While I feel like a freshman, I do have strong opinions about this. First, the pitch needs to be done in person, face to face. We can't assume that every designer does it in this manner. It helps with reading the client (and visa versa) to help make a dynamic pitch, based on real perceptions. While handouts/takeaways are good, I typically use a central presentation for the pitch, so that everyone is one the same page.
With pitches to larger organizations, it's assumed that they will want to "take it back to the office" and discuss the pitch. However, with smaller businesses, and with a positive response, many times they are ready to act, almost without thinking, motivated instead by emotion. When I see this, I request that they take a step back and think about the points presented for a few days and provide poignant feedback before making any decision. This may sound counter intuitive to slow the desired goal of "Yes." However, it is usually very beneficial once you do get to "Yes," and aids the project with a better understanding of the tasks at hand. And likely, a more appreciative client.
So, Andy Budd has been talking on twitter about how he is off to a pitch, and he is taking a load of printouts to hand out, and things like persona's, wireframes, and designs.
And he's saying that it's a very tactile approach, and that he finds it more engaging then a presentation, which creates a barrier between him and the client.
Of course there is no right or wrong way of doing these things, and everybody has different approaches, but I actually think Andy has got some good points there.
Leaving people with a paper copy of your thoughts an ideas at the end of the presentation is really good. Also, printouts encourage discussion, and back and forth interaction rather then a presentation which is more formal, more structured.
That said, most of the time we do use a presentation, and keynote when we go to do pitches, however we do encourage lots of interruptions, and questions, and discussion, and usually when I go and pitch with Marcus, we interrupt each other quite regularly during the presentation which encourages the client to do the same. So it's different ways of achieving the same goal.
What we do always do is leave our clients with our full proposal which is fairly extensive to say the least, and covers all of our ideas, designs, wireframes, and all the rest of it.
So I guess in many ways we do the same kind of things as Clearleft, but in a different way.
What I would be really interested in is to hear how you go about doing pitches.
You can use the comments below to let me know how you go about doing things because everybody does it slightly differently, and I think it would be good if us as a web design community share our ideas.
While I feel like a freshman, I do have strong opinions about this. First, the pitch needs to be done in person, face to face. We can't assume that every designer does it in this manner. It helps with reading the client (and visa versa) to help make a dynamic pitch, based on real perceptions. While handouts/takeaways are good, I typically use a central presentation for the pitch, so that everyone is one the same page.
With pitches to larger organizations, it's assumed that they will want to "take it back to the office" and discuss the pitch. However, with smaller businesses, and with a positive response, many times they are ready to act, almost without thinking, motivated instead by emotion. When I see this, I request that they take a step back and think about the points presented for a few days and provide poignant feedback before making any decision. This may sound counter intuitive to slow the desired goal of "Yes." However, it is usually very beneficial once you do get to "Yes," and aids the project with a better understanding of the tasks at hand. And likely, a more appreciative client.
deconspray about 4 years ago
You mentioned accessability earlier, so here's a quick transcribe.
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So, Andy Budd has been talking on twitter about how he is off to a pitch, and he is taking a load of printouts to hand out, and things like persona's, wireframes, and designs.
And he's saying that it's a very tactile approach, and that he finds it more engaging then a presentation, which creates a barrier between him and the client.
Of course there is no right or wrong way of doing these things, and everybody has different approaches, but I actually think Andy has got some good points there.
Leaving people with a paper copy of your thoughts an ideas at the end of the presentation is really good. Also, printouts encourage discussion, and back and forth interaction rather then a presentation which is more formal, more structured.
That said, most of the time we do use a presentation, and keynote when we go to do pitches, however we do encourage lots of interruptions, and questions, and discussion, and usually when I go and pitch with Marcus, we interrupt each other quite regularly during the presentation which encourages the client to do the same. So it's different ways of achieving the same goal.
What we do always do is leave our clients with our full proposal which is fairly extensive to say the least, and covers all of our ideas, designs, wireframes, and all the rest of it.
So I guess in many ways we do the same kind of things as Clearleft, but in a different way.
What I would be really interested in is to hear how you go about doing pitches.
You can use the comments below to let me know how you go about doing things because everybody does it slightly differently, and I think it would be good if us as a web design community share our ideas.
JoelDrapper about 4 years ago
"When I go out and pitch with Marcus we interrupt each other quite regularly" I can imagine. :P
JoelDrapper about 4 years ago