How To Sell Creative Work To Clients, Part 2 of 2

Here's part 2. Holy crap, Felix could have turned this into a book!

In Part 1 of How to Sell Creative Work to Clients, I taught you how to get ready for the big meeting. Here's what to do to ensure you don't waste all that hard work once you're in the room together.

12: Get them nodding
This is an old tip from every profession that requires a sale. From cars to telecoms, the idea is to get the “mark” to start nodding or saying yes. At first, the questions can be innocuous, even unrelated. But getting people into the habit of saying yes makes it easier for that person to say yes to some of the much more important questions later on. Start asking questions that get them agreeing with you. The more nodding dogs you have in the room, the more chance you have of getting a thumbs-up when the work is presented.

13: Laughter can help
It’s not always appropriate to have a room full of people laughing, but laughter is a handy tool because it lightens the tension (and there’s always tension). You don’t need to study Mitch Hedberg routines and become a stand-up comic. For instance, your work may already have some humor in it that you can use to get that laugh. Or, you can use humor to set up something that’s less than funny. Wes Craven often uses humor in his horror movies because it’s a perfect way to set up a scare and get impact. You may be presenting something very serious, but you can still start the meeting with some light-hearted banter. This creative presentation could be the only hour of the client’s week that she’s not analyzing spreadsheets or dealing with stock holders, so she may really be looking forward to this meeting. If it becomes a real drag, it can bring the work down with it. Use your best judgment, but don’t think that laughter is only useful in meetings with Budweiser or Diesel.

14: Brass balls can help too
I’ve seen some ballsy presentations in my time. I’ve given a few as well. They’re tricky to do, not every client appreciates them. But if you feel out the client first, or already have a good relationship with them, you can get away with it. It can be as simple as slapping an ad down on the table in front of them, getting a laugh and saying “there, that’s what everyone else’s reaction will be, this ad is SOLD” and walking out (I witnessed that as a junior copywriter, I’m still in awe of it). You could say “we’re so confident in this ad, we’ll take no agency fee if it doesn’t raise your sales by at least 30% (get the approval of the big guns first though, or you could be in a world of hurt). You could even rip up the boards with the “safe” ads on them and stand behind just one idea. You have no doubt wanted to show your brass balls on occasion. Well, when the opportunity presents itself, this kind of bravery can have a huge impact.

15: Persistence is a virtue
You love the work. You know it’s great. You know it will do wonders for the brand and the bottom line. But when you present it, the client says “nah, not feeling it, what else have you got?” At that point, you have a choice. You can say goodbye to your great ideas and pull out the boards with the less impressive ideas on them. Or, you can stand behind your work and give it another shot. As I’ve said earlier, ideas can’t fight for themselves. The client may just need a push, some extra confidence in the idea or an indication that you genuinely believe in the work. So don’t roll over too quickly. Of course, if you’ve been arguing your point for most of the meeting and the client isn’t moving, you may need to stop beating that dead horse. Standing up for your work is one thing, but adamantly refusing to move on is just going to antagonize the relationship with the client.

16: Don’t say “you’re going to love this idea…”
By all means tell the client you love the idea, but don’t ever presume anything about what they will like. You’re basically throwing down the gauntlet so that the client’s natural reaction will be “oh yeah, we’ll see about that.” It’s like that cocky comedian who comes on stage and tells you he’s going to make you laugh your ass off. Now, you can tell people that YOU love the idea. That’s fine. But never tell them what they will think of something. It’s presumptive and it sets you up for complete failure.

17: If they just don’t get it, whose fault is that?
We’ve all come back from meetings that were train wrecks. Our shoulders hang low, our brows are furrowed and when a fellow creative asks what happened we reply “they just didn’t get it.” Ask yourself one question – “why?” I’ll admit I’ve presented to some people who seemingly had the intelligence of a house plant, but most people are smart enough to grab a concept, if it’s delivered in the right way. And that’s the key. Setting up the creative is paramount. You need to lay the foundation, and you need to communicate your ideas coherently. Sometimes, it’s enough to hold up a board and say nothing. The ad speaks for itself. But the same can’t be said of TV or radio. Never hand over a script and ask them to read it for themselves. Act it out. You don’t need to be Harrison Ford, just do your best to inject the right attitude and tonality. If the target audience is very different than the people in the room, set up that expectation. If the ad is going in an unusual place, or it’s a guerrilla concept, get that across. All too often ideas fall flat on their face because the complete story wasn’t told. And a killer punch line without the rest of the joke is just confusing.

18: Finally, remember that you’re on the same side
There seems to be this “them and us” mentality that propagates most creative departments. Creatives are the artists, clients are the evil bastards who know nothing and want to ruin everything. This just isn’t true. At the end of the day, you both want the same thing – you both want to sell more of the client’s product or service. Sure, you also want a cracking piece of work for your book, but that’s not the priority. So when you go into a room facing an enemy, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Go back to those days when you were a young kid and wanted to show something cool to your mom or dad. Remember how you could hardly stand still because you couldn’t wait to show them something? And how eager you were to hear their response? You wanted to make them happy, and they could sense your passion for what you had done. Well, a few decades of rejected ideas and watered-down concepts can create an awful lot of cynicism. Get over it. Every project presents the chance to do something good, and you should approach that creative presentation with that enthusiasm.

As I say, this is not a complete list and it’s just my opinion. You may have different insights, you may have points to add. But hopefully, this is at least a foundation that can help you sell in some great work.

Felix Unger is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He's been in the ad game a long time, but he's still young enough to know he doesn't know everything. He'll give his opinion, you can take it or leave it. If he uses the f-bomb from time-to-time, forgive him. Sometimes, when you're ranting, no other word will do. In his spare time, he does not torture small animals. He has been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.