GUIDE: SECRETS OF A SUCCESSFUL PITCH

Preparation

This is such an obvious comment that we are at risk of trying to ‘teach grandmother to suck eggs’ but we see again and again the winning power of demonstrating at a pitch that you have engaged mentally with the challenge of the project.

This may be as simple as bringing to the pitch a photocopy of the client’s site and drawing over it to show where new access may be created, or where the new footprint of a house might lie, or where new landscape features created. Really, anything is great that shows graphically that you are genuinely interested in exploring the opportunities presented by the client’s project.  No one expects the perfect solution to be produced on the spot.

Relevant work

Again this is obvious common sense, but showing projects or work that are as closely comparable to the client’s potential project as possible is a winner. If your project is in the same part of the country or same London street, or on the same scale, or subject to the same historic-building listing, it is sure to have impact.

Wanting it

One of our most successful and impressive clients is a titan of the international finance world. People pitch services to him all the time in his day job. ‘I am looking at how much they want the job more than anything. Three-quarters of winning a pitch comes down to that.’  That may be putting it a bit too strongly, but anyone who comes across as keen (though not too keen) has the edge over anyone more diffident.

“…they are always looking forward so much to meeting top professionals who can help realise their project dreams”

“…and, bingo, the client’s eyes light up”

Sketch

There sometimes comes a moment in a pitch by an architect or designer when they bring out a pencil to illustrate an idea and, bingo, the client’s eyes light up. We would go so far as to suggest using almost any excuse to produce a sketch in front of the client, so powerful is the effect.

And as well as showing photographs of a finished project to a client at a pitch, it is even more powerful to show rough sketches or early-stage images of how the design solution was created.

Best avoided

Speaking over clients

This is guaranteed to lead to disaster whether it happens on Zoom or in person.

We have seen the atmosphere at a pitch curdle horribly when the partner who was pitching repeatedly interrupted and drowned out the client. Even once is too much.

Talking too much

At an hour-long pitch, another partner spoke for a good 55 minutes of the allotted time. The clients barely had a chance to describe their vision for the project, and hardly needed to explain afterwards why they felt they could not happily work with the partner.

Talking to one partner in a couple to the exclusion of the other

After a presentation, a client said to us that because the partner who was presenting failed to address the client’s young girlfriend, he would not consider working with the partner.

Being late

All of us are unavoidably late sometimes, but client presentations or introductory meetings seldom recover when the presenter is late for the start, even if only by a few minutes.

Worse still, at one presentation where the principal and senior associate of a design practice were on an introductory Zoom call with our client, the associate wandered away from the online meeting without explaining why they were leaving the meeting. The associate could be seen on the call later wandering around the studio talking to colleagues.  The client was non-plussed.

Spreadsheets

It is very hard to bore a client at a first meeting as they are always looking forward so much to meeting top professionals who can help realise their project dreams, but it can be done. Showing them endless spreadsheets is the best way to bore them rigid.

Zoom tech

When clients are expecting to be dazzled by the talent of the partners they are first meeting on Zoom or Teams, they are less than impressed when partners struggle with video technology.

We have seen presentations where the partner’s ambient lighting looks like they are in graveyard at midnight; and other presentations where half the partner’s head intermittently disappears from view.

Fee focus

A presentation can be going swimmingly until the client starts asking about fees, and before the partner knows it, the client drills further and further into questions of fees or cost until the whole meeting becomes a tussle. 

An elegant and effective way of closing off this unproductive line of questioning is—as so many partners adroitly demonstrate—is to explain to clients that the scope of work requires further thought before a meaningful response on the fee quantum can be given.