Setting Up the Problem: Broken Briefs

Chris Norton 0:04

Have you ever spent weeks crafting a pitch brief only to end up drowning in underwhelming proposals? James Tomlinson has seen it all. Agencies burning time, clients frustrated by poor responses, and millions wasted because the brief was wrong right from the start. After 20 years running agencies, he's now the consultant brands call when their pitch process keeps failing. Welcome to Embracing Marketer Mistakes, the podcast that helps you grow your brand faster by learning from the world's top marketer's biggest mistakes. I'm Chris Norton and my mission is to help you, the senior marketer, avoid the costly mistakes others have already made. Today's guest, James Tomlinson, is a management consultant who spent two decades leading agencies and now advises brands and in-house teams on how to run better pitches. He does other things as well. He's seen every kind of nightmare brief, from the vague and rushed to the ones written by AI. In this episode, James reveals how to structure a clear, transparent process, get genuine creativity from your agencies, and ensure you don't waste weeks on pointless chemistry meetings and unrealistic deadlines. James shares what makes a good agency relationship from day one, how to spot when an intermediary isn't being transparent, and why the words no budget, no pitch should matter to clients too. So sit back, relax, and let's hear how you can stop wasting time on bad pitches and start finding the partners who actually move the needle. Enjoy. James Tomlinson, welcome to the show. Good to see you, Chris and Will. Yeah. Nice to get you on finally. So uh so we met you a while ago and you were giving like a workshop type thing to the PRCA, all the agencies in the PRCA up here in Leeds, which I've I'm gonna be honest with you, is the first time we've had something like that in Leeds because uh most PRCA things happen in London, so it was quite refreshing and and to hear you what what you do um at your at your company. Do you want to explain a little bit about what you do today?

James Tomlinson 2:07

Well I'm always happy to come to Leeds because my uh my wife's from Wakefield, uh which is not not which is not too far away. That's nice. Um so yeah, it was good good to be up there. I think that was back in March, April time, so long time, long time ago now. Um yeah, so very simply, um I set up my own consultancy at the beginning of the year and I explained to people that I'm a management consultant for marketing agencies and and

James’s Background & Why Pitches Fail

James Tomlinson 2:34

in-house marketing teams. Um prior to that I uh was in agencies for 20 20 years, um, in managing director roles for for 15 years, um, which we can we can come on to. So I've seen and done quite quite a bit across different sectors, corporate, consumer, geopolitical, PR, social influencer content. Um, and yeah, just thought I had really good experience of setting up businesses and and growing them, and thought that's the thing that I really like doing. So I wanted to advise independent owners on how to do the same.

Chris Norton 3:10

And what are the what are sort of the I mean if you own an agency, what what what sort of difference do you do you bring to the party for somebody who owns it? What what's the what's the thing that you look at first to help them? What is it to exit? Is that what you really help?

James Tomlinson 3:24

Or are you helping them grow it or or is it all as you guys know, there are so many facets of of running an agency, right?

Chris Norton 3:33

Oh, it's easy, man. It's absolutely easy.

James Tomlinson 3:36

Yeah, and it's a new business, marketing. Uh, you know, requests from staff to grant their three-legged dog medical leave off work for a week. Um the list, the list is endless. Um and yeah, I I I normally start just to understand pain points and and ambition, really. Um yeah, it might be that they've got a huge overservicing rate, um, it might be that their margins are really low in their business, it might be they don't have a pipeline, um, they need to refresh their proposition because they're you know 10 years old or launch new products and services. So um really difficult um to prescribe something straight away, um, but there's there's normally a way of of of finding a solution. And if I can't, um as I said, I've been in the industry 20 years, I know very good people who who are experts on on certain topics.

Will Ockenden 4:33

So one of the things you spoke about when we met you before, which really kind of caught our imagination and our attention was pitching. Now, anyone in an agency will know pitching is incredibly exciting, incredibly frustrating at times, hugely time consuming. You know, when you when you run a successful pitch, it can take weeks and weeks and weeks, can't it, from an agency perspective. And then sometimes you win it. I mean, hit rates, I don't know, 50%. What's the hit what's the kind of average success rate, about 50%?

James Tomlinson 5:04

Yeah, I would say it's always hard to give um accurate success rates because a lot of agencies either uh inadvertently lie um or or they or they qualify it in a slightly different way.

Qualifying Better: Hit Rates and Focus

James Tomlinson 5:20

So um I would always see it very you know black and white. If you attend a pitch, you're in the room, you measure your success rate based on that, and any proposals that you send to clients, right? Uh because yeah, yeah, you want to you want to know um your scoring for for coming back and and and what you're putting out there. Um so there are two ways that you can improve your pitch rate. One is to go for less things and have a better qualifying um you know uh process. The other is to really hone in on what you're doing, and I think in the in the and yeah, everything from presentation skills to how you're laying the document out to how you're answering it. Um you mentioned it can take a few weeks. I think a lot of you know the the reporting in the industry and commentary is is that it takes longer than a few weeks now. You know, it's uh it's very hard to win pitches. Um, there are more agencies than ever in the market, it's very saturated, clients have got a lot more opportunity to shop around. Um, so your new business is is super exciting, super hard, um, and is the lifeblood of any agency. So you you've really, really got to go all out on it.

Will Ockenden 6:39

So from if we kind of flip it on its head for a moment, there's a lot of brands listening to this um who will be probably planning a pitch in the next 12 months.

Chris Norton 6:50

From we have none of our clients, yeah, yeah.

Will Ockenden 6:55

So from a brand perspective, then obviously it's also really time consuming, isn't it? You know, writing a brief, probably having a chemistry meeting with five, six agencies. I mean, from that perspective, it can get hours and hours and hours as well. So how can brands run better pitches? I suppose is my question, because you know, ultimately, you know, the they want to be confident the agency they're selecting is the best agency in an agency they can work with. So you must come across loads of loads of kind of tender documents and things like that in in your day-to-day role. So, what what are the mistakes you see companies making when they're putting together a pitch document um in the first instance?

James Tomlinson 7:36

I do a quick one and a very quick observation to talk about is the use of AI

Brand-Side Pitfalls and AI-Written RFPs

James Tomlinson 7:40

to write RFP documents and pitch documents. Um, that's becoming way more common. And you can if you're going for a pitch document, in order to respond properly, you need to immerse yourself in it. You know, you need to read between the lines of what the client's, you know, saying or not saying. Um, so it's really obvious when you're going through that process to see OFPs that are now written by AI. Um, so that would be the first advice. Don't use AI to edit, amend, or write a pitch document. It needs to really come from the senior decision makers and the business, and you need to really clearly articulate exactly what you want and what you don't want. Um, that would be my first observation.

Will Ockenden 9:16

And everyone, everyone within that company needs to be in alignment on on a on a RFP or a tender when they're when they're writing it today, you know, because again, we've come up we we've pitched for work before, and it's been clear that the you know the the head of marketing has written it and the chief exec's not not not even seen it, you know, and that's there's a massive misalignment there, isn't there?

James Tomlinson 9:36

Yeah, I would say all the senior decision makers need to be involved in it, the budget needs to be approved, and you know, like in anything in life, you get out what what you put in. Um, you know, if you put a you know a half-baked brief out there, you're probably going to get a half-baked response. Um so I think yeah, everyone needs to be aligned and and just spend the time thinking it through really clearly on what you want and being as as transparent as possible. Um and then from a client point of view, there's so many different stages of the process. Um, some clients don't know where to look and to find agencies. Um, you know, there are there are so many agencies out there. Do you go to Google? Do you go to Chat GPT? Do you go to the PRCA website to look for latest award winners? Do you then go to people's websites? If so, what do you look for on their websites? How do you critique it? Do you go to LinkedIn? Do you see what they've posted? Do you go to their Instagram page to see what the culture's like? There's so much out there to try and find a good agency. So um if you don't know, you know, referrals are obviously a great way to do. Um there's there's people in the industry who uh who specialise in running, you know, pitch processes. Um it's important that if you're using intermediaries or individuals like that, uh, they're running fair and transparent pitch processes. There's been again a lot written in a PR week campaign magazine about intermediaries

Alignment, Budget Approval, Transparency

James Tomlinson 11:08

effectively double dipping, so they will they will charge clients on a pitch process, but they may also then charge a referral fee to the agency to make in introductions.

Chris Norton 11:20

That's terrible.

James Tomlinson 11:21

It's it's been something that's gone on for for many years, decades probably, um, but really coming you know to a head at the moment just because new business is so emotional, and yeah, people are are yeah, agencies are going under as a result of not winning new business, so it's um it's a very emotive topic that has has you know come to a height. Uh you know, so selecting the right agency to shortlist um and you know using people to find the right um agencies for referrals is important.

Will Ockenden 11:57

How many on your short how many on a shortlist then? I mean, Chris, I mean That's exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, I know I thought I thought you were gonna ask that because we've we've some years ago we we pitched for a very well known tour, or rather, we were involved in a tender for a very well-known domestic tourism brand. And um we pulled out when I think there's 12 agencies invited to pitch, and we we pulled out straight away because I mean it is absolutely ludicrous, you know, and that's too that's clearly too many. And frankly, who's got time as an as a as a company to to meet that many agencies? So how many is you know, how many is right in in the first, you know, because I I guess companies want to speak speak initially speak to a few agencies, don't they? But then they kind of inevitably shortlist down to a few more, you know, what how how many should they speak to? What's about right?

James Tomlinson 12:45

Yeah, really good question. Um I'll give a couple of examples of uh very competitive uh pitches um that I know of and also really good processes um that have been run. And I'll give a plug to a good friend of mine uh called Alex Young. Um she used to run the PR and comms part of AAR for for over a decade, I think. So you know, advise brands on running these pitch processes. She

Finding Agencies & Intermediary Red Flags

James Tomlinson 13:15

ran something um for British Gas uh that I was involved with when I was the the managing director of One Green Bean, uh it's probably a couple of years ago now, and the process was was excellent, right? You had um uh an initial chemistry session um with the client, it was around Christmas time, and it was structured uh in a way that you had to do uh about 12 questions, it was the 12 questions of Christmas, I think, and then there was an exercise at the end, um, which was open-ended to show creativity and chemistry. And uh we opted to do a pantomime with with the client that our creative director did a brilliant job on scripting something, and we all had to read it out. And we brought in prompts and a bit of fancy dress, and remember we had the corporate affairs director playing the role of a cow, um, and he he was moo he was mooing. And uh and it was it was brilliant, a lot of fun. The client really embraced it, and it was a it was a great session. That they then then shortlisted I think from I think it went yeah, ten agencies to get creds down to six agencies to do chemistry, down to three agencies to pitch, and and that was a good process, and everyone knew what was going on throughout the process. Um another good example was uh when we pitched to TJXE, which is the the parent company that owns Home Base and TK Max.

Chris Norton 14:50

Okay.

James Tomlinson 14:51

They got four agencies, they invited them all to their headquarters in I think it was Watford, did an immersion day to meet the team, you spent the whole day there, the other agencies were there. Um you could go around the store, get to know the brand, and you could find out as much information as possible, which was fantastic, ask questions, it was super open and transparent. Um, so they're they're two really good examples.

Chris Norton 15:16

Did did was it was it not really awkward being like one of four agencies with all the other agencies? And was there a lot of um like bigging up each other, like trying to outdo each other? I see that feels a bit we once had a pitch for a big shopping centre, and we got called to it, and it was it was for the short list, I think, and there was about eight agencies in there, including the incumbent that had been put up, and I I remember it was so awkward because the incumbent was asking questions that they sh really should know they were the incumbent, and everybody knew they were the incumbent, and we were all there to as part of you know the beauty parade of the different age, and everybody was asking questions and trying to outdo each other, and it was just it was just a bit aw. I found it I we find that really awkward. So often we don't some the best ones you don't even have to pitch to, usually you have to do a proposal, and they know if they like you, they know if they want to work with you, and they've seen you work before, but in situations that you're talking about there with big pitches, that that makes

Shortlists That Work, Processes That Scale

Chris Norton 16:10

sense. Was it awkward or not?

James Tomlinson 16:13

No, I don't think it is awkward because um if you make it awkward, you're not going to win, right? Because clients are smart, and you know, if they see an agency trying to throw another agency under the bus um or laughing and saying, oh god, that's a stupid question. Um they're just gonna not want to work with you because they want people who are collaborative, they're gonna work with their media agency, their advertising agency. Um, so you just have to you know play it with a a straight bat and be fair and and transparent as the client's been. Um but yeah, back to your point about a long list. Um there's a pitch recently, uh, which was the open open tender. So I think about 28 agencies went for it and submitted proposals, and they were really, really detailed proposals. I know this because I know the client. Um, and then they had 11 pitches, which you know is a lot, each for each for an hour long. Um and you wouldn't even remember what the first pitch because that was thorough process. They had to do that because they're uh a government entity. Uh but you certainly wouldn't recommend that in uh in the private sector. I think you want to have three three people presenting pitches, maybe an absolute maximum of of four. Um but yeah, just just work back from that really and work out you know how wide you need to cast your net in order to get the therapy to pitch.

Chris Norton 17:50

And the better the I'm completely with you, the better the brief, the better the brief, and always include a bloody price, because we we spoke to the guy from Frank PR who founded Frank, and he was like, and you know, he was he gave a story, he gave a story in a pitch nightmare um uh one of the PR week conferences, saying that this client said to them, Um, just with the budget, they were like, What budget do you have? Budget parameters. It's we've got endless budget, we want creative ideas. This is a creative process. Could you give us any sort of indication budget? Just go, you know, go with everything that you've got. So that they did. And they came back with this that international PR campaign that was like 350,000 quid. And it was but it was an amazing campaign. The client went, oh, and they pr presented it all. They loved it, and they were like, We've only got 50,000. Yeah. We said, Well, why don't you tell us that at the beginning? And then so then from then on, he said, I will never. We said we made it an issue if there's no budget, we ain't pitching, which I thought was really interesting.

James Tomlinson 18:50

Oh, totally. I I've for many years had a hard, fast rule of no budget, no pitch. Um, and there are many polite and nice ways to go about asking the client for for a budget, right? You can just say, um, is it possible to have a budget? So I can prepare the best plan for you, um, I can tailor the creative ideas, I can uh

Chemistry That Matters: Examples & Immersions

James Tomlinson 19:15

identify if you've got third-party costs, um, yeah, I really want to get make sure you get the most out of this process. Um, so please can you give me a stit? If it the answer is no, you can say things like, Okay, well, is it possible um to give me an idea of what you spent in the last year so I can kind of compare it against that? Nice. Um they may say no to that. Um in which in which case you you're gonna get further and further down where you're you're not quite giving them an automaton, but that you're making it very clear that you can say things like, Um personally, I really want to go for this pitch. Um, yeah, the brand is great. Yeah, really, you know, I like the ambition of what you're trying to do, but my CFO, my big bad CFO, um will not let me pitch if there isn't a budget. Can you please help me out? And you know, there's probably five or six tricks that you can try to do to extract the budget. Um, and if that's the case and you're still getting no, then it is a bit of a red flag, and and uh my advice would be not to go for it.

Will Ockenden 20:24

So on on the on the red flags then, so what other red flags do you see in thinking from an agency perspective? So obviously a lack of a budget, big red flag, you know, we're gonna ask 20 agencies to pitch is possibly a red flag. What else kind of um you know uh should agencies watch out for and should brands be careful of?

James Tomlinson 20:46

I think uh junior clients issuing briefs, um and then not letting you join a call with a senior client, you know, and they they keep it very, very guarded. Um I think that is um a bit of a warning. Um not always the case with this one, but maybe a new client, and this you know may come across unfair, but a new client in a role um just need to be a little wary of. Obviously, new clients want new agencies, but sometimes they're looking for new ideas to to bring um to the party and and might not necessarily you know have the sign-off internally or have been there long enough to um to implement a change of of agency. Um so that that that's something else to consider. Um and then yeah, I guess going back to running a good process, if they're not uh defining a really good process where you can ask questions, you might be able to have a tissue session to sense check strategic or creative thoughts. Um if it's just there's the brief, no other cons turn up on this day, you know, deliver a proposal on this day, then that's a that's a bit of a red flag as well.

Etiquette in Competitive Rooms

Will Ockenden 22:00

What about I mean, this is a little bit how long is a piece of string, but you know, we've we've had great briefs in, and and they've you you get to the bottom of the brief, they they want a proposal in in eight days. And it's just crazy, isn't it? You know, who who's who can you know these things take time? I mean, what c clients need to be realistic, don't they, about how long to give agencies to respond.

James Tomlinson 22:24

I mean, is there a hard and fast rule as to how long they need to think you know, yeah, there'll there all be there's always exceptions to to the rule, um, and not to contradict myself, but it may be that there's a fantastic, you know, start up, um you know, it's got lots of you know publicity around it, it's recently got funding, it genuinely doesn't know how much to spend on a on a PR or marketing campaign and it's looking for advice. And you might think, look, we've asked all these questions, but we still want to go for it, you know, so that might be an exception, or it might be an amazing brand, um and the budget could be quite low, but you just want to go for it because it's great for portfolio, so there's there's always exceptions. Um I think it's always amazing what you can do in two weeks, right, in an agency. Um when when you're given that deadline. I think two weeks from having answered all of the questions and got all of the information to then pitch is is okay. Um ideally, you probably want a month where you know it's you get the pitch, you then ask questions, you then do chemistry, you then might have a tissue, you then might pitch. Um for the bigger briefs, you'll probably get get that time frame. Um

No Budget, No Pitch: Getting Numbers

James Tomlinson 23:40

so I'd kind of operate to those two things, a minimum of two weeks. And um we had a a phrase, I think our old C D or E C D used to to use it, um, do you want my first ideas or my best ideas? And yeah, the shorter the time frame, it goes back to what we were saying, the you know, the more limited the output is going to be, you know. And if you you want to find the best agency, you want the best work, then then give them the time to think and and let them show you what what you can do.

Chris Norton 24:18

I I like the graphic that is a triangle and it's um time, quality, speed, uh time, quality, and speed, I think it is.

James Tomlinson 24:26

Is time, quality, and speed might be another one. Time quality, price, I think it might be.

Chris Norton 24:30

Price, price, yeah. Yeah, that's it. Speed, price, and quality. And what you know, so less less less money equals less quality. Um, quicker means less quality. And I just think that works. In terms of obviously, this this show is all about marketing mistakes, and you you're a bit of a black belt in the the pitch scenario.

Will Ockenden 24:49

I think you've got to say black belt and make a mistake then.

Chris Norton 24:53

Yeah, are you but are you black belt than that? I'm sure you've learned a lot from pitching. Have you had any mistakes that you've learned from um while you've been pitching yourself?

James Tomlinson 25:01

Yeah, so many mistakes, and uh you always gotta learn from your mistakes. I can think of um two or three funny ones. Um so it ended up being a positive. So after three attempts to um pitch to Intercontinental Hotel Group in their their European comms team, uh, we ended up winning business at one of my old agencies. Um but prior to that, I think it was the second time uh we pitched, I had this what I thought was genius, but it's actually a terrible idea, um, to bring a magician in disguise into uh into the pitch.

Chris Norton 25:44

Okay.

James Tomlinson 25:45

Um and he was he he was pretending to be you know one of the team, uh account director. And then at one point in the presentation we got to the press office part of it. Um it was quite early on, and uh we were talking about the target media they wanted to get in, and he's like, right, I'm now

More Red Flags & Governance

James Tomlinson 26:05

gonna show you exactly how we're gonna get you into the Financial Times or something, something along this. And stood up, and I think you've probably seen this on YouTube or something, where yeah, you fold up, you rip up the paper, the Financial Times, you do it lots of little squares, and then you just go. And then so they're watching this guy rip the Financial Times up and then blows it out and then sticks it back together again. And it's like a a tonar moment that just was like a what the f moment. They're like, what and then and then he he I he had something else to do, and I was just like, look, that yeah, I was just gonna call it. It obviously didn't work, you know. We try the theme was around magic, like bringing the magic into something. Yeah.

Will Ockenden 26:52

Well, I was gonna ask what the relevance is. Yeah, they're like, the magic's great, but why?

Chris Norton 26:57

Did he literally do it? And then he went, and then nothing happened, and it was like tumbleweight, it's all up, and you always sat there going pretty much and we just we just called it then and it's like look, yeah, we tried something, it didn't work.

James Tomlinson 27:10

Uh you can go now if if you want. We didn't weren't sure whether he should leave the room or stay there and just witness the rest of it.

Will Ockenden 27:16

That's a proper walk of shame, isn't it? The magician leaves.

James Tomlinson 27:19

Um that that didn't work. We ended up getting lucky when we won it because um the next brief was around the influencer campaign, and we we produced uh these little uh you know, snippets from influencers saying we we really want to work with IHG on this campaign, and um so it was really you know, really nice show we had a good good network of contacts. And then the end one was Proudlock from made in Chelsea, and the corporate affairs director and his wife watched that, and the their favourite was was Proudlock and it um so oh my god, you know, you know hearing that work really well, and we ended up uh winning the business, uh, which was which was good. Nice.

Will Ockenden 28:03

That's making me cringe a bit thinking about that magician, even though I I like the ambition.

James Tomlinson 28:08

I did um we also pitched to a quick one to screw fix once. So went

Timelines: First Ideas vs Best Ideas

James Tomlinson 28:15

up north somewhere, probably not as north as Leeds, but I'm from the south, so anywhere north of M25 is north for me. Um so we went to their headquarters and we took up these really heavy proposals, right? Um and they were heavy because it was yeah, it was like back in the day where yeah you you needed to hand out readouts, and um we've got sandpaper, this black sandpaper from Screw Fix, and then had the the logo and uh the title of the presentation, like laser edged into this sandpaper, and it was the front and back cover of the proposal. So that sounds quite nice. Really good. So got in, I laid them out on the big the big board and table, I stapped them up, I think it was about eight high on on top of each other, and the CEO comes in and is like, Oh, exactly. Your reaction, oh, this looks so good. Big tables, so it was awkward, you couldn't quite pick them up, like tables here. So he drags them across this like really nice polished wood wood finish and leaves like a snail trail where the where the proposals have sand in the board from Oh no, you're joking. Yeah, um but yeah, that that that went down fine. Um so it was a simple mistake, but that was a bit of a peace nightmare as well.

Chris Norton 29:45

And did did you win that one?

James Tomlinson 29:46

We did, yeah, we did win that one.

Chris Norton 29:47

Yeah, you you you know what, right? Because a lot of the pitch nightmares, so some of them are funny, uh, I know which is why I'm I'm thinking of doing a pitch nightmares specific pod. Um but often it's the it's the fact that you're memorable, even if you fuck it up right royally. Uh because I've been in one and I always I always use this story, but at the end of the pitch, I luckily it was it, I was just the the person I was the account director from the Leeds Office, but the London office were leading it, it was a big government thing. And we

Theatre with Purpose, Not Waste

Chris Norton 30:15

presented this thing on antisocial behaviour to the government, it was the Labour government at the time, and um uh we finished pitching and the the the client contact who's now a dame and shall remain nameless, um uh she didn't say it, but this the guy next to from from the government, there's loads of them there, went I think your campaign fundamentally lacks credibility. And the room just went, all the oxygen from the room just went, and I remember thinking, shit, I am glad I'm not answering any questions on this. And and then instead of defending the response, which is what most People would do go hang on a minute, we've done it. Um, actually, the CEO played a blinder. He went, Okay, I think we've actually missed you know something here. We are really good at what we do, which is why you've got us in the room, da da da da da. And he got us to go second pitch and we won it. And I think that's because you like you say, when you've got more than four, or especially the governments that get loads of agencies in, you might have fucked something up, but they remember you like and you're you scraping the floor. I think maybe maybe that's why you won it. I don't know.

James Tomlinson 31:15

Yeah, yeah, you've got you've got to be uh memorable and human. Yeah, you can you can rehearse to death before a pitch, um, and you just come across robotic. Yeah. You have to embrace you know, messing up, and you know, uh I think that's totally natural, and be honest about it and um yeah, just just yeah, correct it. Don't worry about stuttering or forgetting your lines. People want to see that they're gonna be working with people, not these robots.

Will Ockenden 31:50

Is that kind of um theatrical side of it? I know I I mean when we spoke with Andrew Block on a previous pod, he was sort of talking about didn't he have an ambulance that he used to do pitches in in his office or something? Yeah, but he was and that's you know, particularly the kind of consumer shops, that's really the you know, you hear a lot of that kind of really going the extra mile and doing these kind of almost experiential kind of pitches. Is that important or is it a kind of you know, as a I suppose couldn't, you know, from is it just about memorability, you know?

James Tomlinson 32:21

Yeah, it is important, but I think in 2025, 2026, you've you've got to do it for the right client, right? So I'll give you two examples. Um going back to one of the brands I mentioned earlier, I won't mention mention who, they told us that they said no to an agency at chemistry stage um when they came to their office because they'd put out you know balloons and props and stuff, and they were very big into sustainability. So, you know, using uh you know plastic, you know, that wasn't going to be reused was a big no-no for them. So, you know, think think that element of it through and think think it from

Pitch Nightmares: Magic Tricks and Sandpaper

James Tomlinson 33:05

from from all basis. Um, and then on the flip side, I can remember pitching to Air France KLM, really, really good client. This is probably seven or eight years ago, um, you know, a brand that most agencies want to work with. So when they came into our office, we had um yeah uh the correct term for them, the poles with the uh like the loops, the chains like you get at an airport when you're queuing up.

Will Ockenden 33:33

Yeah, yeah.

James Tomlinson 33:34

A bit of a blue carpet going into the meeting room. When we were in the meeting room, we had uh sofas kind of set out like an airport lounge, we had magazines on the back, you had plants and coffees and stuff. And uh the receptionists on the building gave them uh like the room details and the pitch agenda on the boarding cars when they came into the room, so we'd set it up for them like it was a bit of an airport lounge, and and that worked really good. The design of the presentation, the breaker slides were like the the ticket tacker boards at airports, um, and we won that pitch. That was a really good pitch. Um so I remember pitching to another client. Uh we knew it was the day after their Christmas party. So we didn't know big theatre or anything, just little little uh sort of token gesture. We provided them with like Alka Seltzer and um and uh Barocca and had like a few little hangover kits just in the meeting and just said look you know if you're feeling made a joke out of there, if you're feeling rough after your party, hope you had a good night, then help yourself today. I was like, Oh my god, I need that. Yeah, thank you.

Will Ockenden 34:43

I've I've read um, you know, um back in the heyday of Sarchi and Sarchi, I used to read about um some of the stunts they used to pull. So I think I think it was they were pitching for um BA. And at the time BA's um customer service was considered really poor, and the you know, the cabin crew were considered quite obnoxious and things.

James Tomlinson 35:03

And basically they made they left them in reception, did it?

Will Ockenden 35:07

Yeah, and then someone served them drinks and spilt the coffee all over the telephone. There's all this stuff, and then and then the payoff was you know, this is what the what consumers think about you. And I think they did another one which is for is for British Rail at the time, and they they they did the pitch in a cinema, but basically kept them wait, yeah, kept them waiting like 45 minutes, and everyone was just about to go up and leave, and then they were like, This is what your customers feel like because your trains are always late. Yeah, I've had and it's so bold, isn't it?

Chris Norton 35:35

That is that I mean that that is brave, that is brave, isn't it? Yeah, to win the pitch.

Will Ockenden 35:40

Yeah.

Chris Norton 35:41

Um cool. Well, um, thanks for coming on the show, James. Um, if people want to get old of you, um, how do they get hold of you? How where can they find you?

James Tomlinson 35:49

Yeah, so go to my website, sprintpartners.co, um, or just look for me on on LinkedIn. Um, probably the easiest way. Um, James Tomlinson with a H T on LinkedIn. Uh always happy to jump on the call and answer any questions. Um yeah, thank you for having me. Um and uh yeah, look forward to catching up with you guys soon.

Chris Norton 36:14

Def definitely. Um actually I've forgotten to ask you one question, which is um you've been on the show now, and um you you know what it's like. Um if you were us, who is the next person you would have on this show and why?

James Tomlinson 36:30

I would have a brand so they can give you the alternative perspective um to me. Yeah. Um that's my that's my uh response to being put on the spot. Um I think someone in in AI, um everyone's talking about AI. Um someone who is a real industry leader and you know can talk about you know practical tips for using AI day to day uh or what the future is.

Being Memorable, Human, and Honest

James Tomlinson 37:00

I think people are uh are interested in both those those topics. I was actually at a s uh an event this week called Festival of New Business, and there was a surprisingly good, he was quite divisive, but a surprisingly good uh speaker there called George King. Uh and he's famous because he scaled the shard. Right? Oh, yeah, I remember it. And yeah, we didn't really know why he was there, but then he he spoke about you know being fearless, being disciplined, you know, leave no stone unturned in your preparation, and then he applied it to new business and pitching. He was good at uh yeah, maybe maybe have a look at those.

Chris Norton 37:42

Okay, cool. Well, well, well, thank you very much.

James Tomlinson 37:44

Yeah, that was great.

Will Ockenden 37:45

Thanks for that, James.