Pitching your idea. Presenting your creative.
All Graphic designers have to do it but not all Graphic designers like to do it.

What does it take to take your pitch to the next level and leave your clients wowed?

Join The Angry Designers for another furiously fantastic episode, where they discuss The Art of the Presentation and how to pitch your creative.

In this episode, the Angry Designers discuss:

• why designers hate pitching
• tips for a solid presentation
• zfactor’s pitch

This episode will leave you excited for your next pitch opportunity and will help you take your next project to the bank. 

00:00
Like sometimes I push myself even harder. What else can I do, dude? I've seen you after a good pitch and it's like, you're smoking a cigarette. Like you just had sex. Actually. He was a different kind of release, but it's still pretty damn good. You're listening to. 

 00:25
Every designer where we cut through the industry to help frustrated graphic designers survive. 

 00:34
What's up. Hey, cheers. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Starting off with a nice little bit of sipping, just to warm us up with this, just to get warm cause crazy ass storm. What we're having like a whole month's worth of snow in two days. I mean, I'm all cool about me. They didn't help my snow, but this just is ridiculous. I know it was so nice yesterday. Now we're knee deep in snow this morning, dude, like this morning, it was so warm outside. Oh God, I feel so bad. I was like woke up really early this morning and I'm drinking my coffee. It's like six in the morning and next door they have like those nurses that come 24 hours a day. Right? Like, especially to help her eight ones. I see, this nurse pull up, parks the car across the street and gets out. 

 01:22
She's got a coffee in hand and she's got her bag on rollers. Doesn't she wipe out. She goes from completely standing straight up to complete. I don't even think I saw like emotion going down and I can hear this woman screaming from inside my house. And I was like, s**t. And she wasn't moving. I was like, oh, I know it was a little panicky for the poor woman. So I ran outside. Of course it's middle of winter. You got t-shirt and pajama pants on. There were cool pajama pants, but nonetheless they're barefoot. Then, and when I hit the road, I literally slid all the way to her. She was needless to say, my feet were blue. By the time I got back, she was at like, she was out called like for real, I felt so bad. I didn't know what was wrong with her face, but it was the coffee she had, it was hot chocolate. 

 02:14
It was because it looked at it and I'm just like, did your face, is it turning colors? It looked cam mode, man, I felt sorry for that poor woman. I know. I don't want to laugh and laugh. I shouldn't laugh. And you know what? The funny thing is, I told my kids, then when they woke up at like 7, 7 30, they're all howling. I'm like, wasn't really that funny guys. They're like, yes, it was just like, oh, I know. I'm sure when I was their age, I think it'd be funny to a little part of me chuckles, now that I know that she wasn't sent to the hospital, but it was pretty scary. There's all kinds of videos on the internet with stuff like that, with people getting wrong, I'm kind of a sucker for it. I mean, I laugh, but I mean, I've done that solid on my ass numerous times, I shouldn't laugh, but it is fun. 

 03:00
Isn't it? Well, you gotta make, you gotta find these old games that she was okay. I think I, well, yeah, she walked it. I, basically walked her back up into the house. She was okay. Again, my feet were blue, come back. Oh damn. She feels like s**t today. Yeah. This is going to be sore to say the least, right? Needless to say my act of Goodwill inspired you to follow us. Awesome. Podcasters. I think you should go and leave us a review on our podcast. Head over to apple, leave us a review because we have our contest going on. For the next three months, every month we are giving away a set of AirPods. Right? Kind of nice one for anybody who reviews in February, March and April. Right? We're going to just do a tally if like five people do it in February, where then your chances are one in five. 

 03:51
People leave us reviews. We need reviews because we are nice people. We have lots to say, people want people to hear this, but we need those damn reviews. We need the reviews, please, five seconds out of your day. They're great. Like that, keep it simple and right to the point we do nice things. We help people. We don't laugh all the time and people that fall, just when we know they're okay, we'll laugh, but we'll help them as well. Of course, that's right. Blue feet people, blue feet. That's right. All right. This is the link. We go to, we will get frostbite on our feet. So the speaking of heat, helping people. Moving on kind of to, our whole topic today. I have a friend I'm a very good friend. I actually have another friend, Sean. So, and what I thought I was your only friend, no surprise. 

 04:47
So, he is one of, if not the best graphic designer, I know this dude owns white space, right. His stuff is always such awesome quality, right? Like I look up to him for stuff, right. Our art styles are so different, right. We can't even compare, but like we've come together on projects for a little while we even tag teamed, opened up, started a company to take on, specific large clients, because we both had different strengths to come together. Right. Our styles were so different. Yeah. We tried and we couldn't come together in a style. Yeah. Where we did come together is, I, he was one of those people that I could trust a hundred percent with the design and then I would just go pitch it, sell it, like awesome. Right. Just do that kind of stuff. That's like a supergroup. Well, we're kind of cooked. 

 05:32
So okay. Here, here's the notes. Wait, wait, let me tell you about this one. But this one pitch. We had the opportunity to pitch for an insurance company and that was a big deal for us. Right. Right. Cause I mean, this is, this was still younger, I think we're both in our, but like 10 12th year in business, right. Insurance company. It was an insurance company for teachers. Right. So it was very niche, very specific. And again, his work was awesome. My work was awesome. Right. We had a perfect chemistry for this specific job went in, we knew who else was pitching. We knew other agencies. Right. The whole, we knew exactly who else they were interviewing. Yeah. Kind of had to do something different. Right. Went into the pitch and so went into the pitch and it was him, it was myself and it was seven women. 

 06:17
Right. Totally like, wow. Okay. There was no dudes. There's all went. I was okay. Nothing, isn't a problem or not. Right. It was like, okay, what the hell can we do different? Right. We had a big ass portfolio book that we brought with us. Right. We printed it out on some amazing cardstock the layout was, our pieces were incredible. Right. It was all in, there's a great pitch, walked in. How you doing? Blah, blah, sat down right in there. Like, so, like tell us about yourself. And I'm like, well, you know what? I held up the portfolio book. I was like, I know you guys are interviewing, quality agencies. You're not going to waste your time with anybody. I guarantee you, they're all capable of the exact same great work that we have in this presentation. Right. I'm just going to leave this presentation for you. 

 06:56
We're not even going to open it up instead. Let's get to know each other. Let's find out what you're looking for. We'll tell you about us. And we'll see if there's a chemistry. Imagine, because I didn't make it about the work. Cause there was no question that everybody they were interviewing was going to be great experienced companies. They weren't just asking like people with one, two years experience. Yeah. It's not necessarily fair to just be like, well, I like this job that this company did versus this one. That's fine. It was more about, something else. Yes dude. They, so all seven of them, all seven of the women that they kind of looked confused and then they were like, yeah, right. They just, in their church, there was no pressure, no b******t. We just started talking night, needless to say, were there for like 90 minutes. 

 07:39
We were just chatting, getting to know each other. In the end they were like, what? Let's look in there anyway. Right. They were asking them to look and he was like, what was the secret? Right. Needless to say, we did get that job. We got the work. We had that customer for like three years. It was probably the most we've ever built, for any customer's hourly rate. And you know, we based everything. It was anyway. It was great. Yeah. Okay. Total side story. Okay. But we had a very different relationship. Right? Like he was very much a, he was a little more quieter, more reserved. Right. Very calm. That is totally the opposite of why I not calm. I met up with him, a couple of weeks ago and he's freelancing right now. He exited a company, about a year ago. Yeah. So, so he's been having fun with life right now. 

 08:27
Right. And he's just dabbling and freelance. In the meantime, he doesn't necessarily have to work, but again, it's at the same time, it keeps him busy. Right. That all of his other really cool hobbies. He had an opportunity to work with the client. Right. He's like, here, can I get your impressions or can I get your opinion on? I was like, sure told me that he was doing a pitch for a website, had some logos. Right. Showed me this stuff. He's like, what do you think of this? Right. Again, as usual, it's like, dude, f*****g awesome. Right? Like the logos are good. The website concepts, like he had three, he presented them three, they were all solid. He said that the reaction from the customer where that they hated all three. Right. And I know shocking. I'm like what? I wanted to beat them up. 

 09:12
He did all three. They're like, well, like if we wanted something like this, we just, we would just use our existing logo and their logo, their current logo and their current website, if it was possible, look like a website from the seventies. Okay. So picture that's what this looked like. And not the coolest remedies. Literally it looked like it was, I don't, it wasn't responsive. It was probably built in frames. The logo literally looked, it was so horrible and they were completely . Then I was just like, that's impossible. How is this? We talked a bit more, he said that there wasn't one person that was pitching them. There was like four owners and all four of them had to look at this and he wasn't pitching to the owners directly. It was somebody else internally who had to pitch to them. Right. They all saw the work individually. 

 10:01
They didn't see it as a together group. There was so many of these little things. Needless to say, the experience, he was a little, like shocked. Yeah. Cause again, and to me that he's like my hero. I'm just like, how the hell is this possible? Right. It was kind of going through the steps and asking them a lot of questions. I mean, there's all these things that came up right. That the amount of people, it wasn't him, who's presenting, the presentation itself, there was no backstory. I started thinking that this is something that I guess a lot of designers kind of struggle with is that whole art of the pitch. Right. Like actually putting the presentation together. Right. Because so many times you think it's just, the artwork speaks for itself. The reality is that artwork is nothing. If it isn't for the rest of the presentation. 

 10:42
Yeah. Right. Think of that dude. Yeah. 

 10:44
Yeah. Who had to take those logos in that artwork from your buddy up to his boss, he probably just plopped it on the desk. What do you think. 

 10:53
Exactly. There's no context. Nothing. Exactly. There was no context. It was his own take on them. Right. He probably didn't have a absolutely. 

 11:02
I hadn't had a chance to explain the reasons behind that. Maybe it could be, 

 11:07
It could have, right. If there was more of a backstory and the right presentation. I mean, the truth of the matter is in all fairness that the pitch, the lead up to the creative artwork all, when you sit down, it's probably just as important, if not more than the actual artwork itself that you're presented. Yeah. Right. Yes. I think that's a challenge that is John's for all designers. I think it was when I started. For sure. Yeah. I don't know how comfortable you are in that. You're not exposed to do that too much right now, but I know you did in the past, I've done that and he's really good at it. Yeah. It's a personality thing maybe, but that's why I thought this was kind of a cool thing to talk about. Yeah. Right. Cause this is something that I kind of feel, I feel that, I mean, I enjoy it's one of my actual favorite. 

 11:48
I think it was one of the reasons I actually got into this space was for the pitch. 

 11:53
The stones on you to go into an interview and say, I'm not going to look at you. You're not going to look at this art. Well, let's just get to know you, but I can see how refreshing that would be to somebody who's sat there, bored out of their mind, listening to somebody. Well, the reasons we did this, you don't have that old dry. Sometimes some people can be very dry with this. 

 12:17
What's your delivery. And it is hard, right? It is. It's very much a dog and pony show is that's the right term. Right. It's, it's very much about, leading up to it and just like, oh, jazz hands afterwards. And you've got to show them. So there's a lot to it. I mean, I think, a lot of designers, maybe they struggle with imposter syndrome going into that probably. They lack the confidence to possibly, like, I'm not good enough to present or maybe they psych themselves out and think, oh s**t, I'm not good at presentations. Right? Yeah. So they psych themselves out that way, 

 12:48
This way, most people. I can, I would think they don't really practice that thing. You know what I mean? You can do it. I remember doing it a couple of times in school, but it was never like you learned how to design it. I think a lot of people focus their time on that and not selling them, which is why I think designers are so bad at this. 

 13:08
Again, because they're not taught that's right. And that's the thing. A lot of times it's trial and error. What works, what doesn't work. Right. I think another thing is creatives are very, I mean, we're empaths. It's like, when you're going up there, you're by showing your creative work, you're like bearing your soul. You're leaving yourself vulnerable and of all please on a stage. If you're presenting to one person or a team of people or group, all of a sudden you get negative feedback, it's like, no. 

 13:32
Yeah, yeah. You have to soldier on, it's almost like the horse with the blinders on. Right. You, you can't focus on that kind of thing cause it'll throw you off your whole game. 

 13:41
Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. That's the thing it's like, I don't know. It's like, yeah, that one's a tricky one. Right. The whole thing about this is, you're not necessarily bearing your soul if you do this Ryan, cause it's not necessarily, about you. It has nothing to do with your feelings and even the artwork, because if you do your artwork, right. It has nothing to do with you personally. Right. It has to do with the work and how you got to that work. If you did it properly, that work isn't necessarily coming from way inside of you. Right. It's like the creative part is, but the logic getting there shouldn't have been right. That should have been a lot more other influences in that. I think another thing that they're really scared about is like the whole potential of it just being instantly projected. Yeah. Like not even, nah, we can work with this just like an absolute, like completely, no forget it. 

 14:26
Right. Like instantly that would suck. That would be like somebody kicking you in the nuts. 

 14:31
It would be yes. W with a blue foot that's been out in the snow. Can I, can I back up for a second then I would like to point out or ask you for your interview with the insurance company, for the teachers, you did your research. 

 14:47
Oh, a hundred percent. There you go. A hundred percent. This is cool. We, we knew who else they were interviewing. We knew the kind of work that they did, what they were looking for. We knew that were a good fit in that sense. Right. Oh, we made sure that we did a lot with that one, right? Yes. Again, it's, maybe when designers are going in, they're not feeling like they're ready. They have enough background, right. Or they're scared of, but all of a sudden being caught off guard, but the reality is you should be ready no matter who you're going in for a pitch. Right. You better know about that company. That's right. You better know don't all it don't ever go in there and check out their website, not check out their social. No, man. They want to see people who are engaged. Right. 

 15:27
Yeah, exactly. I think also a lot of this is just personalities. Designer. Personalities are so drastic. Some are more crazy outgoing, who enjoy this? Maybe more extroverts, a lot of introverts, a lot of great. They're a little bit more quiet. They just like sit there and we have all here. Yeah. Right. We've got, the jokers here, but we've also got the quiet ones. We'll just sit in the corner and just work quietly all day and just laugh at everybody. Else's jokes. There's a lot of reasons why designers, I guess I could say I don't like pitching or intimidated by them. It was funny. Cause when you made us pitch that one website, if everybody's going to be doing this now there was one teammate was just kinda like, it's just not, I don't want to do this. Right. She was psyching herself out from the start and it was just like that to be is just like, well, just we're all. 

 16:16
Well, and again, the whole point of that is I kind of feel that it's important for everybody to be able to explain why they did what they did. Right. Hopefully it's not just all about, I like this. I feel that hope it's more grounded. Right. But, but that's what I'm going to make sure everybody works on. Cause I know where I suffer. Yeah. Sometimes it's my communication skills, speaking riddles, where I think for some of the other people, it could be their presentation skills. Right. Cause again, there's going to come time when sooner or later everybody's got a picture or see a customer or talk to a customer. So you gotta be on the ball. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I thought basic, I thought I would share with everybody, straight out how we pitch, it said factor. Right. Right. Our pitch from, pretty much start to finish up creative samples. 

 17:01
Of course. Cause it's a podcast. Yeah. Like I said, creativity, to me, the creative part of a presentation is usually the smallest part of this whole. Yes. Right. And again, people underestimate this, right? Like in my opinion, again, it's like a superstar. Awesome. Spiker in volleyball is nothing without a good setter. Right. No matter how good they can smash that thing has a set of somebody got to set them up. It's the same thing about creative, no matter how good your creative is, if there's no buildup to it. Yeah. It's just going to fall flat. Just nice looking stuff on a page. Absolutely. I mean, the way we do this obviously is, strong believers that there's always gotta be. The customer needs foundational knowledge, on why they're there background on the whole project. Right. In order to process, why we're even there, right? Like you walk in, you just start presenting stuff. 

 17:52
Yep. That's totally gonna fail on that part. Right. It'll fall flat on its head. They need you need to kind of lay down the groundwork, that foundation. They can actually clean their mind almost like, a pallet so they can go into this kind of completely refreshed. Yes. Right. They need like a, a mind cleanse. Right. They can have a clean balance seriously. Right? Yeah. That totally makes sense because they will come to a presentation. Right. If somebody is coming for a logo presentation, they're going to have notions in their mind, somebody is coming to a website presentation, they're going to have their own ideas. Right. Honestly you need to cleanse that pallet. Otherwise if you can't do that, if you can't, walk them through what exactly it is that they should be expecting, not what's in their mind. You're, you're always going to fall flat. 

 18:33
Exactly. Always. Right. You'll never make them happy. Obviously what we do is number one, we still do pitch when we have the opportunity in person, we liked doing it on paper, but now digitally, we've literally done the exact same presentation that we do paper digitally. Right. So it's always wide format. So just like a portfolio. So it fills up the whole screen. Right. Obviously we do our intro slide, something cool about us. If in fact, this is the first time pitching the company, we always put a big flashy image, something, for us, it's like screenshots of the agency, some of the boards, honestly, it's like everything, we've got a little picture of thin laying down beside the pillow that says get s**t done. Right. There's all these subliminal and just awesome. We don't even talk to it. We go from our title slide that says, Zen factor, customer name and the project. 

 19:22
Why we're here we go to the next slide. We just let it sit there for just half a second. Yeah. So they get the culture instantly. Right. They're like, yeah. Cool. Okay. Right. Yeah. If they ask about it great. But you know what? Most of the time they just smile. Cause it's like, cool. I've actually got some people here with personality. Right. From there, we get to the next screen. Right. Obviously like the very first screen that we always have is what exactly we're here to do, which is the objective. Right. Always right. Yeah. We're here today to, do the w point form. Yeah. Right. Cause generally we speak to it. Okay. The first slide that they see of course is what we're here to do or basically our objective of this meeting first and foremost. Okay. Next based on what it is we do. 

 20:06
Let's say hypothetically speaking, it's a website, right project. Then we outline the full process. For a website it's like three step process. Step one is like site map. Step two is wireframe. Step three is creative, with a brief description. Yep. And we highlight the stage that rash. Right. What that does is it sets the stage and lets people know, right? No, no. Don't be talking about creative. We're highlighting that. We're here on set map or don't talk about site map or information architecture. We've already gone through that and approved it. We're here to talk about creative. Right. It gives them an idea of it. Right? Yeah. So, so we highlight the stage run. Okay. The next slide, then we just give more explanation on that stage. So it's like, okay. Just remind we have a process when we design websites or we have a process when we create logos and brand images. 

 20:53
Right. Right. 1, 2, 3, we've already done this one. We've already listen right now we're in the creative stage, flip to the next slide, creative stage. This is what you can expect. This is the stage where we're here to talk about this, right. Again, we're starting to set the stage, then we're building this story. Right. Right. They're like, oh s**t. We've already done stage one and two. Yeah. That's right. I remember now we're now on the third park, right? Yes, absolutely. So then we go to that. So we highlight that right. We put down the next one is the outcome slide outcome. Okay. The outcomes slide is basically what we're hoping to achieve after we've gone through this. Again, we're here to present you some creative and hopefully from today we can have a group consensus. Right. And again, it's big, bold for us. It's always like outcome. 

 21:38
Right. This is what it is that we're here to achieve. Right? Yeah. Same with the website. You know, we're here to achieve this. We're here to achieve that. So again, everything. So we're leading them down a story. They're not going to try to take, start talking about things or go off in directions. Right. That we're not here to talk about or prepared to talk about today. It's a gentle guiding them into the percent that's key. Right. We have to own that presentation. We have to guide it as soon as they start saying no, we'd rather do it this way. We want to do it there. You've lost them right there. F*****g with your process. Yes. No, no. We can not have that. Right. So huge. Right. This is what we're here to outcome. If there's criteria to follow. Right. We always list that. The reason we list that is people will forget. 

 22:21
Right. Right. Just so you guys know the criteria is we have to use the color of this. Yeah. It has to work on a bus, is we have to incorporate a f*****g duck because the owner loves ducks. Right. That's honestly, it's, this is the criteria that we needed to follow. Nobody can then all of a sudden start having their conversation go off in different directions. Right. Right. That's key honestly, because so many times that s**t comes back and bites you. Yeah. Okay. What's that doing there? Right? Or, oh, I wish you could do this. And it's like, no. We've had people that have been like, I know what's our brand color, but I think we need to introduce other colors. It's just like, where'd that come from? We have to use your defined brand, dude. We've heard it all. Last but not least right after the criteria, if there's any limitations we have to overcome when this, that as well. 

 23:17
It sounds like a lot, but honestly, when you go in order, this is our process, right. This is the stage of our process that we're in today. We're hoping to achieve this with you. This is the criteria we've been given to do within. These are the limitations we have when doing this. Right. It's not like, I mean, I've just talked 10 minutes about this, but in reality it takes three minutes of presentation. Yeah. Right. Answers any, but then it puts everybody on the same page. Right. You do then present the creative. Yeah. There's no curve balls. People aren't like thinking, oh s**t. I thought were going to be seeing finished logos. So it's like, no. We've already talked about this and we've gone down this road. Right. This is what we have to do that because the reason is if we don't lay down this ground, work in this format, then we aren't sure if everybody's aligned. 

 24:09
Yes. Just like you said, you can have people go in all these crazy ass directions. This is really going to mess you up. Yes. Especially in a presentation. Yeah. Right. Presentations are all about being prepared. Right, right. Prepared with what you have to say, you prepared with, what they could be, feeding back, you follow this. There's not much that they can actually say during every stage. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's always for us the lead up of course. Right, right. Can we want to make sure they're aligned? Of course, we want to make sure that everybody's agrees to things before we move on with them. Right. This also allows people to catch up if they weren't there for meetings. Right. Again, you have the process in place. It's like, oh s**t, you weren't here. That's the criteria we have to follow. Right. Because there's nothing worse than like a squeaky wheel and cause so that one person is always like, well I know I wasn't here for the last meeting, but it's like, no, this is what we've already addressed. 

 25:00
You can't really throw that in at this stage. Right. Honestly. It's that person that you want to shut up. Yeah, totally. Cause they're the disruptors, right? They're the ones to bring up. They're the one let's add some new colors please. No, we discussed this already and we're not going to do it. So let's move on. It's amazing. Basically once we do that, we start on the creative, in this case, if it's a creative project at wireframes right. Logo, design logo design. Yep. Now again, a couple of tips that I would like to share before creating, or before presenting the creative. Right, right. That always works for us. You know, we always stress to people. Number one, leave all your feedback at the end. Right. We can get through our pitch and everything. Right. If you don't mind, but then we couch it with, I want you to focus on your initial reaction to what I'm going to show you. 

 25:53
Right. Don't analyze it. Right. You don't just sit whatever your initial reaction is. Hone in on that. And remember that. Yeah. Because the reality is you have to remind people that a customer, your end user is only going to give you that much attention. Yeah. Right. Yeah. If it's a logo, yes. They're going to look at it for three seconds and then get a reaction and move on. Somebody else in the company will just analyze the hell out of it. Right. Where you see something, absolutely pick it apart. Or the more you ask to pick it up or you're put into a position where to pick it apart. It's a never anything. Exactly. We always remind people to focus in on just your initial reaction first. Yeah. More than anything else because announced paralysis really does it. Yes. Big time. Absolutely. Yeah. When you present, you gauge their initial reaction. 

 26:40
Right. You always gauge it, when you play it. Yeah. If you can write, like you see, it's like, You know, like, right. It is a lot more this or that. Right. Make sure that it's a very fluid experience for them. Right. Don't forget if you have the chance, put it in a mock-up as well, right? Like if you are creating a trade, so banner stand throw it in a banner stand. If you're creating logo concepts, right. Present them on business cards on the side of a vehicle or wherever they're going to check. 

 27:05
The color applications for this. So. 

 27:07
We'll need to see that. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Honestly, they can't visualize it. Right. Creatives. We underestimate the importance of right. Then scale also makes a huge difference. I think for a lot of these people, can't see the scale of like what their logo could look like or this or that. Right. Sometimes they might think it's great. When the, when you shrink it down to like on a digital banner, it disappears. Exactly. Yeah. 

 27:30
Or conversely, what we've seen a lot is these wonderful motion logos with all the swirly worlds and all kinds of stuff like that, put that in black and white on something and see how that's going to look right. Calendly. We're talking to you. Oh my God. 

 27:47
Calendly. Honestly. That logo, literally we carved that one last year. And boy, were. 

 27:53
The only ones I know. Right. I know were not alone. 

 27:56
In that. I think it actually went down as the worst logo of 2021. And the funny thing is what happened? They got a bunch of money and they were focused on going to pentagram, hiring an award-winning designer, ? It was like, wow, look at how fancy it is. It's just like everybody called b******t on. Yeah, totally. 

 28:13
Yeah. All that digital stuff was just a distraction from yeah. Really from a terrible logo actually. Sadly it is. Yeah. These are, these are good. It's good to have a practical application where it's gonna, on a business card, 

 28:28
Why that logo went and it worked well. They probably had a really good f*****g presentation b***h. They had the good pitch. They got to it. They wowed. Cause you have to admit. 

 28:38
What's pentagram. Obviously they gotta be good at what they do. 

 28:40
They're great at what they do. Even if it's a newer designer or partner there, they've got like years and years of legends to sit there and be like, present it like this, do this, say this. It's hard for anybody to question it. Right? Because you feel like an idiot. You're like, oh you can I question this award-winning person from this award-winning agency. 

 28:58
Spending. 

 28:59
A lot of money. I'm spending a lot of money. It must be. 

 29:01
Good. It's gotta be. 

 29:02
Good. Yeah. Not necessarily. Yes. Needless to say, I am a firm believer that all the work and the lead up to the pitch is just as important. If not more than the actual creative that you're delivering at that stage. Absolutely. This whole idea about the creative will speak for itself. 

 29:21
B******t, b******t. Cause nobody knows your thought. You can't, you have to explain yourself why you got to this point. 

 29:27
Yes, absolutely. Yes. I mean, again, otherwise everybody's going to be critiquing this on an emotional basis of how they feel and unfortunately, sometimes you got to layer in logic on top of this, you got to remind people, what we talked about at the last meeting, you've got to remind people the limitations, not everybody's going to be on the same page with this. Right? What a disaster. Yes. Cool. Okay. So things, so that's our process, right? Right. On how to present and how we present. A couple things I was thinking about, that I would recommend, if you had to present, like to help people better presenters, right? Right. Little tips, tricks, like MOUs isms, if you want to call it that or whatever things that have worked for me. All right. Number one, and I hate to say this and this might be hard for people, but you have to as hard as you can, even if it's not your personality be personable. 

 30:19
Oh you have to more than anything. I'm not saying if you're an introvert, don't be an introvert. Introverts are f*****g great in this space. Right. Because people listen to them, but you don't want to be standing at the front of a room waiting for everybody with your hands crossed in front of you waiting to pitch, not seeing a single thing. They're going to walk in. It's going to be uncomfortable. They're going to be like thinking who the hell is this? Maybe your contact will be like, oh yeah, I know this guy. Or I know this guy, but I mean, again, everybody else who's coming in, who's never met you. If you're sitting that way, it's just like, Ooh, like it's not going to go, well, if you have a lead and there's other people involved, strike a conversation with your lead first off. Right. Make sure that, they're hearing aids with them. 

 30:59
They're hearing, at least if you're uncomfortable, you can engage with the person that . Yeah. Okay. So absolutely. You have to show and you have to show your personal, you have to let your personality shine. If you're quirky, you have to be quirky. If you have nothing to talk about heaven forbid talk about the damn weather, like obviously, but you just have to show that you're not like stone cold emotionless and just like a robot at the front. It's just, it's just going to make it uncomfortable for everybody. Nobody likes that kind of thing. Oh dude. You've got to try as hard as you can. If you have to share a story yeah. Right. It doesn't even share a story about, oh my God, your experience, something that happened on the way in right. Get a reaction, get some concrete conversation going with people. Right. 

 31:37
Because then it kind of shows that you're opening yourself up and they will do the same. And you're human. Yes. Everybody likes a human. No one wants a robot presenting to them. Jeez. Number one, you have to try to be personable. Right? Number two, as hard as you can try as hard as you f*****g, can't always present. Don't don't create creative work and then send it over email or let somebody else present. It. Don't do that s**t. Right. If you have the PR and I mean, this has happened a lot, unfortunately over the years, right? Like 99% of the time I will present. Yeah. Sometimes when you're working with people in their chain of command, they're like, no, I'll present it. Don't worry. I'm going to present it. You don't know what they're presenting and you don't know the style, the passion, how you got this way, they might be creating based on number one. 

 32:23
They might have their own biases. They might be talking about their own feelings. Right. There's a process here, if you can. I mean, again, you have to explain the logic and how you got here. The, the reasoning, how you got here, the data to back up, how you got here, otherwise, again, they're just going to be picking based on just creativity and that's right. 

 32:42
Based on what that person presenting. Cause if they don't like it, you can bet your ass. That that person they're pitching to is not gonna like it either because it's going to be a negative pitch. Absolutely. You don't want that. That's not good. 

 32:56
For three. Yes. As hard as you can try to always tell a story. Okay. The, the foundation of the pitch tells a story. It's a, lead-up, it's a lead in, right. You've got to make sure you tell the story because there has to be a buildup of what it is that you're doing and how you got there. You can't just all of a sudden pop there it is. Right. You have to make that story because you have to think of it this way. Your mind is a logic seeking mechanism. Okay. It looks automatically for data points to connect, to make sense of things. Right. It helps recollection. It helps people understand. Right. If I was to be like, okay, Sean, remember this, phone booth, explosion, key glasses, like monsters, you'd be like, what the f**k are you talking about? If I'm like, this dude was, this dude with glasses is walking down the street. 

 33:51
There's an explosion with monsters coming out. He runs into a phone booth and comes out as Superman all the sudden. It makes sense. Right. I know it's a ridiculous example, but it's true. It's like on the setting, you can put all those logic points together and it tells a story. So people understand it. They remember it. Right. Again, it just, it helps the burden of them trying to understand and process what it is that you're doing. Right. It's in a logical order, your mind will do all the work form. Right. Right. So, it allows him to be a lot more receptive to the actual, the climatic experience of the whole thing. Right. So yeah. You have to always try to build that story. Yeah. Huge, huge part about that. Right. This one is interesting, but I, and I have to stress this more than anything. 

 34:38
Avoid making anything personal. Okay. Although you might have, personal feelings towards what you created when you're presenting, you will avoid anything about, I did this because of this. I like this color. I felt that this was a better way to represent your brand because the reality is these people are hiring you because of your experience. Not because you're an artist, right. They're not buying your feelings. They are buying your experience to help them solve a problem. Right. So, it's funny when we present, I always know that we did a good job when, literally at the very end of the presentation after talking and this and that, the last thing they say is, which is your favorite, because that meant that, we kept it completely unobjective throughout the whole way and led the whole thing with, important data logic, right. Industry, industry UX says this, right now, this color is most associated with your brand. 

 35:40
Your competitors are using these fonts, right? Like again, removing any me, I, this is about, and you what subjective, like no, like make sure it's completely unbiased. Right? Yep. And speaks to your experience. Right. Right. I think that's key in a lot of times, I think, a rookie mistake that we see is people, they think that when they're presenting something, they have to defend their reasoning. Right. This shouldn't be about their reasoning. Right. Like it should be about the bigger picture and why they chose things. Yes. Right. Yeah. 

 36:12
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's very cool. Cause it to P to ask, to be asked at the end, what's your, what your favorite option was like, I mean, that is a perfect generic. Yeah. Like I want you to choose a, what I mean? Like that's, 

 36:30
That's just, it just means that you need to do. 

 36:33
That because you're not leaning one way or the other kind of thing with these it's. 

 36:40
Wide open. Right. In that sense, you have all the. 

 36:42
Knowledge I've given you all the knowledge you can pick. Which one do you give them answers? Do you. 

 36:48
Tell them? Sometimes I find them. It's funny. Cause were talking about that a day and somebody here, she told me that she, that even when asked what is my favorite choice in my first, I still keep it broad enough that I'm not dissing anything. Even though I'm favoriting. It's always like, I like this part from this element. I like this part from this, ? I still make sure that I defend all of them equally. Right. I don't just necessarily pinpoint one or the other right now. You know, what is okay. If they ask you is again, it's not about me. It's not about I, yeah. You can say in my past experiences or in the past, when we have implemented this strategy, we've gotten this result. Right. This is kind of the only way I would dance around that whole idea about, it's about me. 

 37:36
Right. Cause it's never about, my personal feelings, unless they're hiring you because you are a specific artists, if it's like, Draplin they're hiring or, David Carson. Right. Okay. By all means you're buying the person and their style let's face it. That's not most of the people that were listening that we have listening to us. This is true. Yeah. Yeah. So again, never, ever make it personal. Don't ever refer to any of this as me, my feelings, me, my opinion. Nothing, because that's not what they need to hear. That's right. Cool, cool. When it comes to feedback, guide the feedback. Okay. That's the thing don't just own the set and let feedback get out of control. Right. Because it will spiral out of control really quick. Right. When you do open up the stage for feedback, make sure that the feedback is clear as concise and try to guide the direction of it. 

 38:25
Just so that s**t doesn't just kind of go all over the place. Right? Like you don't want them to start bringing up things from before or other customers or things that are immaterial to the project at hand because otherwise it's going to remove you from the objective. Right. That you clearly stated at the beginning, that's a big problem, right? Yeah. Sometimes we actually even we'll include a slide that says the kind of feedback that we're looking for. Today we're here to approve a look or the, today we're here to prove a mark today. We're here to, approve a font choice. Right. You know, a color scheme. Right. And that's what we try to keep. They can bring another cause this, that's fine. We want to try to guide what kind of feedback it is that we're looking for. Right. Right. So guide the feedback. Again, if you have to just let them know what parts to focus on. 

 39:09
Right, right. Focus on this part today, focus on, just the header on the website. Don't worry about the rest of the body. Don't worry. The fact that, the footer is incomplete. Otherwise they're going to point that s**t out and it's going to go down and they're going to. 

 39:23
Obsess over that kind of stuff. It's like, this is the focus on the messaging at the top first. We'll work our way down to the. 

 39:35
Wow. Control, the peace control, the pace. Absolutely. That one's an important one. You need to control the pace, that you need to be obviously cognizant of the time that you have. Right. Right. Then, how much time you approximately need for this and that, but you want to control the pace of, the presentation, the questions, the process, right. Again, I'm sure nobody's ever going to mind if you get through it faster and get to that end result. Right. You'll do that if you clearly define the whole process and what you're looking for. Right. That's a key right there, honestly, controlling the pace of that whole presentation is so important. This one's a hard one to try to do, but if you can, if you have to put it in your statement of work, if you have to put in your contract, I highly recommend it. Try to make sure that all stakeholders that have an opinion are going to be present for the important milestone meetings that has f****d us over so many times over the past, 22 years, right. 

 40:29
It's like, you start presenting to people who were supposed to be stakeholders. Somebody else comes in at a later stage. They weren't privy to all the other phases you've already went into. Right. They start shooting their opinion, this, that, and it's like, whoa. Yeah, sadly, you weren't here for stages one and two, you weren't here. We're going through this s**t right now. When we've been working through a wet process with a company we've gotten through all the phases, it's gone through approvals, all the way, literally all the way up to the CMO, the architecture is in place. The wireframes a creative, the content management system they chose then, near the end, literally in the tail end, they brought on someone else who wasn't privy to any of the other conversations. Right. Let me tell you, then all of a sudden they're complaining about the content management system. 

 41:14
They want the process to be like this. They want the architecture to be like that. It has literally derailed this entire project. It's now this probably will be our next customer that we're going to fire sadly. Right. Cause it's just, it is such a miserable experience because this person wasn't there from the beginning. Right. They came in at a later stage, and unfortunately, that stakeholder wasn't present all those meetings. Right. If it's a, if it's somebody who is going to have a say in the project, they need to be present. Yeah. Honestly you have to make sure this. Yeah. 

 41:44
Yeah. That's kind of a sad scenario because this person was brought in like halfway through this process, two thirds of the mall to whip this s**t into shape kind of thing. Right. The, you got to think that there's some kind of personal gain involved to do this myself, which that's a, yeah, you're right. Because they're not involved in the process. Absolutely. I never understood that. It's just like, let the, why would you not let the professionals handle this? 

 42:14
Well, and again, that kind of goes back to that other whole, when to fire a customer, right? Like the point, like you said, they want to put their stamp on it. All of a sudden they want to flex their expertise. Right. They're not seeing, us as the experts. Right. They're not trusting the process to the way. And again, the presentation helps. It's like, Hey, we've already gotten to here. These are the phases we've gone through. This is the criteria we have. Some people will still, I mean, we've had meetings where they're just like, I know I wasn't here before. I know it. Wasn't in the previous meetings. I know it's not on brand and they're giving a stupid f*****g excuses. I'm just like, why are you even opening your mouth? But it's that squeaky wheel. That's just constantly, it's just like a little cut, a little good. 

 42:56
Next thing. You've got this huge gouging bleeding out the whole project death by. 

 43:01
A thousand cuts. 

 43:01
It really is. It is a hundred percent. Yeah. If you can please save yourself the mercy and make sure all stakeholders are involved in that. That's, that's. 

 43:12
Crucial. I. 

 43:13
Can see what that dude, we just experienced this recently. Like I'm talking this week, we just had a whole project derailed because were, we got approval on a trade show, booth thinking were good to go. It was going to take a full day to prep it for hope. All of a sudden, two days later after approval, no somebody else saw it. And then they absolutely refused it. And it was the CEO. I don't know why they didn't see it beforehand. We had to literally completely start everything that we had worked from. We lost two days worth of work. This is nothing to do with the money at that point, we'll make that money back and we'll charge them for every minute spent. Right. It just f***s up everything else in the pipeline. Right. Right. It was because that person wasn't involved when they need it. 

 44:02
Yes. Right. Oh, I hated that. Last but not least, now that I am more p****d when I f*****g started, 

 44:14
I have a drink, dude, have a drink. Hold on your bus. You must drink. At least that's I bet. 

 44:23
Last but not least. Okay. You make sure, your s**t going into that presentation. There. 

 44:30
You go. I guess that goes back to what I was your original insurance pitch. You knew what you were talking about. You knew enough that you could say, look, we're just going to get, we're going to get personal here. I got to get to know you guys and then absolutely work. Whatever. We'll look late. 

 44:47
If you don't know your s**t going into it never fails. You will get called out on it, right on your homework. They're going to be like, well, you don't even know our industry. Do you know any of our competitors? Have you seen our website? No. No. You make sure you've got everything. You make sure you can talk. You're not expected to know their business better than they do. Of course. Yeah. You better know enough that you can defend your reasoning. What you're pitching your ideas based on, what like don't go in blind. Don't go in with wafer thin. Understand that. 

 45:16
Yeah. It's a company and they're in the tech industry. You're in the Texas. 

 45:22
And you've got a cool name. That's it, dude. Honestly, if you get called on that, like you can't, that's it you've lost. 

 45:31
Yeah. Yeah. Because chances are whatever the work you've done is not in line with what they're looking for. I have no idea what they're looking for that. 

 45:41
Absolutely. Honestly, following these, obviously we gave our pitch. Yep. I, over the years followed all these, concepts, all these tips. I still, every time I pitch, I go through every one of these, I make sure I'm covered with every one of these. It's, it has helped me love to present. Like honestly, I get a rush out of pitching, like sometimes I push myself even harder. What else can I do, 

 46:08
Dude? I've seen you after a good pitch. And it's like, you're smoking a cigarette. Like you just had sex. 

 46:15
Actually. He was a different kind of, 

 46:20
But yeah, it's still pretty damn good. Yeah. 

 46:23
But it's true. It's like, it's helped me become very confident in presenting. Right. Because I know my s**t and it kind of, it does it really you're. Right. Because even through that process, sometimes we realize s**t, we miss this there's minor tweaks. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. You always got to know your s**t, right? Like, honestly, keep these ideas, like, use our process. If you want to, if you guys want a copy of it, drop me an email, hit us up on our website. I'll gladly send a presentation to anybody who wants one of what we've done. How we present just to give you an idea of just, like by all means this is, like share economy, just take it. I don't care. It has helped us avoid any awkwardness and presentations. Right. 

 47:04
Maybe that should be our next contest. Mohs will come and pitch your stuff. 

 47:09
I will give your next job. 

 47:12
You'll do a great job. He'll love it, man. You'll tell him, oh, I would love it. You would totally do that. 

 47:21
I, I remember once I, I was at, I was on the receiving end of a pitch and they were doing such a bad job. I was like, I was helping them. Like, no, you need to be more like this. Tell me this more like that. He got to the point where I was like, here, let me do this. I got up, I made a joke about it. I pitched their company to the rest of the people. And they're like, can I use that? I was like, hell yeah. 

 47:48
Oh boy. 

 47:53
I felt a little jerkish, but in the end I was like, they thanked me. They were like, I I'm going to use a lot of that. 

 47:59
Oh, you taught them what they should have known in the first place. Right? No, this is really good because yeah, I think this is true. A lot of people aren't aware, just how important this pitch he is and, the mindset going into it, 

 48:16
It's, in my opinion, it is equal to the creative sets the stage for the creative. Yeah. Honestly, you can probably sell really s****y creative using a decent pitch and you can lose showing amazing creative without the right tech. That's exactly. Honestly, it's it, this helps you get jobs. It helps you get customers, and it helps instill confidence, not only in you. Right. In your customers that you're pitching and having them think that you're the expert. Yes. And that's key, right? Like we always go on about, you've lost the customer, as soon as you've lost that expert status. Yep. Doing this lays the groundwork that he will never question your expert status. And it's humbling. I mean, in our dude, we are constantly pitching people that are a hundred times smarter than I, I mean, we have rocket scientists that we've pitched to, we have people that just, I can't believe the knowledge that comes out of their mouth. 

 49:10
And again, and it's humbling. It was just like, wow. I think that you're the smartest person. I know. They're looking at me as an expert. I don't. 

 49:18
Know what I'm doing here in this area. 

 49:21
So honestly it's flat. It's, it's really cool. 

 49:24
That's very cool. Yeah. And, and kudos to people like that actually acknowledged that, I'm not a hundred percent with this. It is cool. You got to trust the experts on this kind of thing. Yeah. Cool, dude. Yeah, 

 49:37
That was awesome. 

 49:38
All right. I'm glad I want to do a pitch now. 

 49:41
Well, Sean surprise. That's what you're doing tomorrow morning. Oh boy. By all means everybody, if you like what you heard today, by all means, please hit us up on our website. You know, give us a great review. We've got a contest this month to remind hit us up in a review on apple podcasts and then drop us a message on either a website or an Instagram that you did. So, and you will be in a draw for apple air, pod pros, one set every month for the next three months. Okay. It's a sweet deal by all means, drop us a line on our website, hit us up on Instagram. We have an awesome group on Instagram. I love chatting with these people on Instagram. They're hilarious, actually surprise, but by all means, we just, we want to share the love and we want to help graphic design, honestly, graphic designers survive and thrive. 

 50:33
Yeah, really. I think that's our goal here and totally these pitch hints, these pitch proves everything that we do here. This is a hundred percent how we do it and it works. I genuinely hope that some of this can help you guys pitch. I believe it. I believe it will. This is, this is good. This is goal people. Woo. All right, buddy. Well, let's go brave that damn snow shovels to get to our car. All right, everybody. My name is Mossimo. My name is Sean.