"It's About Them. Even When They Say It's About You". Forget about credentials presentations. That's my take after our latest round of new-business pitches. They say: We want to understand your capabilities in traditional and non-traditional media. We want to meet the core team that would work on our business. We want you to take us through three case studies that show how you've addressed the challenges we face. You have an hour and a half.

Whew. You can just fit it all in. Leaving little time to talk about them. Which is, of course, what it's really all about.

A few months ago, we dutifully presented capabilities and relevant case studies to a roomful of decision-makers as requested. We added a few observations about their challenges, left a few minutes for questions, and finished just on time. We didn't make the finals. We'd talked too much about ourselves and didn't demonstrate enough interest in them.

Since then we've pretty much ignored the rules on first meetings. We pray that they've scanned our written response or browsed our website. We blow by the credentials and pretend it's the second meeting, the one that's officially All About Them. And we have yet to hear someone say, I really missed that case study.

We were one of the last and smallest agencies to meet with a major hotel chain. We knew we only had one shot and went for it. I covered credentials in three minutes flat and we launched into a theatrical presentation based on a provocative strategic insight and a startling but true-to-brand creative idea. They said it was phenomenal, that we knocked them off their seats. "We thought we were just going to hear some case histories."

Even more recently we turned in a 50-page RFI response, made the cut, and hosted an initial meeting all within a week. Not quite enough to prepare for the meeting-beyond-the-meeting. But we ignored the RFI stuff and used the time to bring them into our unorthodox strategic process, to make observations about their category and brand. They were surprised, in a good way. They said they couldn't help peeking at the work from our portfolio that lined one conference room wall. The work was so good, it was distracting. Probably better that they left a little bit curious.

There was one exception to the "it's always about them" rule. The VP-marketing for a brand we'd long admired heard a presentation my business partner gave at a convention. She loved it and quoted my partner to her employees. We had lunch. She wrote an eloquent email about why she thought the agency would be a good fit for her brand. We loved reading about us! She asked our team over and insisted that we go through every bit of one of our favorite case studies. We loved talking about us! By then we would have done anything to work with her and were thrilled when we got an assignment. Proving that sometimes you just get lucky. And that there's nothing more seductive than someone who wants to talk about you.

(Source: Advertising age)