Client Pitch Advisory

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Choosing a new agency partner is one of the most consequential decisions an organisation makes. The outcome shapes strategy, reputation, and performance for years. Yet, the process used for agency partner selection is often improvised, inconsistent, and difficult to evaluate with confidence.

Many organisations come away from client pitches asking the same question: 

Did we actually choose the right agency? 

Part of the challenge is that managing an agency pitch is not something most organisations do very often. In fact, if agency relationships are working well, it should be relatively rare. 

That means many teams find themselves responsible for designing and running a complex pitch process without having done it before, while also managing expectations from leadership, procurement, and other stakeholders. 

The Pitch Doctors provide pitch process support, helping organisations run clearer, fairer, and more effective agency selection processes so they can appoint the right partner with confidence and avoid unnecessary disruption, wasted effort, and poor outcomes.

Does any of the above sound familiar? 

Agency pitches are often triggered by pressure rather than a well-thought-out strategy. This could stem from a change in leadership, a performance wobble, a procurement cycle, or the desire to 'test the market'. 

As a result, many teams find themselves facing challenges in agency partner selection: issuing briefs that are vague, overly ambitious, or misaligned internally; struggling to compare agencies on a like-for-like basis; feeling overwhelmed by ideas that seem impressive yet are difficult to evaluate; and being concerned about fairness, transparency, and the risk of idea leakage. Moreover, they may be running pitches without a clear understanding of whether such a process is genuinely necessary. 

In this landscape, senior teams are operating under increased scrutiny, with limited time available to design and manage a client pitch advisory along with their day jobs, highlighting the need for effective pitch process support.

Our support package offers a range of options, from focused, light touch interventions at specific stages to comprehensive client pitch advisory on complex, high stakes pitch processes. 

The role of an agency partner in this context is not to take the pitch process away from internal teams. 

Instead, we serve as an experienced partner, assisting organizations in thinking clearly, designing stronger processes, and making confident decisions throughout their pitch process support. 

THREE LEVELS OF SUPPORT 

1. Pitch Sense Check: Designed for organisations with internal capability seeking independent assurance that their pitch process is well designed and on track. This includes: pitch readiness review, brief review, process sense check, decision maker alignment session, and pre-decision debrief.  
2. Pitch Design: For organisations that acknowledge a higher risk in the decision-making process and desire more active support to achieve a clear and defensible outcome. This incorporates everything included in the Pitch Sense Check, plus: pitch design and planning, brief development support, evaluation framework design, and observation of chemistry and presentation with structured feedback. 
3. Pitch Steward: For organisations facing a high stakes or transformational agency decision. This tier includes everything from the first two levels, plus: end-to-end process management, stakeholder alignment sessions with senior decision makers, commercial and scope review, and support during appointment and transition.