Week 34: Let’s talk about pitches!
We usually take a firm stance against spec work, but this week we flew to Zurich to take part in a pitch … so what happened?
Welcome to the 34th weekly recap in the making of this new digital agency called diesdas.digital. I am Harry, one of the founders, and each week we write a summary of the challenges we faced, the jokes we laughed about, intermixed with dorky photos. Lots of people tell us that it’s a refreshingly honest take on what building a company is about — if you’re one of these people and you have specific questions for us, by all means, shoot them my way! It’s not easy to come up with new topics each week, so every pointer is welcome! 🤔
Finding a topic for this week’s post was easy though, because we had an elephant in the room: a looming pitch presentation. Therefore this week already started the Sunday before, because there was SO. MUCH. TO. PREPARE. 😵
Wait a second … you always say you wouldn’t work for free! Why now?
True that. We are a small, self-funded company and we can’t afford to work on projects without a clear path to an invoice. That may sound harsh, but we’re still in our first year with only a handful of people available and we have to prioritize what we work on: of course other factors are to be considered as well (such as “Does it make a good portfolio case?”, “Is it fun?”, “Can we learn a lot?”), but “does it make us money?” is obviously an important point in our decisions.
Which leads us to pitches … for those new to the concept, it usually goes down as follows: companies compile a briefing for a new project and then invite several agencies to take part in a competition to win that project. All players get the briefing plus some time to prepare a presentation with their approach/ideas and then present in front of stakeholders, usually followed up by a short discussion. Often the only incentive is that there’s a good chance to win the project, meaning: the time you sink into preparation is not paid for. This is not an ideal scenario for several reasons:
- In most cases the briefing is too vague to come up with a solid concept and a lot of guesswork is involved, the opposite of a solid, informed discussion. In order to trump the other parties you often go out on a limb and start designing way too early, hoping to get an edge over the competition.
- For the participating agencies it’s hit or miss … obviously only one party can win the project and the others end up having invested a lot of energy and time without any outcome.
- And we’re not even talking about work ethics yet.
I’m obviously preaching to the choir here, but I guess we can all agree that this is not the way we want to work. That’s why some players in our industry are very vocal about not participating in pitches, but if you take a look behind the harmonious façade you’ll quickly see that pitches are common practice everywhere. Those pretending not to take part in them will sometimes revise their argument upon request and make the case that paid pitches are a totally different thing — but honestly that’s just hairsplitting! If you have a team of four people working for a month on a “paid pitch” and you receive 5k-10k as compensation … well, let’s just say it’s nowhere near profitable and could just as well be called “unpaid”. It’s more of a nice gesture, a symbolic payment, than anything else.
In the end it comes down to the question how much you want to invest in a project that might or might not materialize afterwards. Our answer is usually: as little as possible, if any. When new clients approach us and want to do a workshop to “get to know each other” we usually argue that there’s effort involved for us and that we need to get paid for the time we spend. Usually clients understand that and in the vast majority of cases we negotiate an acceptable payment. What about the other cases? Well, mostly our answer ends up being: “thanks, but no thanks”.
So if we usually refuse to take part in this grandiose game of wasting people’s time and energy … what was different in this instance?
Reality isn’t black and white, it always depends …
When we first heard of the project and received an email that we’re invited to take part in a pitch, our knee-jerk reaction was: no way! Then we learned more about it, received the briefing, gave it some serious thought, discussed it multiple times internally and finally reached the conclusion to give it a shot. Why? Several reasons:
- The briefing was unusually detailed and thorough, with multiple workshops having happened before to generate ideas and formulate goals. So we didn’t start from an empty canvas here, but had a ton of solid material to work with.
- We found the challenges presented by the pitch interesting and worth digging into. The products to be relaunched are relevant to many people out there and complex in their nature, because they combine multiple media channels and work across many platforms. So there’s an opportunity worth tackling!
- We had already worked with the client before, knew some people there and had a good idea of how the project would be structured. We knew for a fact that they take digital products seriously, approach projects with an agile mindset + process and are a pleasure to work with. They belong in the camp of those few who get it.
- We could partner up with another company taking care of the infrastructure and back end architecture, which allowed us to focus on what we do best: strategy, branding, design and front-end development. Therefore the presentation was a joint effort and that partner had also already worked with the client, so a working relationship was in place.
- The client specifically said that up-front design work wasn’t needed and that the presentation should contain rough ideas + our envisioned approach, but not full-fledged mock-ups or prototypes. This was a big relief because it meant we could present an honest, solid approach we believe in, without making stuff up or faking things. No bullshit = 👏!
These points led us to conclude that our prospects were quite good and it was worth participating this time. Winning the project would mean a steady amount of work for a few months and a comfortable financial buffer, which would be great considering that we’re growing the team with Sharon coming aboard and Nicolás also sticking around. Goes without saying that we’re financially secure without this new project as well, but we’d sleep even better with this one up our sleeve.
The week was therefore divided into two main chunks: Lars and Max working on the pitch presentation and our concept, while Lorenz and I took care of most other duties on current projects.
Then, after many rehearsals, revisions, additions and deletions we flew to Zurich on Thursday morning for the final push, with the presentation scheduled for Friday morning.
Originally we had hoped to be done with the presentation by this time already, spending a team building day in Zurich, talking about the future of our company. But then reality ate those plans for breakfast and we ended up working for 14h straight, refinding and practicing the presentation. The first couple of hours were laser focused, super productive and we came up with a lot of last-minute changes that improved the slide deck dramatically.
We had already decided that I would be the one giving the talk and we rehearsed the presentation endlessly, especially the first chapter, which I narrated at least 20 times that day, until the flow was perfect and it had the right mix of serious facts, dedication to the project and entertainment.
The more hours passed the more chaotic things got though … Max had to redraw a lot of the illustrations, Lars couldn’t help himself but crash on the floor and the mirrored windows became a fascinating real-life instagram filter. We slowly, but steadily descended into the absurd.
At some point we couldn’t possibly work any longer and were quite exhausted. Time to take a break and get some ridiculously expensive food for dinner! Welcome to airport hotels in Switzerland, where a burger easily costs 63€. 😓
The presentation still wasn’t done though and we spent pretty much every available minute on it … in cafés during breakfast, in restaurants and thereby annoying waiters, even the hotel bar counter wasn’t spared. 🙃
At some point we were kicked out of the meeting room, but that didn’t stop us. Continuing in one of our rooms we put the finishing touches on it, I rehearsed it one last time (32 mins, perfect timing) and got some sleep in anticipation of the next day.
9am: We get breakfast.
10:50am: We arrive at the client’s office.
11:05pm: We enter the meeting room, shaking many hands.
11:08am: I start the presentation.
11:41am: I conclude, thanking everyone for their attention.
11:55am: Following a brief discussion we repeat the hand-shaking ritual and leave.
Shortly after, sitting in a café nearby, we have a good feeling about everything, agreeing that the presentation went well. Now it can obviously still go either way and we’ll hear back sometime soon.
And suddenly we were free to do whatever, because the flight back to Berlin was scheduled for the evening. And what do you do in Zurich, during summer, with a few hours to spare? Yup, damn right …
All in all we ended up being exhausted, but very happy and satisfied with how it all went down … even if we don’t get the project, we spent two very intense days together, seeing that we cope well with pressure. We were crazy productive, always in a good mood and focused on getting the task done, each of us contributing equally, pushing the others to do even better. Seeing that this team works, in the literal and figurative sense of the word, is utterly fantastic.
That being said, this style of working obviously needs to stay the exception … none of us wants to regularly work on weekends or do 14h days. It’s fine for two days once in a while, but we all agree this can’t become the norm for us or anyone working with us.
Anyhow, fingers crossed that it was worth it this time! 👻
And that concludes this post. Zurich, we shall be back! Hopefully for the project, but definitely for the lake! And if you, dear reader, want to be back next week as well, there are several options: subscribe to this publication or follow us around on all the social networks! Let us know what you think of all this, or maybe consider pressing that heart below to recommend this post (if you found it recommendable). 😙
In any case: Take care, enjoy the weekend and see you around! 💚
Your friends at diesdas.digital
