Quick and dirty response to the question by Herman Mahal: How do you go about pitching and getting such great clients like Nike, Pepsi, Astropad and others? + A few other things I learned along the way.
Well Herman, many people in my situation started somewhat in the same way.
There are always exceptions as some people sky rocket up the chain super fast due to incredible talent or luck.
Basically my advice is… get your foot in the door at a respectable creative agency that already has these type of clients any way you can. Decent designers usually can get in fairly easy as the demand is pretty high. If you are very jr. or just starting out, you still can get into the agencies as production, interns, etc. Do whatever you can to get in. It is ok if you start out lower. Set your pride aside. Getting your foot in the door is the most important part, if you have hustle and grow in talent you will inevitably rise up at that place or at another agency you may move to later.
I personally started out as a designer at AKQA. I spent the first year mainly doing banner ads and emails for companies like Visa. But during that time I was always pitching ideas to enhance the banners, going above and beyond as much as I could to make the people above me shine. The CD started to ask me to brainstorm up front and eventually started putting me on larger projects. One of the first ones I did was Halo2.com
They stuck myself and a friend/developer on it and we designed, concepted & built pretty much everything including doing the site completely in a fake alien language that the audience had to decipher. It received a good amount of press and awards just due to the buzz it created. It was a teaser site so it was ok to do things a bit different. That helped me continue to do larger projects and shift my career more towards design and direction.
On a side note I only now look back and realize this all happened for the best. When you are just starting out you really don’t know if you are doing the right or wrong thing, or if what you are doing will help your career later on. I was blessed to have this upward path even through my ignorance. But I did have incredible drive, I had some talent, and I had the most important thing one of my professors in college taught me. He taught me how to learn on my own without giving me much instruction.
My college years spanned from 1998–2003. Back then I dove into the latest and greatest tools. I had to learn flash on my own, photoshop, the works, and most importantly how to concept on my own. Of course I learned how to collaborate, and at times my professor helped me when I was stuck, but by giving me simple assignments such as “pick a new technology or tool and make something with it” he gave me something far greater than just knowledge. By making me learn how to figure out the solution on my own while creating something in the process, he unlocked something special; the ability to learn and think on my own.
This was his method to really help unlock that one major thing we needed to succeed after college. He tried to do this with all his students, but only a few really ever got it. Most needed hand holding the whole way through. He pulled me aside one day as I was about to graduate and basically said that I would go far after college. When I asked why, he explained that I was one of the few that figured out how to learn on my own. I never forgot that, and now looking back I see how valuable it was.
Anyway, after Halo 2 things kept progressing. I kept the conceptual, strategy and design talents flowing which helped me go from not only working on these great brands, but to actually pitching them. At first you will be rusty at pitching, in fact it takes most of your career to learn how to pitch naturally and on your feet. And if you come across somebody that is naturally gifted at pitching? Simply smile, learn and be a bit jealous because it’s a great thing to behold.
As you keep working you should be able to start to build a good reputation, work for different agencies and companies as you grow in your career, and eventually you will most likely get the chance to do the same with your own big or just plain rad clients. Many of those clients remembered me during my agency years, kept in touch, and became clients of my own later on. Remember that clients and even ex-coworkers tend to switch jobs often. When they do, they will reach out to their favorite agencies and people they have worked with in the past to recommend you or even hire you. This more than anything has helped me not only continue to work on great clients, but get new great ones of my own.
So the TLDR of this is… If you want to go this route (it’s also not for everyone btw especially as the landscape keeps shifting, that is a different topic), get into an agency that has good clients. You will meet life long friends and connections. It will be rough at times, but you will get to work on great brands even when just starting out. This will lead you into hopefully getting great clients and great connections as you progress. Good work helps your portfolio and opens up doors, but good connections helps the longevity of your career.
Good connections above anything is the most important thing to make.
Also be nice and lose the ego. Realize the critique of your work is not personal. It is just business. Don’t get me wrong, it will feel personal your whole life, but learning to grin and bare it, plus learn from it is important. Many young people have those tendencies and respond in the wrong way… including me many many times. It probably is the biggest thing that stands in your way. Get ahead of that now.
Finally as you progress you will need to have even more drive and be authoritative as you learn how to lead. Doing it in a positive yet firm way without being harsh is important to learn. People that bulldoze their way to the top without regard for others end up having problems later on.
Don’t do that.
