How agencies can win more pitches in 2026 with Mercer Island Group

14:04Robin Boehler:And if you don't ask them, I'm going to wonder, why didn't you think that we can help you? That's what we're here for. We're here to help the client make the best decision, which means we want the agencies to show their very best. The other time that is really shocking to me that agencies don't ask questions is what you just mentioned, Ashley. And that is after that tissue session, after you've had a chance to meet with the client, even if we've given you feedback, now you're getting down to the wire and you're about to show up. And I'm sure you're reaching many forks in the road. Should we go left?

14:32Robin Boehler:Should we go right? Should we do this? Should we do that? Why don't you ask for help? Ask for feedback. Check in with the consultant and say, hey, we're kind of trying, we're debating whether we should lean in heavily on AI or just mention it as a tool we use as we talk about this one thing. We just had a consultant, an agency that did that. And it was really smart. And I think it made a big difference in what he submitted.

14:57Steve Boehler:Yeah, I think there was a very pivotal point for me in my career when I would think of a search consultant as like a gatekeeper versus an ally. And you are really there to support the agency and the brand to get to the best possible outcome in relationship at the end of this. And I think if agencies can reframe how they think about consultants and lean in and work with consultants, you can be so much more successful. I actually prefer reviews that have a consultant in them because you get so much more access and visibility. I mean, you've been working with these brands for a couple of months before the RFP even goes out.

15:34Steve Boehler:So you know them, you've sat with them, you have a lot of retained knowledge that's probably not even in that RFP that you're allowed to share.

15:42Robin Boehler:Right. And our philosophy is that we want the client to see the best of the agency. That's right. Not like, did you fall off the balance beam on that day? This isn't the Olympics and it's one day and you get an award or you don't. This is the preparation for and selection of hopefully a very long-term partner.

16:00Steve Boehler:All right. Let's go back to the board.

16:02Robin Boehler:Let's go four.

16:04Steve Boehler:Number four. Okay, so we talked about this just a little bit in a couple of questions ago, but I want to go even deeper. So, okay, you've made it to the finals. You're an agency. You're one of two, three, four agencies that has advanced to the finals. Talk to us a little bit more in depth about those key components of a prospect-friendly pitch. What should happen in those 60 minutes from your perspective that makes the most successful use of that valuable time?

16:35Robin Boehler:Yeah, that's such a good question. And of course, beyond the five slides, getting to the five slides that we talked about earlier is where the meat is. And so we really believe that job number one, when you start your final presentation, is to bond with the group that you're presenting to with really smart introductions. And so the agency should introduce themselves briefly explain who they are what role they have on the business and that's it we don't need to know if you have dogs or if you like to go on vacation or what your favorite starbucks drink is we just want to know who you are now but then ask the client get them talking immediately by asking them a question like say something like uh we we'd love to know a little more about you please uh tell us who you are what your role is on the business and one thing you hope to get out of our meeting today together that that last part of that gets them immediately talking forces them to talk frankly in a more thoughtful way than name rank and serial number and and by the way you may hear something right away that is surprising and this especially happens because often the most senior person in the room from the client hasn't really been engaged until that meeting.

18:00Robin Boehler:And they may actually have an entirely different view of what's going on and what they need than the day-to-day folks you've been working with for a lot of sound reasons.

18:10Steve Boehler:What's your advice to an agency? Like, let's say that does happen and the CMO is in the room and they say something that you know isn't in your presentation. How do you suggest we handle that?

18:21Robin Boehler:Well, I think there's a couple ways to handle that. One way, if you're really confident that you can address it on the fly, what I would suggest that you do is you, right after the introductions, and I would suggest this anyway, by the way, after the introductions, you actually put up a slide or you put up a flip chart pad that has what you understand as the issues that need to be addressed during the meeting. and the issues about the business, the reason they're in essence in review. And so you capture those business issues and add what you just learned to that list. So that right up front, you're showcasing that you get their business, you understand the challenges, and by the way, you're listening and you heard them.

19:11Robin Boehler:Then how you then address it depends on how complex it is. And so if it is something you actually can weave into your presentation, go ahead and do that. If it's something that would take additional work, then you could simply say, well, we'd love to address this other point. Either in a follow-up meeting, we can send you some notes on it. We can get on another call.

19:35Steve Boehler:That's good advice.

19:36Robin Boehler:At the end of the presentation, then, this is really important, come back and revisit that slide that talked about the business issues. and tick off each one with how you address them during your presentation. What that does is it showcases that you're focused on their business, you're focused on things they might have said during that one question up front, and it highlights that you are trying to solve their issues and listen and respond to what they really need.

20:06Steve Boehler:Yep. I love that we're talking about introductions right now because on the agency side, you'll sometimes hear, it's a waste of time. We don't have time for this. Our time in the room is so limited. We've got to spend it on this, that, and the other. And I think what you're bringing is you need to make time for it because it's really important. It's a chemistry moment. It's a bonding moment. And more importantly, it's your moment to prove you know the business problem better than any other agency that comes in here.

20:31Robin Boehler:I agree 100%.

20:33Steve Boehler:So, okay. So introductions. And then, Robin, you kind of teed it up, right? Now we're going into our research, our strategy. We've got our five slides next. than our creative. I have to count on my fingers. Okay, what happens after we've kind of shared our thinking?

20:51Robin Boehler:Right, so, and it could be creative and media. Media, yep. And don't forget measurement and data and analytics. You have to be able to show how you're going to make sure that you know how to count the beans, right? That you know how to count what it is that's important to the client. So don't forget all of that. And then you're going to wrap up and hopefully there were questions along the way. You set things up in a way where you're checking in with the client. And if you've got a little time at the end for more Q &A, you can do that. And then you wrap up by telling them how much you want the business.

21:23Steve Boehler:And you have good advice on that. Yeah. Yeah.

21:26Robin Boehler:I mean, it's wonderful to say we would, you know, we really enjoyed being here today. We're so honored that you invited us. Whatever would be in your own words, in your own language, right? That feels genuine to you. we'd love to invite you to visit us in our offices in Cincinnati. We'd love to arrange that anytime that makes sense for you. And we'd very much love to be your agency.

21:49Steve Boehler:Yeah. I mean, for the record, I have used that and I've had clients take me up on it. So inviting them to your office, I think is just a really, really nice way to end it. And if they are interested in you, sometimes that visit can make all the difference.

22:05Robin Boehler:Oh, I actually think it is the way to close. It's very hard to close in a presentation. There's always follow-up questions. If you're lucky, you are the favorite coming out. But more often than not, it's two. We really love this part of this agency, but they didn't answer that. And we really love the other thing for the other agency, but they didn't answer something else. So we've got to figure out a way to get those final questions answered. Coming and being able to host them in your house gives you a very significant advantage to being able to set things up in a way that really shows who you are.

22:41They can meet a bigger part of the team, which is really important because clients are very

22:45Robin Boehler:worried about what capacity and whether or not they're getting pitched, teamed, and all of that. So that visit really is the way to close a piece of business. And you'd be surprised how many times a client has said in the meeting after the meeting when the agency never asks for the business. I don't know if they really even want this. And I want to just say, are you kidding? Do you know what they did to be here today? Do you know how much work they did and how much money they spent and how many nights they didn't sleep? But if it doesn't show the client is trying to eliminate agencies here, don't give them that reason.

23:22Robin Boehler:Of all the reasons, that would be the silliest one of all, the reason to lose.

23:27Steve Boehler:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't be there if you didn't want it pretty badly at that point. Yeah. All right. Great advice. Let's go back to the board. Let's go to one. Okay. So, I mean, this is really the heart of the book, right? But we know that understanding the prospect's business problem is job number one because it is about them. I would love for you just to share your advice on how agencies can get to that because it is difficult. How can we get to an understanding of the prospect's problem quickly?

23:59Robin Boehler:Well, hopefully you've got a good RFI and it's right there. It's, you know, just, I mean, I hate to say this because agencies, I don't think, do it very well. Read the RFI really carefully. Like I use a highlighter. So if we're working with an agency to help them with a pitch and they send the RFI, I print it out the old school way. And I actually use a highlighter to highlight just the things I think are the business issues. There are hints all along the way. So if they mention market share, highlight that. If they mention slumping sales, highlight that. If they mention a competitive challenge, highlight that.

24:43Robin Boehler:So look for the things. Yeah, yeah. I think there's a couple of things that you can do to get ready. So so one thing is that in most categories, most of the brands have the same challenge. So by diving in and doing some quick category research, you're going to be you're going to have a sense of what's going on, who's leading, who's not and what those category wide issues are. And that preps you really well to to compare that to what you're reading in the the sort of the request that you received that Robin was just talking about. I think as part of the prep work, of course, ask further questions about what you're learning.

25:26Robin Boehler:So let's say, for example, one of our favorite questions is, let's say in a case where the business issue is clearly detailed that it's sales, right? We need to grow sales. Once you've gotten them, the prospect talking, perhaps in a Q &A or perhaps in a phone call, you might want to say something to the effect of beyond the obvious goal of increasing sales, what concerns you the most? And your listeners should write this down. Beyond the obvious goal of whatever it is, what concerns you the most? And what happens is you're able to then take, ask things in a, it allows you to ask what sounds like an obvious question, like why do you want increased sales?

26:16Robin Boehler:And it doesn't sound like a stupid question anymore. It actually becomes a really deep question because it's asking them to what's going on beyond or behind or aligned or close to that issue. And it makes the prospect think about how to respond. And you often get paragraphs of information.

26:35Steve Boehler:I think that's a differentiator for agencies too, because now you're getting some insight that not everybody else has potentially. So that's really good advice. The other thing I want to add back to is that I think our philosophy is if you're going to say yes to a pitch, go all in.

26:52Robin Boehler:That's right. All in. Don't just, okay, we'll fill this out. We'll do it. And then it's kind of half done and it's not really, it won't differentiate you. It won't stand out in the crowd when we're reading your submissions. And so you've wasted, you're just wasting your time. And I see agencies also, another thing that they do is they look at the RFP or the RFI, whatever the document is, and they say, oh, we know exactly what their problem is. Well, if you think you know right immediately, I would go back and read it again. Because people read and listen with happy ears. Oh, we're great at solving that.

27:32Robin Boehler:So we'll just go right after that thing. And they go headlong in. So we were recently working with an agency that's pitching a university. And the university asked for help with students in three states. And when we were getting ready, we were doing the work and we were doing the strategy. One of the people in the agency said, I think you only need to focus on their home state. Most kids go to college in their home state, 80 % some number. And we said, yeah, that may be true. But they asked for their business issue is recruiting students from three states. So if we only answer one third of the request, we lost.

28:17Robin Boehler:so you've got to read it carefully you can't force in information that you think you know that's more important than what they shared about their business you are not an expert on their business yet and you haven't earned the right to tell them that they're wrong that's right i that's

28:32Steve Boehler:really good advice actually because i think agencies kind of step in that too where they're like this is what you said you need but we're here to tell you that you're wrong and we think you need this.

28:42Robin Boehler:And one other one other way to find out if it's a public company, one way to have a sense of what's going on beyond the the R.I. or the RFP is the earnings call. Listen to their earnings calls. Listen to their senior executives, the CFO, the CEO, the president. Listen to what they're saying and how they are saying it on the earnings call, because there's nothing more challenging, frankly, to the C-suite than the earnings call. And they know that they have to be at least relatively forthcoming on the earnings call. And so you get those really fabulous information that you can get out of hearing those calls.

29:27Robin Boehler:And by the way, then you can, once you hear something like that, you can reference the fact that, well, I heard on the earnings call X, Y, and Z, and you'll be the only agency that says that. I guarantee it.

29:39Steve Boehler:I love that. Maybe I won't air this episode. I don't know. I feel like all the juicy secrets are coming out. That's good. All right. Let's go back to the board.

29:47Robin Boehler:Who's up, Robin? You. Oh, I'm up too.

29:51Steve Boehler:All right. Number two it is. Okay. So most agencies lose a pitch before it even starts. What should agencies be doing pre-pitch to even make it on the list?

30:04Robin Boehler:Okay, so I love this question. We talk a lot about this. You need to be ready, you need to be memorable, and you need to be findable. And each one of those is a lot of work, but the readiness is stuff like you have to be positioned, you have to have a sound frame of reference so people know what kind of agency you are. You have to have a website that's prospect friendly, that has all the kinds of stuff that the prospect is actually looking for, not what makes your agency buddies think you have a cool website. There's really specific information that they're looking for. And with that stuff in place, then you have to elevate your ability to be memorable in the marketplace.

30:51Robin Boehler:Do what the curiosity folks do. Do what the mischief folks do. But find a way to make those things ownable to your own agency and lean into the areas where you really have a right to sort of showcase the agency. So you need to be able to, you need to be out there somehow, whether it's the king or queen of conferences or like you may want to do something like Edelman does, have their annual trust barometer research, which funnels and fuels all of their marketing. But you need a way to build memorability for your agency. And you need to do it in a way that is helpful to the listener. Because they don't want to hear you talk about the agency when they're not looking for an agency.

31:40Robin Boehler:And almost all the time, they're not looking for an agency. So you have to find a way in your strategy with your content and your appearances to be interesting enough and helpful to them that they'll pay attention. so that in that right moment, sometime down their line, they'll remember, oh, those folks at Curiosity talked about this. They're experts. We should call them. And then that third piece is findability, which means that you have to be really good at all the content that gets out into the universe. You have to be early on in the new AI approaches to schematically designing your website.

32:22Robin Boehler:and your content, et cetera, so that you're better found, et cetera, et cetera. But those three points help separate, frankly, almost all. Most agencies are terrible at all three.

32:33Steve Boehler:That's right.

32:34Robin Boehler:They're not ready once they're found. They're not memorable, and it's hard to find them. And in a world where there's thousands and thousands of agencies and clients have very low unaided awareness of agency names, being able to be ready, be memorable, be findable, separates you from the pack and increases dramatically the chances that you're going to get more opportunities.

32:59Steve Boehler:That's great. And the book dives into each of those in really great detail. So I highly suggest reading those sections. And for anyone listening, I get a lot of compliments on our website. Very frequently, people will say, we love Curiosity's website. How do you do it? well you guys have a website framework and that's literally what we followed I took that you know we had a brief and all of that but I took that to the dev team and the design team and said this is what's important we're building this not for ourselves we're building it for prospects and search consultants first and this is the type of information that they're looking for yes it can be beautiful but it's got to serve these purposes and I think if you just kind of reframe your mindset your website I look at it that's my storefront that's the first place likely you know you're going to go, brands are going to go.

33:43Steve Boehler:And so it's got a lot, it has to do a lot of work very quickly because they're not going to spend all day there either.

33:48Robin Boehler:No, you want them to stay. All right. You want them to get there and stay. So the advice that we give in the book, I mean, it ranges from, as you said, a checklist for what your website should look like all the way through to how do you develop content that's on brand, which means that you've got to have an agency philosophy. You've got to do all the work to make sure that you know who you are as an agency, what kind of agency you are, what we call in the book, the frame of reference, what kind of agency you are, and then how you stand out in the marketplace. What is your agency's unique, special, or differentiated, maybe is a better way, distinctive way of talking about yourself.

34:26Steve Boehler:All right. Great advice. We're going to clear this board if that's okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, I think we've got enough time to do it. So let's clear the board. Let's see the final question. All right. No one likes to talk about money. So would love your tips for making scope conversations less uncomfortable. What a good way to end, right?

34:50Robin Boehler:I don't think the scope conversation should be uncomfortable at all. So the scope conversation is the way that you confirm what the work is that's expected by the client. Agencies should be thinking about the scope as a gift from the client. If a scope is done well, the client tells you what they actually are needing and wanting. And I know it doesn't always happen. We work with clients to get to good scopes so agencies can cost them properly. It really helps you understand how much staff you're going to need, how many hours you're going to need for folks, how long things are going to take, which ultimately translates into how we think we can put together the best value package for our client with a cost structure that gives us a chance to earn money, which you should be able to do, right?

35:41Robin Boehler:Have a profit and also deliver a great value to our client. So if agencies can flip the way they're thinking about those scopes as rather than it being the razor's edge that's sharp and can hurt you, it's the razor's edge that you can use to make sure that you're really delivering exactly what the client is expecting. And that scope, if it's not clear, it's your job to get clarity as a client, as a prospect. So when you're pitching a piece of business, if the scope feels unclear and you're feeling like it's a shot in the dark, ask clarity questions. Get as much clarity as you need to be able to put your scope together and then make sure that when you bring forward your proposal, you don't just have your line items and your prices and you hand it in and say, okay, here it is.

36:34Robin Boehler:And here's our bottom line. You frame it in a way that says, we're so excited to get to do this work for you because we know this is the work that's going to solve. Remember those problems we talked about earlier on? This is the tie the work back, tie the scope back, tie the cost of the engagement. back to the resolution of the problems that they have. You'll spend this much to get this much, right? Now it's hard to quantify, you're going to get this much of an increase in sales, but we anticipate that we'll have a sales lift. You might even be able to do the math on what kind of sales lift you think they'll get, but you've got to tie it to business results.

37:18Robin Boehler:And that becomes then a much less awkward conversation and a much more compelling kind of partnership agreement. And think of your scope of work as your partnership agreement up front in terms of what you're going to deliver in order to get to the solutions that the client needs to be able to keep their job, get their promotion, get their bonus, whatever it is that matters to them.

37:39Steve Boehler:I mean, you nailed it. Everything that I've learned in this conversation was taught by you. I think putting a little bit of storytelling and narrative around your scopes, I never thought about that until you gave me that perspective, tying it to the business outcomes that you spent so much time doing your research and asking good questions to uncover. This is the best place to replay that and introduce them even to the team that's going to be responsible again in that scope narrative, I think can go a long way. So wow.

38:10Robin Boehler:I do want to say one thing about this. So, I mean, this should be, it should be a back and forth. The scope should never be that you're submitting it on the very, they send it to you and you submit without asking any questions. That would be just, I just can't imagine how that could happen, honestly. And we do, agencies are more willing to ask questions around scope than they are around the original RFI, which is just, it all just blows my mind. But agencies do ask questions about the scope and they should, that you really need to know that you're understanding it. I think they could even ask more questions than they do to make sure you're understanding it.

38:45Robin Boehler:And honestly, agencies come in very close to each other on this. The first round of a scope is really just to see if we have any outliers. Is there anybody that's really low? Well, maybe they misunderstood the scope or somebody that's really high. We recently had a review where there was one agency that was a multiple of all the others. We went back. We made sure that they understood the scope. They said, yes, we absolutely do. This is what we charge. And we told them that you are quite a bit more, you're well over budget. They said, yeah, we know. And the client decided at that point that it wasn't worth them coming to present because there was no way that they could come to an agreement around scope, which is great to know before you make the trip to go and get a piece of business that you cannot win because you're too expensive.

39:31Robin Boehler:The other thing is to make sure too that as an agency, you see the scope and you're thinking, they are way off here. be careful how much you push that you don't know enough about their business yet and you haven't earned the right to tell them that they're thinking about everything wrong you can ask questions about how much flexibility there is on things but i wouldn't flat out we did have a an agency we worked with that did a pitch and um they just they didn't think there was enough money in there at all to get to the goals that they wanted it was a media pitch and we told the agency, do not say that in the pitch.

40:07Robin Boehler:It will turn them off. They don't have more money. They're not going to find more money. What you're basically telling them is we can't do the job. And they didn't listen to us. And it was a mistake. It was a mistake.

40:20Steve Boehler:Yeah.

40:21Robin Boehler:I don't know if it's the reason they didn't win, but I sure know it didn't help.

40:25Steve Boehler:Yeah.

40:25Robin Boehler:Yeah. In other words, knowing that there wasn't going to be additional budget, they probably should have pulled out if they didn't think they could meet the need.

40:33Steve Boehler:Yeah, that makes sense. All right, my friends, that was incredible. What a good look at the new book. Steve, when is the book coming out? Give us the details. Where can we find it?

40:44Robin Boehler:Yeah, you can pre-order it on any of the major websites now like Amazon. The actual launch is January 20th, and we're looking forward to it.

40:55Steve Boehler:Awesome. Now, you know I can't let you guys leave without a little this or that. so we love to end our podcast here this is rapid fire you both can answer at the same time if you want but just to give our listeners a little deeper view into who you all are so are you ready yeah all right let's go okay a best in class website or best in class social for an agency website yep okay but all right next one is pitch theater or just cut to the chase address their business issue pitch theater pitch theater team theater too all right strategy or

41:35Robin Boehler:spec creative which is more important yep strategy four and then you have to do the spec to be and it better be on strategy yeah what she said that's right all right stand up or sit down when presenting i'd love to answer this but robin likes to answer this one stand up please stand up please stand up Energy. Energy, energy.

41:58Steve Boehler:I knew you'd say that. All right. Next one. The Space Needle or Cinderella's Castle?

42:03Robin Boehler:Well, Space Needle's in Seattle, and Seattle's the best place in the world, so I have to go with the Space Needle.

42:09Steve Boehler:All right.

42:10Robin Boehler:I've been to Cinderella's Castle more recently, however.

42:13Steve Boehler:We love them both.

42:14Robin Boehler:If you're going to go on a trip, Cinderella's Castle is very special.

42:18Steve Boehler:All right. Last one. I got to know. Writing a book or leading a workshop?

42:23Robin Boehler:Oh, God. This is easy. I'd much rather lead a workshop than write a book. Yeah, definitely. There's the personal involvement, the energy you get from being with other people, working together. It's one of the reasons we're in this business is we like helping other people succeed. We like the experience of being with other people.

42:43Steve Boehler:Well, thank you for this gift that is this book. I think I'm excited to see how agencies take it and evolve some of their practices internally, internally create new systems and processes to make this pitching thing a little easier, more effective. I can't wait to hear what folks think. So thanks for coming on the show and previewing it with us. Thanks for having us.

43:07Robin Boehler:We're honored.

43:08Steve Boehler:Absolutely. All right. We'll talk soon.