What is the cheapest new project an agency can win?
More work from a client who already trusts it, which is why a simple way to sell again to existing clients belongs in any review of the pitch process.
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The hidden cost in your agency's pitch process
In the hours spent on pitches that are lost, which nobody ever pays for. At one small agency I reviewed, forty to seventy slide decks were going into eight-thousand-pound projects, with two-hour presentations and sixteen standard pages nobody had read in months. Tightening the process cut the time spent on proposals and tenders by half. The waste clusters in briefs nobody interrogated, pitches with no single owner, preparation out of proportion to the prize, and pricing set without the people who deliver.
Why does the cost of pitching stay hidden?
Because a pitch feels like investment rather than cost, so it escapes scrutiny. Chasing revenue makes effort feel virtuous, and because the work is spread across the team in pieces, nobody sees the total: ten people each losing an afternoon is a week of billable time that never appears as a line item. Ask an agency owner where the profit goes and they will point at delivery, a difficult client or salaries, and rarely at the pitch.
Some pitches win, and a win papers over a lot. The measure that matters is how much the agency spends, in total, to win what it wins. That ratio is where the profit lives or dies.
Where does the waste actually sit?
In a few predictable places. Briefs that are not interrogated, so the agency pitches against a problem it never understood. No single owner of a pitch, so effort sprawls and decisions get made by nobody. Preparation out of proportion to the prize, so a small project eats the same effort as a large one. And pricing set without the people who have to deliver, so the agency wins work it then loses money on.
I reviewed the pitch process at a small agency where forty to seventy slide decks were going into eight-thousand-pound projects, with two-hour presentations and sixteen standard pages in every proposal that nobody had looked at in months. Preparation routinely cost more than the project was worth. Restructuring the proposal process cut the time spent on proposals and tenders by half, which handed half of a whole category of unbilled work back to the business.
How does an agency cut the cost of pitching?
Start by tracking the true cost of the last ten pitches, won and lost. Most owners have never done it, and the total is a shock. Then give every pitch one owner and a preparation budget that matches the prize, cut the standard pages back to the ones that earn their place, bring the delivery team into pricing, and build a simple way to sell again to existing clients.
An agency that is busy and still not making money is usually leaking time in the pitch and the process, in ways that only show up when someone goes looking.
Related evidence: How coaching cut a digital agency's proposal time in half. The whole journey: Agency owners fixing delivery and growth.
Questions people ask
Should the delivery team be involved in pricing a pitch?
Yes. Pricing set without the people who will deliver the work is how an agency wins projects it then loses money on.
Not sure where to start?
Most clients begin with a conversation. No pitch, no hard sell.
Just a straightforward discussion about where you are and whether I can help.
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