Creative energy is a precious resource, spend it wisely
Eight months into the pandemic and the sporadic studio visits and fleeting face-to-face meets of September seem more like dangerous liaisons as the second wave of Coronavirus surges through our cities.
Not out of the woods yet, we’re being gently reminded that face masks, social distancing and working from home are de rigueur for another 9 months at least. The light at the end of the tunnel a lot of people were hoping for, just moved a lot further away. And the Christmas Party this year is going to be a very unique experience, if one at all.
The change in season and the long winter ahead has definitely impacted everyone’s motivation and creative energy. In my recent agency founders meet-up two themes emerged: the drive for new business and failing mental health and burnout. And, unsurprisingly, the two are linked.
The hunger for new business
Many creative companies hit by the economic downturn have had to make redundancies to survive financially. With some agencies losing 70% of their project pipeline in March, there’s been an intense drive on generating and winning new business to get back to black.
For many founders, turning down a pitch is not an option right now. And pitching is an exhausting process. It takes a huge amount of creative energy to put a pitch together and the pressure to win is at an all-time high. And we all know that pressure is a creativity killer.
When a brief comes in that can mean the difference between breaking even this month or being £100K in the red, you can’t really turn that down.
It’s a buyer’s market
At the same time, clients are enjoying their position in a buyer’s market. Founders are reporting an increase in rushed briefs sent through on a Friday evening with unreasonable turnaround times for the response.
Where agencies would normally push back on this type of brief, they are jumping to the beat for fear of missing out. The result? Half-conceived creative that doesn’t win and can ultimately damage an agency’s reputation. With all that precious creative energy going to waste, teams are feeling the burnout and in danger of facilitating a vicious losing circle.
We’re getting feedback on our pitches from clients which is actually them just realising that their original brief was wrong. But we didn’t have the time to scrutinise it as we normally would.
When price trumps creativity, we all lose
Clients are also being even more budget-conscious and scrutinising every penny spent. Creative ideas and the ability to deliver are less important than price and perceived value for money when it comes to selecting who wins.
And this isn’t helped by a shift in the competitive field. Everyone is more hungry to win new business. Even the smaller briefs are being picked up by the bigger agencies who’ve made half their senior teams redundant and are undercutting on price by fielding a junior team. It’s a rather desperate race to the bottom, where nobody wins.
“We’ve seen some big names on the pitch lists we’re going after, and it’s nice to know we’re in that league, but they’re putting forward prices we just can’t compete with. It feels like an unfair process when we’ve focused on protecting our team and culture and not made all our most expensive people redundant.”
Conserve your creative energy
Creative energy is a precious resource, now more than ever. As a creative leader, you need to be careful where you spend it.
Beware of briefs that hit your inbox from some unknown client with a crazy turnaround time. If you don’t already have a relationship with the buyer how can you be sure you’re not just making up the numbers on their extended pitch list?
Focus on briefs which truly play to your strengths. Avoid those that feel rushed, stay true to your values, and don’t be afraid to push back. You might miss out on a few projects, but the ones you do win will be a better fit, better quality and better for morale. Period.
Pitch to win
If you are going to pitch, pitch to win. Every pitch is an opportunity to improve your story, finesse your process, and give more junior members of the team an opportunity to shine. If you’re doing it right, even a failure is a win because you’ve all learnt and improved along the way. Your best deck is always your last pitch. And there’s huge value in that.
Focus on relationships
If you have an existing relationship with the client you’re pitching for then focus on understanding what’s important to them now and shaping your pitch to meet that. Get feedback on past pitches. What pressure are they under? What pain points can you solve? If it’s a cost saving, how much do they need to see? Sometimes a 1% reduction is enough to tick a procurement box and give them that ‘value for money’ glow they need.
Double down on delivery
When everyone else is competing on price, focus on your ability to deliver. Your talent. Your experience. Even if you don’t win, the client will remember this.
Rest assured, agencies that are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks and fielding junior teams are going to come undone eventually. You’ll probably pick up their dirty work when they fail to deliver. Remember when you’re under pressure to cut costs, what goes around, comes around.
Choose your battles wisely this autumn. Resist the temptation to join the pitch frenzy and conserve your creative energy. It’s going to be a long winter and that precious energy is in very short supply.
Liz is the founder of Cove, providing coaching, training and consulting for creative businesses. She runs a monthly agency founders meet up with a select group of London based agencies. Get in touch if you’d like to be part of the conversation.
