Being director of EMTRER it’s my job responsibility to grab business for the company. This means talking to potential clients, writing proposals and giving them quote, following them up and be available to any new lead to reply promptly.
We had been lucky to work with some of the biggest and best businesses and amazing people and together we developed a very strong reputation in the industry and business world. I put all trust in my team and really understand what we can achieve. This understanding makes my job to meet clients easier. I convey our passion, expertise and efficiency and hope to convince them by our experience and retain them as repeat clients by delivering professional and best quality services possible from our side.
I don’t have any background in sales and nor I am a very sophisticated salesman in their terms, with such approach.
I have a grasp on understanding what we can do and what our strengths are, with what type of clients we work the best, which type of budget for work involved we provide best services and quality and what we excel at. I accept this is partly through guts and partly through experience.
We resisted our urge to grow, so that we are not forced to take on each single project coming our way just to help expansion. We are proud to be lifestyle business, so it involves doing good work as it is making money.
This puts us in the enviable position of being able to be selective about the work we take on. So when I meet prospective clients it’s as much about assessing the appropriateness of the project and the cultural fit as it is about selling our services. This may sound a little arrogant, but it’s a sellers market at the moment and we want to lend our services where it’s going to find most value and deliver the biggest reward. Too often have we taken on the first project that came along, only to have to turn down our ideal project two weeks later because we no longer have capacity. So one of my biggest recommendations is to be selective about the work you do and don’t be afraid of turning things down. If anything we’ve gained more respect and referrals by turning inappropriate work down than by taking it on and doing a half hearted job.
For a long time I assumed that all design agencies took a similar approach to sales, outlining their abilities in an open and honest manner and letting their clients choose the right company for the job. However the more clients and agencies I speak to, the more naive I realize this assumption has been.
For many people the sales process is seen as a game, and like most games the ultimate goal is to win, irrespective of whether you’re the right person for the job. So I’ve seen lots of projects won by inappropriate companies because they’ve come in with a convincing presentation and a hard to beat budget.
I’ve talked with large agencies that apportion up to 20% of a projects potential earning to the pitch. One agency head proudly explained how they researched every person at the pitch meeting in order to find their weaknesses. For example in one instance they found that the MD of a company to which they were pitching was a fan of a particularly expensive watch, so they went out and bought the same watch for their MD so they could bond during the break. I spoke to a client handler at another big agency whose sole value seemed to be the fact that she was a member of the exclusive Ivy club where she would wine and dine prospective customers.
If you think this sounds a little “Mad Men” you’d be right. However cunning sales techniques aren’t the preserve of the big guys. I’ve come across numerous small agencies with equally cunning strategies, like the company who insists on pitching first so they can lay “traps” for the agencies that follow. Plenty of agencies will overstate their experience or promise things they know they can’t deliver, just to win the work. It would seem that game mechanics are in full force. Whenever people are pitched in competition against each other the desire to win will often take over.
As an agency we are often asked to provide creative solutions as part of the pitching process, if only to give our potential clients an understanding of our abilities. To this I refuse, explaining that good design comes from a deep understanding of the problem and close collaboration with the client. We’re not being difficult, we just don’t work that way. We’ll happily show off previous work and explain how it solved our client’s problems, but we hate turning design into a beauty contest. It can demonstrate craft, but shows none of the underlying thinking.
We even hesitate at giving out ideas. Not because we think ideas are precious, almost the opposite in fact. A myth abounds that good design is about creativity and there is nothing more creative than a unique idea. This may be true in the advertising industry where novelty is a key factor, but it couldn’t be further from the truth in digital product design. The best ideas are a product of insight and understanding rather than a flash of creativity. The most appropriate solutions come from evaluating and synthesizing these ideas based on a deep knowledge of the problem. By providing ideas during the pitch process you run the risk of being judged on something you know to be shallow and inappropriate. Even worse if these ideas become accepted and form the basis of your whole approach. So we feel that it’s much better to resist the urge of premature ideation and focus on how we get these ideas instead. One method is explainable and repeatable, the other is magic.
The problem is that a lot of people are looking for magic and drama. The pitch is a performance after all, far far away from the skills, efficiencies and abilities and a passion you would need to actually deliver the goods. So there is no wonder that clients prefer to see colorful apparel and “designer glasses” and quench their thirst by their power of ideas alone. This all sounds really exciting and a company explaining that they don’t have any solution of their problems but they know how to get it solved and have done for a lot o others clients successfully. “How could you be so sure that your ideas are going to be the right ones if we cannot see them in your sales pitch?” I admit a real question, which can only be answered by our experience and amazing track record.
Is this all-gradual realization going to change the way we present our services? I think NO. I accept that our sales strategy is amazingly simple I also accept we loose more work than we could by down turning the snake charming. But I understand being a businessman I have an obligation and a duty of care towards my clients. Its like the Hippocratic oath doctors take. By sticking to our core principal from day one I believe we attracted the right projects and the right clients only and maximized our changes of success. I can just hope to be right. No one wants to live in a world of “Salesmen” trying to sell you off everything or as they say the Snake Oil Salesman.