

Mike (35:35.754)
Exactly. Absolutely right. On that point, Amr, I think that's a great place to finish. Amr, it's been amazing. Thank you, Eversmutz, for spending some time with us today.

Emma (35:40.718)
Perfect. No, thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks very much.

Mike (35:46.698)
Where can people find out more about you and more about Beckham?

Emma (35:50.542)
So you can find me on LinkedIn, emethwaite, and also you can find us at beckon, which is wearebeckon .com. And yeah, open to a conversation, so please drop us a line.

Mike (36:01.514)
Very good. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Emma (36:03.79)
Thank you.

Mike (36:05.482)
Right, let me just stop the recording and make sure that it...