By Sim Kaur CEO & Rakz Mathur COO Of Pounce Marketing
Comfort zones can be dangerous places for agencies. There where complacency sets in. Complacency doesn’t get you ahead. Shifting lanes can be unsettling, disappointing and elating though. Sometimes one after the other, sometimes all in one. Rakz Mathur, chief operating officer, and Sim Kaur, chief executive officer, of Pounce Agency are in the middle of their lane-shift. Here is what they’ve learned. Here is the advice of an agency between lanes:
Change is difficult. You get used to being a certain way and doing something in a certain style. You’re comfortable, you know that you are good at it, so why change, right?
For many agencies, and businesses too, sometimes in order to grow to the scale you envision, a client shift is a necessary avenue that must be addressed.
This means pitching for work outside of your comfort zone, where you don’t hold the same industry recognition or weighting in this category. The result of this is: you start every pitch at a disadvantage, as the new kid on the block, untried and untested in their field. Doesn’t mean you can’t win it, but means you have to work harder to do so.
What makes it even tougher is going from an arena where you are an acknowledged leader into a realm where you are no longer the top dog. A realm where you are going head-to-head with agencies that traditionally dominate the category.
So what can you do? You are a longshot, a 50-1 outsider. What can you do to change the narrative?
Well, there is no simple ‘quick fix’ unfortunately. The stark truth is that you are going to lose more pitches than you win. So, you might as well get used to that fact right now.
Kaur: Well, the answer to why we wanted to shift from our bread & butter into a new client base outside our sector in our case was growth. For years Pounce has been synonymous with technology and the B2B cyber sector. And that’s A-O-K with us. We live and love tech and have become damn good at it, (if we do say so ourselves.)
Mathur: But recently our team has grown and we have started to employ people with skills that extend beyond the B2B arena. Skills such as FMCG, automotive, hospitality, alcohol, travel & leisure, finance, healthcare and, well, you get the picture. This being the case, it made sense for us to start going after clients that allowed us to use our newfound expertise.
Kaur: Has it been easy? Hell no. When people get used to you operating in a certain sector, they tend to think of you only in terms of that one area of expertise. Consequently, they don’t consider you when you put your hand up for something different. But, and it’s a big but, you should not give up. It only takes one client to see a little bit of magic in your pitch offering for the whole story to change. Keep on applying, and every time you get knocked down, bounce back more determined.
Mathur: Also take the learnings from each defeat and use them to make the next pitch even better and more on point. That way it’s gonna be harder for the client to say no. THINK FRESH: To help swing the odds in your favour, think about how you approach each pitch. If you go in with work that’s expected and safe, you are probably going to lose. Those areas will almost certainly have been covered off by the other contenders.
Instead, think of yourself as the wildcard and the left-field entrant. Do work that is out there and challenging and takes the client outside their comfort zone. Best case scenario, you win the business. But, even if you don’t, you plant a seed with the client that could well reap you a harvest further down the track.
Kaur: So have the above strategies been successful for us? Well, yes, but very, very slowly. But little by little we are starting to gain small victories. A client here, a project there. And slowly but surely Pounce is becoming known as a full-service agency offering a full range of services to suit any client…We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.
