On-demand masterclasses

It’s a well-known fact in the business world that it’s a lot easier and cheaper to retain clients than it is to attract new ones. That’s why the role of a client services team is vital role to any organisation. It’s their role to manage client relationships and it can be the difference in retaining a client or not.

In this masterclass we delve into the essential elements that will elevate your client services team's performance. When you unlock the department's full potential you transform it into a revenue-generating powerhouse.

Getting new business isn't easy, and agencies everywhere are feeling the crunch. When you get the chance to pitch, you need to make sure you've got what it takes to close the deal. But a lot of agencies fall short in the critical stages leading up to a pitch, they're not gathering the right insights, honing their messaging, or aligning their team around a winning strategy. It’s time to shake things up and make sure you're doing everything you can to win.

A pitch deck that's tailored to your client can set you apart from the competition. It cuts through the noise, tells a compelling story, and keeps your audience engaged. The problem is, many pitch decks end up as overstuffed 'creds decks'—lots of tech talk, not enough focus on making a compelling case.

That's where Freia comes in. She's spent the last six years helping agencies like yours rework their pitch process, gathering post-pitch feedback to find out what really works. In this interactive session, she’ll share what brands actually want to see in a pitch, point out the common mistakes agencies make, and give you a solid game plan for your pitch process.

You'll leave with an understanding how to make your pitches more structured, more collaborative, and ultimately, more successful.

This masterclass will show you how to:

- master the crucial activities in the pitch process to craft winning presentations that maximise your chances of success.

- unlock the secrets of what brands want to see in pitches, identify common agency mistakes, and learn proven strategies to avoid them.

- develop a winning pitch approach with a clear action plan to dramatically increase your win rate.

Agenda:

• Speaker Intro and background

• Scene setting: Why is it hard to win a pitch?

• What is your biggest challenge with the pitch process?

WHAT BRANDS WANT TO SEE IN A PITCH & COMMON AGENCY MISTAKES

• What do you think brands want to see in a pitch?

• What is important to brands?

• Common themes from collecting post-pitch feedback and advising agencies on their pitch process

• Common pitch deck mistakes and the impact on pitch win rates

OPTIMISNG YOUR PITCH PROCESS

• What should your sales process look like to lead to a winning pitch?

• What is the ideal pitch structure?

• Score yourself from 1-5 on your ability to run an effective sales process

🗣 Masterclass host:

Freia is an Agency Growth Consultant with 15 years of experience in growing and optimising agencies. She works with agency owners and senior leaders to identify current blockers and move their business into the next phase of growth. She guides agencies on how to move their strategy out of the boardroom and into the agency, and see their plans through to the implementation of positive, embedded changes and ways of operating.

Previous to running her own consultancy, she worked agency-side for 12 years, grew her own digital content & PR team from 0-100 people, and was responsible for delivering the strategy and change programs for one of the most successful 150-strong digital marketing agencies in the UK.

Freia has collected post-pitch feedback on behalf of agencies for the last 6 years, and supports agencies with the optimisation of their sales process and, in turn, the improvement of pitch close rates.

Transform your approach to pitching and client meetings with a clear, step-by-step process that takes your prospect from "hello" to "thank you for your business."

What You'll Learn:

- Client Profiling and Why It Matters: Learn the essentials of preparing for meetings, what to prioritise, and what you can skip.

- The Art of Asking the Right Questions: Discover how to take your prospect on a journey using three layers of questioning to get the best results.

- Objection Handling: Get ahead of objections and learn to manage them effectively before they arise.

- Quality Warm Referrals: Learn when and how to ask for quality referrals, and most importantly, how to convert them.

- Closing Without Confrontation: Master non-confrontational closing techniques that leave your prospect feeling confident in their decision.

- Pre-Loading Meetings: Avoid long-winded pricing discussions by properly setting up your meetings and managing expectations early.

- Respect the "Brick Wall": Understand the importance of maintaining a clear division between the fact-finding phase and your sales pitch for optimal results.

Agenda:

1. Client Profiling & Preparation

2. Mastering Questioning Techniques

3. Handling Objections Effectively

4. Building and Converting Referrals

5. Non-Confrontational Closing

6. Pre-Loading Meetings to Avoid Pricing Pains

7. The "Brick Wall" Between Fact-Finding and Pitching

Key Takeaways:

- Guide prospects smoothly through the sales journey with effective questioning.

- Anticipate and handle objections before they arise. - Confidently ask for and convert warm referrals.

- Close deals in a non-confrontational, relationship-building way.

- Navigate the transition from fact-finding to pitching for maximum success.

Walk away with a streamlined approach to client meetings that maximises every opportunity and builds long-term relationships.

Slides can be viewed here

🗣 Masterclass host: Oliver has spent 30 years in the B2B Sales arena working with such organisations as Pepsico, Nike, Danone, English National Opera, Durable UK and Olympus Power. He's trained sales teams to sell effectively, intuitively and with greater confidence and purpose. He works with sales teams focussed on the longer term relationship and not the 'stack it high, sell it cheap' win.

🎫 Who is this for?

Anyone responsible for meeting with prospective clients for fact finds, discovery calls, proposition delivery, pitches and winning business against competition.

Most agencies think growth requires casting a wider net, but the truth is that the most successful ones grow by narrowing their focus. In this masterclass, you’ll learn how to achieve substantial revenue gains by qualifying out lower-value opportunities, allowing you to focus your resources on the prospects that matter most. The goal isn’t to do more, but to do less, strategically.

What you’ll learn:

• Qualify Opportunities Better: Understand why qualifying out can be just as important as qualifying in and learn the criteria to identify your best-fit clients.

• Convert the Right Opportunities: Focus your energy on prospects with the highest likelihood of converting and long-term alignment, reducing churn and increasing client satisfaction.

• Negotiate More Profitably: Gain confidence and skills in negotiating terms that benefit both you and your client, leading to more profitable and lasting relationships.

This session is packed with expert insights, actionable strategies, and hands-on tools you can implement right away. You’ll also get the chance to engage in peer-to-peer learning, exchanging real-life experiences and tactics with others on a similar path to growth.

Key Takeaways:

• Practical tools for sharpening your qualification process

• Proven techniques to increase conversion rates with ideal clients

• Expert strategies for conducting successful negotiations that build profitability and partnership

Agenda:

1. Market situational context and pitch process challenges

2. Insights into the mind of sophisticated buyers

3. How to qualify opportunities better

4. How to convert more of the right opportunities

5. How to prepare and run a successful negotiation

6. Close

Discover how doing less can mean more for your agency's sales growth.

Slides can be accessed here.

Scorecard can be accessed here.

🗣 Masterclass host:

Mike is a successful entrepreneur, ex-procurement director, and expert sales & negotiation consultant (according to his clients). He’s raised over £6.5m of acquisition/growth capital in his career and grown companies profitably to over £20m revenue - he’s also negotiated 100s of deals as a buyer worth over £500m in total.

Mike has a uniquely valuable perspective on business development, having worked on both sides of the table as a Procurement Director and an entrepreneur/sales-consultant. In one of his roles, Mike worked as a Procurement Director for a company now worth in excess of $1bn.

Mike works predominantly with sales/bus-dev teams to help them qualify opportunities better, convert more of the right opportunities, and negotiate more profitable deals, especially when procurement gets involved.