lead/marke | ralf schwartz

[L/M NET] Konstantin Weiss > "Don't pitch. But if you do - here's how to."

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

The best advice I got so far about pitches: don't pitch. Pitch is against the nature of user experience design process. But if you want and need to pitch anyway - here are some aspects I learnt so far.

Is there a pitch at all?

In most cases, there is no pitch. Instead, you are in one of these situations:

1. There never was a pitch. The decision was already made and you lost.
2. There never was a pitch. The client just wants an agency presentation but fails to communicate it.
3. There never was a project. Not even a budget. The middle management is having fun.
4. You have already lost the pitch. Because neither you have good connection nor preparation. Pitching would be a waste of time and energy.
5. You have already won the pitch. The battle was won even before it took place, because you have good connection and preparation.
6. There was a pitch. You did not recognize it. Because it was just testing your daily work.

What is your goal?

If you are sure there is a pitch and you want to pitch, ask yourself: What is it you want to achieve? - Do you want to present a solution that you are convinced of as the best one? Then don't be upset if you lose - the client wouldn't value your work anyway, so you and the client are not the best fit. But your time/resources will still be lost. - Do you want to win the pitch above all? Have in mind: you might end up paying with your nerves during the project. Many projects are doomed from the start because clients' and your expectations are not in sync.

Refine the pitch for audience

Your preparation and acting should depend on the people you are presenting to.

For the Top Management:

• Be honest.
• Address their goals.
• Transcend their goals. Show them there is a bigger vision.
• Ask uncomfortable questions.
• Propose a solution.
• Focus on the essence.
• Show them you can handle the complexity.
• Exercise uninteresting listening.

For the Middle Management:

• Formost: Understand the middle managements real (egoistic) goals.
• The IBM-principle: Show them that they can't make a wrong decision because you're the pick of the bunch. If the project fails, it's not their fault. They've taken the best agency there is. (That's how IBM was so successful in the past)
• Make clear that choosing you will be appreciated by the top management.
• Make clear that not choosing you will result in big justification to the top management.

For the Experts:

• Be honest.
• Don't overestimate.
• Show that you respect their expertise.
• Dive into detail.
• Ask critical questions.
• Treat them as your partner, who they actually are.

The ingredients of a pitch

Connections - 45%

1. If you have deep relationships into the client's company + know the relationships of your competitors - pitch.
2. If you have deep relationships into the client's company, but don't know the relationships of your competitors - consider a pitch.
3. If you don't have relationships into the client's company - you are free to test what you always wanted to test, but never dared. Minimum risc. Minimum cost. Just do it! Pitch!

Concept - 10%

• Take this for granted, you will not achieve an extraordinary solution if you follow all rules of the briefing. You may get an ordinary solution. So do your competitors. That's not worth the fight. Disobey. Come up with good arguments, why you disobey. You have a chance to win:
  1. You show deep understanding of the issues, not only symptoms.
  2. Your solution is thus surprisingly performative.
  3. You are hardly comparable.
• Tell a scenario from the user's point of view. Mention that you are eager to understand the business and technology aspects of the project. But the user (normally) does not care. It's the users view that matters here, and you are their advocate. In the end, show how business goals are met as well as the tech feasibility.
• Work on decent rhetorics. Address the obvious pain. Guide through your approach to your positions. Surprise with your manifestation, but make it damn rooted in the issues and positions.
• Be a story teller. Look for the catharsis. And in between - make the audience smile.
• Don't overestimate the concept. Most decision makers don't have much of a clue. Visual Design and Budget plays a much greater role.
• Last: Show them that your idea is not boring common sense, but surprising.

Visual Design - 20%

• 90% of all visual designs with finesse and balance fail. They are badly projected in the conference room of decision makers.
• Consider a realistic design - and decide against it. Do rock 'n roll instead. Your references designate you as an expert, you don't have to prove it now. Instead, aim at their hearts. Emotion wins.

Budget - 20%

Concerning money I have to say: It depends so much on the client. The only rules of thumb that I know are:

• If you are far too expensive, you're out.
• If the client is a big company, don't be cheap. For them it's far too expensive if the project fails. If you are too cheap and the project fails, the client's responsibles will have problems to justify their choice. So in order to minimize the risk, they'll rather take somebody with a realistic estimation.
• Don't forget the IBM-principle (see "Middle Management" above).

Luck - 5%

• You can never be sure. You can't predict everything. Be prepared to lose anyway.

"I can't afford not to pitch"

Agencies easily say, that they cannot afford to leave out pitches. That's a valid conclusion, but not before considering this aspect: If you are a small agency, pitching is expensive. Even if it is a small one, it will bind - say - one consultant and a visual designer for a week. That's two weeks of manpower that you can spend on something maybe more meaningful. You could make a small project with a client you love for free, knowing that the output will be not designed by committee. This project may generate enough buzz to get clients just by appreciating your agency.

One last piece of advice

Use pitches (at minimum risc, minimum cost) to let your junior, but most promising people get the experience, smell the pitch air, get addicted to the sitaution, lose their nervousness, and learn.

If there is no need for that: avoid pitching if you can. Rather invest the energy elsewhere. Share your thoughts. Teach. Play. Make your own products.

My best advice is: invest in people you love to work with, no matter what positions they are in. It does not pay off in the short run. But after a while you'll have a great working environment and be able to do have great outcome. That's something, considering how much time you spend at work in your life.

Hopefully you enjoyed the advices. I'll be glad to know what you experienced and think.

---

Thanks to Benjamin Birkenhake, Tobias Jordans, Indra Schlachter, Lutz Schmitt, Marian Steinbach and Ralf Schwartz for the feedback to drafts of this article, as well as Saneef Ansari for correcting my poor English.

(ralf says:
For once please find my comments incorporated.)

Konstantin is partner of iA in Zurich. He consults and develops concepts focusing on User and Reading Experience. He blogs at konnexus about the impact of culture technologies and UX. Twitter: @konnexus

[L/M NET] Konstantin Weiss > "Floating through crowds"

L/M NET: blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Business Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian

I love going through the crowd. And I love to do it fast. You won't get the same experience just by walking, neither slowly nor at normal pace. It's a special thrill. It brings you to a special state of mind. And it might be an attitude of life.

Sometimes you're late, hurrying to get your train, and then you are forced to go as fast as you can. But that is not the best condition, as you have too much thoughts about your train in your head. What I am talking about is the movement by foot at fast velocity through a crowd - just for the sake of it.

I don't recall when I learned to move fast through crowds. It must have been somewhen in the childhood of my home city in Siberia. One million people living next to each other, sharing the same squaremeters for loving, hating, longing, existing. And moving. I don't recall when I learned it, but I often wonder how great it works. Floating through a crowd.

The setting

There is the stream of people going in your direction. There is the stream of people going in the opposite direction. And then there is you, having a destination. Spiced with unpredictible movement of some people, this is the setting you need. It is the setting you need to get to this state of floating.

The path

As a general rule: Don't go with the crowd stream of your direction. It is too slow, will always be. Don't go against the stream of the opposite direction. It will slow you down, has too much resistance. You won't be fast enough to manouver beweeen people. And it's useless trying to go on the fringe of the crowd (at a wall e.g.). You will dump all the time. Instead: walk in between the streams, in between the both motions. This often invisible space is the key to fast movement. This is your path.

The perception

You will notice how your perception changes. You experience the crowd as a whole. You start to intuitively predict the projectories of people. You know how constant the trajectory of every person is. You feel their speed. You see the gaps. The crowd starts feeling like one organism, not many. One swarm. And you know then where your trajectory is, almost seeing it laid out.

The body

Your body then adjusts to this swarm. Gently you increase your velocity or decrease it, just so you fit into the gaps between people. Your torso slightly rotates, shoulders even a bit more, so you don't touch other people. There is little effort spent. Your movement almost feels like floating. Like a boat floating through waves that are higher than you, and you gently adjust the route, just with a few paddle movements. Easily you are twice as fast.

The state of flow

That movement at speed is a satisfaction of its own. You get into the state of flow. You are present. There is no future. There is no past. All your senses are present. You feel the swarm, and you don't notice yourself anymore. At that mental state you move fast. And you are calm inside.

The gaze

Then there is the way you look. You don't look at any particular person. You don't look at any particular detail. You gaze into the distance, straight forward. But you see. You see the whole picture, quite precise. People moving, obsticles, chances, risks. That gaze has even more. It is as if people feel your gaze. They clear the way in the right moment, so you can pass without slowing down.

Our animal selves

For a while I started to actually look at those people, trying to guess whether they clear the way deliberatelly. They don't. They seem not to notice it (except you bump into them). It is as if we learned the rules millions of years ago. Our bodies know how to move, our reptile brains coordinate well so we don't think about it. Which is great. We adjust, we people communicate unconsciously with each other. Body language. We still are animals that learned to be part of a collective.

Moving is living

My decisions in life, the way I work: sometimes they are like moving through the crowd. Being inbetween, enjoying some speed, being focused. I don't intend to do it on the costs of others. People who do that sicken me. But I'm convinced you can get quite far by not following the average and not being 'against' just for the sake of it, either. Doing your thing and focusing on your goal while staying on top of things. That's just it.

I don't take it too seriously. But I wonder if other people experience the same.

(ralf says:
Konstantin is the latest L/M NET member. I got to know him via his blog some time ago and met him in Cologne before he left to iA Zurich.

Since we all must learn much more about culture technologies, culture, and technology it is really great to have him here.
Please enjoy his posts.)

Konstantin is a partner of iA in Zurich. He consults and develops concepts focusing on User and Reading Experience. He blogs at konnexus about the impact of culture technologies and UX. Twitter: @konnexus