A flat pitch

Agency pitches are remarkable things. Extraordinary resources are applied to deliver choreographed presentations that allow the people involved to stand out and achieve some lingering memory in the minds of the clients concerned.

There are relatively few binary measures in the process that allow the client to see if A is definitively better than B. I like to think (naively) that the process works something like this:

1. Select a short list. Dead easy There are 6 companies on the planet who can do the job, 3 of them work for competitors. The short list = 3.
2. Give each agency 100 credits.
3. Set them a series of tasks; 100 pages of detailed questions, a couple of 'chemistry meetings', a few dozen follow up questions, two or three follow up meetings, a social occasion, a financial proposal and assorted other bits inclding the all singing all dancing final.
4. Watch the agencies lose points throughout the process by not quite hitting it out of the park each and every time.
5. The agency still standing and with most points left wins.

This starts to sound like the World Series of Poker and it should. Similar combinations of skill, luck, oppostion weakness, and endurance are at play and in the end you count the chips.

This won't change in a hurry so no great insight there but there are three requests that seem reasonable.

1. Allocate allotted time for the process and pay for that time for no other reason than the agency has other clients (just like you) to serve and they need to fund that resource
2. Be nice and be decisive. If someone is losing points quickly push them out of the process quickly. No one wants to be the wounded animal dragging out its demise.
3. Finally be as clear as you can about the basis of the final decision, Is our office in Casablanca really important or is there (just maybe) something that matters more.