Tips on the Retender Process and Sustaining Agency-Client Relationships with David Miller

Mike (00:35.654)
David, thanks ever so much for joining me on Hegel, the B2B sales podcast. It's great to have you.

David (00:48.1)
Oh, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Mike (00:51.078)
So David, without further ado, tell our guests who you are, what you do and something unusual about yourself.

David (00:57.54)
Gosh, okay, well, let me start with who I am first to give you permission for my strange story. So I'm David Miller. I'm Chief Executive of Redbrick Road. We are a strategic and creative agency based in London. I'd like to think with ideas that travel globally for our clients. And I've always worked within advertising and marketing. So I started out as a graduate with Ogilvy, one of the best places to learn. We might talk about that later.

Mike (01:23.43)
Amazing, yep.

David (01:24.516)
and worked with Ogilvy both in the UK and also out in Asia. So I worked for them in Kuala Lumpur and ran some business across Southeast Asia. And I have been lucky enough to be my own boss for, gosh, 16 years now, I think it is. So I joined Redbrick Road kind of two years into its inception. And a couple of years later, I kind of ultimately did a management buyout of the agency with some

Mike (01:38.662)
Wow.

David (01:53.86)
So I have worked for networks, I have worked for independents and I have run my own independent now with colleagues for 16 years.

Mike (02:02.982)
Congratulations. And I know just how hard that is as well, is building an agency from a base to where you are now and sustaining that effort is not easy.

David (02:11.844)
Listen, luckily we had L 'Oreal as a client for many years. So my youthful good looks, I definitely put down to lots of L 'Oreal products because my age is you running your own business inside, but yes.

Mike (02:22.79)
Exactly. And something unusual about yourself.

David (02:26.532)
Well, listen, I think people who know me are never surprised by this slightly random fact because I am a performer at varying degrees. And as a child, I was a stage school obsessive. I went to kind of acting classes, ended up kind of on Brookside, probably more than I probably should have done. And so I'm a secret Scouser, as you can probably not tell from my accent. And...

Mike (02:52.55)
can't actually know.

David (02:55.236)
Yes, I kind of did lots of extra work and popped up in Brookside and films and the like when I was a kid, before I realised that actually I was too tall for the first time and probably only time in my life and didn't get a part because I was too tall. So at that point I decided, no, this isn't the job for me. I need more control. So I moved into the world of marketing and advertising.

Mike (03:15.014)
Exactly.

Mike (03:19.238)
Very good. Thanks. And do you still act now or not?

David (03:21.892)
No, sadly not. Although, you know, is everyday a performance? I don't know. Maybe it is. Well, I think the answer is undoubtedly yes to that. Whether it's an accurate performance or a kind of over the top one, we shall maybe talk about later.

Mike (03:26.918)
Well, I was going to say, is every pitch a performance? Maybe. Maybe.

Exactly.

Mike (03:39.366)
We will. Okay, so let's get into the questions. So as the incumbent agency, so when you're the incumbent agency, when a repitch or tender comes up, what are the key themes and conditions that secure your position as the reappointed agency?

David (03:58.116)
Wow, it's a big question, isn't it? I think there's an analogy that I was kind of chewing over in my mind a little bit about this, which is, and it depends on context, right? Because, again, we'll maybe talk about this, but to what extent is this a retender that's through, because of a statutory requirement, or is it a repitch or a retender kind of through duress and maybe through circumstance that maybe isn't as objective?

Mike (03:59.718)
It is. It is.

Mike (04:18.438)
Mm -hmm.

Mike (04:24.55)
Yeah.

David (04:27.78)
And I suppose that so the analogy is then around your mortgage. And when you have a mortgage, obviously you go into your mortgage relationship for a period of time. And then at the end, do you switch? You know, it does depend on so many different matters, you know. And often, the easiest thing to do is to stay where you are. But there's always the option to move elsewhere. And I think that's where it's, I think, as the incumbent.

Mike (04:31.59)
Right.

David (04:57.156)
really important for you to have a really good sense of what are the kind of conditions that have led to this retender or repitch situation. Is it that you've got a delighted set of clients, your work is flying, but you know, as a matter of course, they need to check every three years, five years, whatever it might be. Yep, good governance. Or actually, have you dropped some balls? Have you dropped lots of balls? And actually,

Mike (05:05.318)
Exactly right.

Mike (05:15.686)
Yeah, it's good governance.

Mike (05:23.622)
Yes.

David (05:25.316)
are you in a very precarious place? And again, you know, I think we can all relate to whether it's a bank or a mortgage to what's the customer service been like? What's the pricing like? What am I hearing my mates say that they're getting from their bank or building society? You know, and, you know, the grass is always greener, it would appear. As an incumbent, you've really got to work out how firm is the ground.

Mike (05:39.398)
Exactly.

Mike (05:45.734)
Yep.

Mike (05:51.558)
And I think also David, and we can come back to this, what happens, let's say you're working for a brand director or the CMO, what happens when that stakeholder moves and someone else comes in?

David (06:03.716)
I think that's typically in the scenario where it's not a contractual kind of, you know, governance led, uh, returnable pitch. It is, I would, in my personal experience, 10 out of 10 times that is due to a personal change. It's either somebody leaving or somebody joining. They may or may not be the same thing. It may be the revolving CMO chair. Um, you know, I think data changes on this. Is it every three years? Is it five years? Is it, is it, I think I read something recently that's every two years.

Mike (06:10.726)
Yep.

Mike (06:18.662)
Yes.

Mike (06:25.638)
Yep.

David (06:33.636)
is the average tenure of a CMO. And I think that's where for an agency, you've really got to make sure you're consciously, carefully mapping relationships with every client you have throughout their organization. Because yes, kind of senior change often creates these situations. But actually, as an incumbent, if you have got really, really deep, valuable, respected relationships,

Mike (06:46.246)
Yes.

David (07:01.668)
from junior to senior within an organization, you may have a new senior person who comes in who actually does listen to what their team say about the incumbent. And in that instance, you may be a critical part of the business that actually is too sticky, too valuable to consider changing. And that becomes a huge advantage then for you as an agency if you're the incumbent.

Mike (07:26.022)
So let's just say we haven't had a change of CMO and it's a governance issue and the work has been very good, but there's been a few hiccups because there always are, there's always bumps in the road and it goes out to retender. When you're doing your planning for that kind of retender process and it's normally driven or run through procurement, if it's a big client, what are you doing to make sure that...

your win probability as high as it can be. And the data that we've seen, and I look at quite a lot of different reports and they all seem to coincide with, approximately, assuming that you've done good work and that it's not a big change of CMO, the incumbent wins over 60 % of those repitches. Now, there's a reason for that. That's not just...

good luck and it isn't just the brands going, oh, well, it was all fine. Let's just get a better price. There's good reasons why the incumbent gets reappointed. So don't just talk through what you think the characteristics are, where you go. We should absolutely be reappointed.

David (08:39.62)
Yeah, there's a number of things there. I think, um...

I think there's an analogy of a trust piggy bank that I was taught years ago. And you know, every, every relationship that you have, personal, professional, you're constantly putting kind of like coins in the piggy bank for kind of building trust. Typically, one mistake, often, you know, it can be big or small and the piggy bank bursts and you actually go down to zero. So in this scenario, you've said though, it sounds like the piggy bank is maybe half full rather than entirely.

Mike (08:48.358)
Right.

Mike (08:57.958)
Yes.

Mike (09:11.366)
Yes.

David (09:11.941)
a couple of mistakes, but actually everything's applied well. I think as the incumbent, there's a double -edged sword of you have both a huge opportunity and a huge liability risk, because as soon as you know that there's going to be a retender or a repitch, it starts for me. The process of the retender starts immediately. And you should know, unless it's a terrible relationship, and this is not that, you should know about the retender.

Mike (09:13.958)
Exactly. Good analogy.

Mike (09:38.022)
Yeah.

David (09:41.476)
way ahead of the market, which means you've got a competitive advantage. And straight away for me, we would put into place a strategy to ensure that we are beginning to rebuild the plane while still expertly flying the plane and making sure, by the way, expertly flying, you're getting better at the same time. Now, internally, that for any agency is a huge logistical and resource challenge and pressure because

Mike (09:48.038)
Exactly.

Mike (09:56.358)
Yep.

Mike (10:02.982)
Exactly right.

David (10:11.684)
You've got to do the job whilst also responding to a tender. And whilst the tendency might be, let's wait for the brief, let's wait for the tender brief, let's read this. You really are losing out absolutely on your competitive advantage there, which is you've got a period of time to read, you know, ideally be reshaping and contributing towards the brief. Absolutely. And if you can co -create, you can't always, if you can influence, you can't always.

Mike (10:15.366)
Yes.

Mike (10:20.358)
Oh no, that's a disaster.

Mike (10:25.382)
Ugh.

Mike (10:32.998)
Correct. Get your fingerprints on the brief.

David (10:41.284)
You absolutely should. And similarly, post submission, it's not, you know, off to the pub, you know, feet up or maybe briefly. But again, the pitch isn't decided, the outcome until it's decided. And again, as we know, that can often take days, weeks, months. So again, as the incumbent, you've actually still got the opportunity, license and permission to still be continuing to show why you're the one.

Mike (10:50.182)
Nine.

Mike (11:11.238)
Correct. And in fact, I heard an agency just the other week, we know this from the data that came back, they should have been appointed. All the conditions were that their response was brilliant, they were the front runner. And then when they got to the pitch, they just weren't on their A game. They hadn't brought the right people. They went through their pack, the existing pack, and it was all a bit lackluster really. They hadn't done the stakeholder analysis.

David (11:11.268)
So, let's look at it.

Mike (11:40.166)
And what you're saying here, I think, is you've got an amazing opportunity from submission to the point whereby you're asked to come along and hopefully present all of that valuable time. You're on the ground. You're with the client.

David (11:55.972)
You are, but you know, I think that the thing that I think we can't understate here is psychologically a retender or repitch is hard because you can't, what I'd love to say, we're a science -based industry. We're not, we're a subjective personality led industry. Therefore, unless it's a kind of governance based retender, you can't help but take it personally. And my team's to take it personally if there's a retender called because...

Mike (12:04.23)
Yes, absolutely.

David (12:24.516)
we see it as a judgment that we're not delivering as well as would be liked. And so for any leader of an agency or a repitched team, psychologically, you've really got to manage your team expertly through that process of this is an opportunity rather than risk, although it is a risk. But the opportunity to get feedback is a gift.

Mike (12:44.294)
Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Mike (12:51.718)
Hmm.

David (12:52.42)
Again, you've got to psychologically kind of get your head into this space of believing what I'm saying here. But to be told how we can do things better, to be told what was good, but you know, with a bit more focus or a slightly different perspective could be great. That is a gift. But when everyone is working full out on delivering day to day and gets told by a kind of a client who we thought was a partner who loved us that actually we need to

we need to kind of up our game can be hard. So I don't likely say it's a big challenge for leaders to motivate their teams through a retender process. It is, and you know, I think I mentioned to you when we had a pre -chat, there's, you know, I'm pleased to say two retenders we've done this year that we've been successful in, but it's hard. It is hard. It really does. It requires a lot of optimism and realism.

to really drive your team through that.

Mike (13:53.766)
Definitely. So you've got the psychological aspect as well as the innovation piece. You've got to bring something new to the table.

David (14:00.132)
Oh, and let's talk about that because we have a phrase internally around the spinny bow tie. You know, when you have a meeting, the bow tie needs to spin around with lights and glitter and fireworks shooting out of it like a Catherine wheel. And listen, you can do that with new clients. But if you've been in a relationship for... Listen, it's the same as... Let's use another analogy. I'm a big fan of mine. Let's talk dating. Let's talk first date versus anniversary dinner 10 years in. You know, you...

Mike (14:22.278)
Exactly, let's. Correct.

Mike (14:28.966)
Yes?

David (14:29.828)
If you suddenly turn up to your anniversary dinner with your partner with a completely different, you know, kind of outfit and spinny bow tie, they're just not going to buy it, are they? It's not, but you know, but then how do you as an incumbent turn up and impress knowing that there are other agencies who have got their bow ties spinning in their meetings with their attenders? It's a challenge because you can't be disingenuous.

Mike (14:38.982)
Correct. Because it's not authentic. Because they know you.

Mike (14:53.701)
Exactly.

David (14:58.916)
You can't suddenly say we're not the agency you've worked with, but equally, you've got to up your game.

Mike (15:04.39)
Yeah, you can't rest on your laurels. I mean, a good example, given where we are, it's now April 24. If you're not talking about AI in a meaningful way in the repitch and about how you can use it to build efficiency, but how you can use it to drive increased creativity and innovate and how you can put guardrails around it and where it can go wrong and where it goes right. If you aren't bringing that to the table,

David (15:23.332)
innovators.

Mike (15:34.214)
That's a problem.

David (15:36.708)
And I think that's actually the opportunity as you kind of laid out there, Mike, because I think that's where as an incumbent, the way you bring fresh energy, fresh ideas shouldn't be a spinny bow tie, a narrow spinny bow tie. It should be applied insights, applied intellect that takes this fascinating, amazing kind of communications landscape we operate within and applies new things.

Mike (15:51.366)
No, it shouldn't.

Mike (16:02.31)
Yeah.

David (16:03.876)
So you actually get the spinny bow tie out of the industry and consumer trends rather than you turning up as a different person because, you know, ultimately the strength that incumbent has is, I think Joe Coombe said this in one of your previous, sorry, Emma Dela Foz said this in one of your previous podcasts. You know, we've got these slices of expertise in our brains and as an incumbent agency, you've got years worth of knowledge and expertise and that,

Mike (16:20.454)
Adios.

Mike (16:26.918)
Correct.

David (16:33.252)
That counts for a lot and you need to make it count for a lot and kind of remind everybody quite how much intellectual capital you have as an incumbent because if a client changes, then that doesn't necessarily transfer that easily.

Mike (16:34.886)
Yeah.

Mike (16:48.678)
that's tacit knowledge. In the consulting world, we talked about that a lot when I was in mainstream kind of large -scale consulting. Your tacit knowledge, if the client switches for a particular reason, agency, all that stuff in your head, all that tacit knowledge, you can't write everything down.

When you do the off -boarding, you can't effectively do it to the agency and get them to take on board everything that you've done for the last five, seven, 10 years. And the clients know that. So as an procurement person, I think about that very carefully. The switching risk is high.

David (17:27.972)
Well, there's a value exchange, isn't there? And I think, again, there's a balance here because I think for an agency to turn up to a retender and be chest -beating about all the amazing things we've done and try and assert that legacy expertise and knowledge, you can come across as overly bombastic and out of touch.

Mike (17:54.726)
Exactly right.

David (17:54.884)
you've got to do it in a way which is future facing and around the client benefits of that, which often are speed, efficiency, ability to pivot, hit the ground running, you know, all those different things that when you've got accumulated knowledge, you can do really easily. There is no onboarding because we're ready to go. In fact, we're ready to kind of, you know, supercharge. It's that language that I think we've found is...

Mike (18:04.518)
Yep.

Mike (18:18.406)
Exactly.

David (18:23.908)
better received. Nobody wants to feel like they have got a gun to their head and actually you as the incumbent are saying, you know, waggy finger client, you'd be mad to leave us because we know more than you do. That's A, probably not true and B, not a popular sentiment. So I think it's total nonsense.

Mike (18:29.35)
No.

Mike (18:35.942)
Yeah.

Mike (18:41.702)
Definitely not.

So let's now move on to the second kind of question, which was around, as the incumbent agency, when it comes up for a repitch or a retender comes up, what are the key signs to you that the client's going to switch? What are your kind of, as my son would say, the kind of like tingly spider senses, because he's a Spider -Man fan, what are those things that you go, this isn't looking good?

You must have had those over your many, many years.

David (19:15.492)
Yes, yes, yes, we have. Yes. And we, you know, in our original agency, Tesco was a founding client and kind of six, seven years in, they called a retender and we didn't participate in it. And that was in that instance, because of a particularly significant senior reorg. And there's a phrase around a new broom that I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with. And this was a new broom.

whatever we did in that tender process wouldn't have been enough. The optics needed to be that Tesco was changing and it did. So that's obviously one, which we alluded to earlier on, kind of very significant senior changes. But you know, really an agency should know through body language and feedback way before you get to that point, because if you're in a relationship,

you should be having those conversations across levels. It's not just a senior conversation. I think everybody should be checking in and saying, how are we doing? Is there anything we can do more of? Anything that's not working for you? Okay, to my earlier point, feedback is a gift and I think we should rescue for it frequently. But I think the chips are certainly down if the retender brief arrives or the repitch brief arrives.

Mike (20:15.878)
Exactly.

Mike (20:29.382)
Yep.

David (20:43.684)
And it's asking for something that you haven't been giving them. So I think often if the brief lands and it is very similar to the last one you responded to and won, then the kind of the body language of that briefing document is we're looking for the same thing that you're providing, you know, possibly with some improvement, but you know, there are thereabouts. We're looking for an agency like you again. Briefs can be different. It's probably asking for a very, very different sort of agency.

Mike (21:07.654)
Yeah.

Mike (21:13.19)
Exactly right. I mean, it'd be good to get your view also on the kind of nuance of this, which is in a virtual world. So now whereby we are working remotely and it's difficult often for agency staff.

to be in the, you know, walk the floors and have coffees and meet at the water cooler. So it's tempting to stay at home and work hard and deliver great results, but not build relationships. Do you think that has an impact? How do you manage that so that you, you can have the water cooler? How's it going? What should we improve on? Where have we tripped up? Just give me some honest feedback.

which isn't written down or on a phone call or auditable or how do you manage that?

David (22:03.076)
Um, I think you're right. It's, it's, it is harder. Um, I think at a senior level, um, senior clients still want the in -person conversations and I think are generally receptive to them. The frequency might be less. It then kind of puts a bit more pressure on those kind of being meaningful conversations when they do happen in person. Um, I don't know. I think sometimes there is a, an intimacy to a team's call.

We're speaking now essentially over Teams or over Google. And I think you can be honest. And I think you can have.

Mike (22:31.878)
Yep.

David (22:43.108)
You can have deep pointed conversations, but there isn't a casualness that the water cooler allows. That as you say, if I was walking the floor of ClientX's office would enable me to have a more casual conversation around things that might potentially be problematic or not quite working. Probably you'd only raise it to me on a team's call if it was at a point of being really significant.

Mike (23:11.398)
Correct.

David (23:11.524)
So I think that's why we just need to make sure that we continue to force the need for real in -person conversations. But it can be harder, I think, when COVID pushed us all into much more of a transactional mindset. And I do worry. We talk about it a lot around younger employees and them having that as their starting point for their career.

Mike (23:20.614)
Exactly.

Mike (23:27.942)
Yep, absolutely.

David (23:40.74)
that relationships are built through technology and teams rather than through real life conversations. It is a group because I think it only tells part of the relationship story.

Mike (23:47.174)
Exactly.

Mike (23:52.582)
Definitely. And I think one thing that I'm seeing now across agencies is, you know, QBRs that are well structured, well organized, delivered, you know, efficiently. The temptation is to do them remotely. I personally think that's a mistake. I think the QBRs are an opportunity to go and see the client, you know, spend a day or so there.

do an overnight, have dinners. It's once a quarter. Make the time to build those relationships.

David (24:20.516)
I agree. And let's be honest, it's not just a business review, it's a relationship review. And I think that relates, you know, this is a relationship industry and there's an oversupply of agencies and therefore the relationships need to be meaningful and valuable. And if you're just doing a kind of technology call based QBR, it's a tick box. It's another thing, it's not on someone's to -do list, but do they leave it feeling warmer about you?

Mike (24:25.99)
It is.

Mike (24:38.598)
Yep.

David (24:50.244)
Probably not. I feel fine, but not warmer.

Mike (24:51.878)
No, exactly. You could probably have done it via email to be quite frank if it's just a tick box. Exactly. How depressing is that? So, conscious of your time. So, last question. So, as an outside agency, i .e. you're not the incumbent, so as an outside agency pitching against an incumbent, what have you learned about the success factors to winning against the incumbent? So, can I switch the tables around?

David (24:57.508)
Yeah, how depressing. But yes, I think you're right.

David (25:21.316)
Yeah, it's a good question this one. I think it does vary. I think context is important here. You really need to understand what might have led to this process being initiated to try and see what potential chinks there are in the armour of the incumbent.

David (25:45.06)
There's a Janet Jackson song called, What Have You Done For Me Lately? And I think often agencies dine out on the last big thing that we did for a client. And often that's quite distant memory for the client. And often incumbents haven't maybe done anything quite so great recently. So I think often the opportunity for a challenger agency is really to shine a light on,

the now and the opportunities that maybe the incumbent haven't quite leveraged yet or got round to leveraging yet. So I think that can often be things like immediately trying to create a relationship with the new potential client around insights in the industry that could be enriched. That might be a newsletter you send out through the kind of pitch process to all of the team from procurement through to senior clients, identifying things that if we were working with you.

Mike (26:32.486)
Yeah.

David (26:43.748)
we would want to be talking to you about right now. Don't leave us the pitch. Try and get, again, a bit of an advantage and start building that relationship pre -pitch if you can. And again, kind of unencumbered by the incumbents issues, which might often be legacy issues, don't let reality get in the way of great vision. Because often what a challenger agency can do is really see the big opportunity for a brand.

Mike (26:46.022)
Exactly.

David (27:13.444)
that an incumbent sometimes can't quite see because they know the can'ts within a business. They know, well, we can't get that through IT. We can't get that through legal. And sometimes as an incumbent, it means that you can't present your best work because you know that your vision and your ambition will get known. As a challenger brand, you can use intelligent naivety as your ally here and go, listen, we know there might be some pragmatic challenges here, but imagine if we could.

Mike (27:18.182)
Yes.

Mike (27:37.67)
Brilliant.

David (27:43.268)
And I think you can build vision, big visions as a challenger. And that's where to our spinny bow tie reference earlier on, a challenger agency can get that spinny bow tie out and they can really impress with what we could do together without having to be bogged down by the practicalities that an incumbent knows they will be told of reasons why we can't.

Mike (28:04.806)
It reminds me of a line in a song, that you don't need eyes to see, you need vision, which I think was faithless. And it's very true. There we are. Oh, that's an idea, David. Oh, definitely. Absolutely. I'm a big, I'm a vinyl collector. Music, music and agency business. Brilliant. Brilliant. We could do that. Definitely. There's a new angle there. Interesting. So David, it's been amazing having you on the podcast. Thank you ever so much.

David (28:10.115)
And at Jetson Faithless, I think we need to kind of start the music podcast, Mark.

David (28:18.98)
The music is a candy caray.

David (28:27.716)
Absolutely.

David (28:33.284)
Ah, flip it.

Mike (28:34.47)
If you could leave listeners with just kind of one or two things to do or, yeah, actually to do rather than think about where they're the incumbent, what would you say in order to improve your chances of securing success when it comes up for renewal? Because it will.

David (28:55.332)
Yes, I'm going to echo something I said earlier on, which is about creating a feedback loop early on in a relationship. When we were a new client, I typically set up a onboarding conversation with the CMO or the CEO and say, listen, I want to make sure we've got a dialogue from day one to make sure that we onboard really smoothly and any niggles are kind of very quickly ironed out.

Mike (29:00.678)
Good.

David (29:23.108)
I then make sure that's continued beyond the initial immersion onboarding process wherever possible. It might be the faculty goes from weekly or monthly to quarterly, but ensuring that there's a senior feedback loop from the start and encouraging really everybody in your team to also ask for that feedback where possible, because you can then anticipate challenges, wrinkles and opportunities before they become big, hairy, scary wrinkles and challenges.

Mike (29:50.086)
Yeah, brilliant. As you say, feedback is a gift to be welcomed. David, where can people find out more about you?

David (29:54.98)
Yes.

David (30:00.868)
RebrickRoad .com, check us out and also on TikTok, on LinkedIn and on Instagram.

Mike (30:08.102)
Very good. David, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you.

David (30:10.596)
Thank you so much. Thanks, Mike.

Mike (30:13.382)
So I'll stop recording, stay on the line, caller, one second. So.

David (30:17.764)
It's okay.