Pitch | Select | Learn | Because good agencies are hard to find

Unless you’re an agency expert, finding the perfect partner for tactical projects is tough

You may have your key, retained agency relationships but that doesn’t mean you’ll never look for tactical agency support for specific marketing tasks. In fact, what better way to plug the experience gaps, test the market and see what other, possibly better, agencies are out there?
But there are many agencies – brilliant ones doing amazing things, challenging brands, audiences and convention, ones you’ve never heard of because they’re busy making their clients famous and not themselves – so how do you find the one that’s perfect for your next project? This is where PSL can help.
PSL is designed to help clients discover the best agencies they’ve never heard of. We help build the perfect agency pitch list. Avoiding the usual suspects to open up agency possibilities not usually considered. We then help run the pitch in a transparent way, giving everyone the best chance of success.

We can do this by

Developing, in conjunction with the client, the perfect shortlist for your brief.
Finding and briefing the right agencies for the clients business.
Supporting the entire pitch process – before, during and after.
Creating trust, transparency (and dare we say enjoyment) in the pitch process.
Allaying agency fears so the best independents come and fight for the business.

Contact us: 0208 279 0555 | hello@pitchselectlearn.co.uk

What we do

We put clients with specific problems in touch with the best agencies to solve them – selecting agencies not based on how loud they shout or how many lunches they’ve bought us but on how perfectly they fit the brief.

For the process

Put a client with a specific issue with an agency that has the right solution
Run a professionally organised transparent and structured process
Generate more concentrated, creative responses to a pitch request
Facilitate clients and agencies to learn from the process

For the client

Deal with a problem that would usually stay unsolved
Leave the hassle of finding the right solution to us
Enjoy a professional and creative process
See four different approaches to dealing with the issue
Find a solution that you won’t get from your usual agencies

For the agency

Compete in a fair contest with 3 other agencies, with a real chance of winning
Know that the client has a signed off budget before the process begins
Benefit from the transparency in a professionally run process
Have sufficient time and information to do a good job
Learn from detailed feedback to improve your future chances

What you get

Because good agencies are hard to find!

Clients must keep up to date with the changing agency landscape; they need to know who is doing interesting, innovative and relevant work whilst hiding from the onslaught of attention-seeking, hungry agencies trying to get noticed. Some turn to the ‘fruit-machine’ of agency selection – the online database – to help them choose an agency partner.

Equally agencies search, many in vain, for profitable and efficient ways in which to win new clients and to improve their conversion rate – from speed dating to setting sail once a year with the promise of introductions to highly influential clients with budgets. Yet, more often than not, they return with little more than a business card.

Using an intermediary to bring a voice of reason makes sense in many ways, especially when one of the most common causes of complaint from pitching agencies is of the ill-conceived, unprofessionally run pitches from clients. The problem with the current intermediary model is that both client and agency mistakes are repeated – the bad behaviours and weaknesses that lost the last pitch are not tackled, and ground-hog day persists.

The challenge, for those agencies and clients with the open-mindedness to seek improvement, is how they effectively ‘rewire the house with the lights switched on’. That is to say, how can you improve and learn whilst still finding the right client/agency partnership at the end of it? How can you be sure agencies are being included for all the right reasons and you’re not wasting time? How do you get the greatest value possible from the pitch process?

How we do it

We aim to complete the selection process in under 8 weeks

Week 1

Client wishing to use PSL agrees brief, budget (£50k min) and timings. All confirmed in scoping document and mutual NDA.

Week 2

PSL’s experience and resources used to create agency long list, who complete RFI and confirm availability.

Week 3

Client/PSL decide shortlist of 4 agencies who agree NDA and contract before receiving finalised brief.

Week 4

One-to-one Q&A Sessions for each agency.

And then…

Week 5

Agencies prepare response to brief.

Week 6