What I’ve Learned Watching Agencies Pitch

I recently gave a talk at Craft+Work London on this topic and thought it’d be useful to share here too. Over the past year I’ve found myself back in familiar territory but from a very different seat. Alongside my work with agency leaders I’ve also been helping a few brands identify the right agency partners for their projects. These are a few of the things that stood out most from that other side of the table.

After years of building and leading an agency myself, then later advising others on how to grow theirs, seeing things from the client side has been a real (re)education.

You start to notice the patterns – how agencies show up, how they tell their story, how they prepare for that all-important pitch – and it gives you a different kind of perspective on what it now takes to stand out.

My feeling is that clients are (even) sharper, expectations are (even) higher, budgets remain under (even more) pressure and competition is (still) tough. My observations were that the agencies that are adapting and presenting themselves with clarity and intent are the ones still winning.

These are a few of the things that stood out most from that other side of the table.

1. Knowledge before assumption

There’s a phrase that Julian Kynaston (CEO of the Leeds based brand agency, Propaganda) uses that I like – it’s ‘knowledge before assumption’. It’s one of the things that most clearly separates a strong pitch from an average one. The agencies that walk into the room already knowing who’s there, what matters to them and what they’re (quietly) worried about immediately feel different. You can sense it from the first few minutes.

In one pitch I sat in on recently there was a team member who was anxious about platform stability. For the agency it’s the kind of thing you take for granted – especially with Shopify – but for that person, who knew very little about the platform, it was the main thing on their mind.

By asking the right questions early and bringing that point in with clarity and confidence, you can turn worry into reassurance. But you have to ask. The agencies that show curiosity, that make the effort to understand the people behind the brief, tend to be the ones that connect. They don’t just answer the question in the RFP; they answer the questions in the room.

Practically that means asking those simple questions ahead of the pitch: ‘Who will be there? And what is the most important thing, to them, that we need to get across?’. Then, at the start of the pitch, reference that you’ll be talking about these things. It will stop that person waiting to see if you’re going to cover this topic - so they’re more likely to start listening, to relax and to engage.

2. Lead with story

After watching a lot of pitches recently I’ve realised there are really two types. There are the ones that dust off their last deck, change a few logos and run through the same slides they’ve used three times that month. And then there are the ones that tell a proper story – the ones that take you on a bit of a journey, that ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and make you feel something along the way.

The agencies that did this well didn’t just talk about what they could do, they showed it. They used visuals of relevant work or small prototypes to help bring the idea to life. One team even created an interactive demo. It wasn’t perfect (nor was it designed to be) but it showed intent, effort and made the work tangible, rather than theoretical.

The simple things matter. How the deck looks. How it feels to move through it. People do buy with their eyes and when a document looks like it’s been made in a rush, you notice. A generic deck that isn’t led by story or vision stands out a mile – and not in a good way.

Even for technical projects, story still wins, particularly when it’s a non technical audience. You can put the dry stuff in an appendix (and please do) but lead with the why. Bring people with you. Help them picture what could be, not just what’s in scope.

When you tell the story well, they don’t just understand the work, they start to imagine it - with you - and working with you.

Don’t just re-work a deck. Look at the client brief forensically. Highlight the challenges they articulated plus the insight you have gathered from your questions ahead. Show, not just tell, how you will make their life better and why working with you is a no-brainer.

3. Delivery and detail

When a pitch goes well it has an ease to it – the story moves at the right pace, the handovers feel natural and everyone in the room seems to know why they’re there and what they’re adding. It doesn’t need to be over-rehearsed or slick but it does need to feel organised and calm; with a rhythm that lets people listen and process what’s being said. It’s difficult to quantify sometimes but it just feels ‘right’.

You can sense it straight away when that natural flow isn’t there. Someone talks over a colleague, a slide appears out of order, the focus of the pitch drifts and the confidence starts to dip. It’s rarely catastrophic but it creates hesitation that lingers because if the team don’t feel settled in their own story it’s hard for a client to feel settled in it either. Remember, the client has a lot of choice and they need to feel that confidence and security.

That sense of ease doesn’t happen by luck - unless you happen to be a particularly talented presenter who can speak, at ease, on demand. More often, and definitely with a team, it comes from preparation, from taking the time to walk through it properly together, to find the rhythm before you’re in the room. It’s not about polishing every line, it’s about getting to the point where you know it well enough that you can relax, listen and adjust as you go.

The teams that do that well are the ones that feel connected. Everyone is there for a reason, no one filling a seat for optics, the story carried by people who clearly believe in it. Clients don’t need or want perfection - but they need to sense care, control and cohesion – that if they handed you the work, you’d look after them well.

The pitch is your theatre - you are the actors, telling your story. Each person in the pitch should have a role in the story and make a positive contribution. And, like a theatre production, you need to rehearse so it feels cohesive. But you don’t need to sing.

4. Authenticity and accuracy

Clients buy into people as much as they buy into capability and they can tell when something doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t take much to trigger a warning flag – a vague answer, a bit of overconfidence, a story that doesn’t quite add up…

I saw one pitch where the team were asked about their approach to development for a Shopify build. It should have been simple but the answer drifted between two options that didn’t align with the fixed price they’d already shared. It created doubt. How had this been priced so confidently if this key decision was still up in the air? What else might have been considered in this way?

The teams that impressed me most were open about where things were still being shaped. They showed how they’d close the gaps, acted as experts without pretending to know everything and carried a calm honesty that built confidence.

And if you don’t know something, say so. Clients are smart. They can spot blagging a mile off and it never goes well. You don’t lose credibility by not having every answer, you lose it when you pretend you do. Doubt is a surefire way to kill a pitch.

Authenticity is about being the best version of you – the version that knows their craft, listens properly and shows real enthusiasm for the work. One of the best things I saw was a simple slide titled “Why we love this brief.” It instantly changed the tone and reminded everyone that behind the numbers and deliverables, this is a creative partnership.

5. AI with intention

AI is part of almost every conversation now, yet it’s still an area where many agencies sound uncertain. You can tell when a team has a clear point of view and when they’re mentioning it because they feel they should.

The strongest agencies I’ve seen could talk about it with calm confidence. They showed how they were using AI in practical ways – to support research, speed up exploration, test prototypes or free up time for deeper work. They’d thought about how it fits into their process and where human judgement still matters.

Others avoided it altogether. A few even said they “don’t use AI”, which raises alarm bells. In 2025 it’s not really about whether you use AI or not, it’s about whether you understand it and how it fits into your view of what good work looks like.

It doesn’t need to lead the story but it does need to sit within it. A clear, honest position on AI – how you think about it, where you use it and what value it adds – signals curiosity, awareness and intent. Those are the qualities clients are looking for.

There’s so much noise about AI right now. You need a clear position. Clients expect AI to either save them time, money or add more value - or potentially all three. Explain how you will achieve this for them, or not.

Be memorable. For the right reasons.

Spending more time on the client side has been a reminder of how much the tone of a pitch is key. The work itself matters of course, but what people remember is how it felt to be in the room – the balance, the ease, the sense that the team knew their craft and cared about the outcome.

The agencies that stood out had that quality about them. They’d done the work to understand who they were speaking to, they told their story with clarity and there was a natural rhythm to the way they worked together.

They didn’t try to sound bigger or louder than they were, they just showed up as themselves – prepared, thoughtful, confident in what they knew and honest about what they didn’t. They brought a clear sense of how tools like AI could add value without ever letting it take over the conversation.

All of that builds trust, and trust is what still decides most pitches. Once the slides are gone and the details fade, what people carry with them is how you made them feel in that room.

And if you’re struggling with positioning or pitching, it’s the type of work I help agencies with as my role as an agency board advisor. If you’re looking to scale your agency (and want to avoid some of the pitfalls) let’s have a chat - drop me a note through the contact form on the homepage.