Tuesday 21 & Thursday 23 May, 10:30-12:00 BST

‘Pitching’ covers a variety of activities – from chemistry meetings and discussions, to credentials and strategy presentations, right through to full creative pitches.

Up to the Light’s ‘What Clients Think’ report reveals that 99% of clients believe that a pitch is good business practice for high value projects. Being excellent at pitching, therefore, has become vital to agency growth and success. With the insights and learnings from years of conducting post pitch interviews with clients, Up to the Light’s founder, DBA Expert Jonathan Kirk, will explore how you can increase your chances of success by understanding the client’s motivations and expectations, developing your own processes and structuring the right argument.

This workshop covers

  • Understanding changing client expectations

    Stay ahead of the game with the latest thinking

  • The 10 key stages of pitching

    Craft the winning approach with these essential steps

  • Getting your internal pitch process right

    Ensure the team is aligned and everyone is prepared

  • Mastering the remote pitch

    Pointers and tips for winning online

  • Seeing the client’s perspective

    Demystify the shortlist and evaluation process

  • Structuring your argument and raising audience engagement

    Understand where pitches succeed and fail

You will gain

  • A fresh and up to date perspective on how to approach your next pitch

  • Knowledge to take back to your business to improve your processes

  • Increased confidence to tackle future client pitch requests and win more new business

  • Practical tips and techniques to give you the edge over competitors

Meet your trainer

Jonathan Kirk

Jonathan is the founder of Up to the Light. The consultancy advises a significant proportion of the UK’s top 100 design agencies across a wide range of issues concerned with business growth and improvement. As the leading supplier of client surveys to the UK design industry, their insight into the client/agency relationship is unrivalled. For the last 10 years Up to the Light has published the influential ‘What Clients Think’ report. This year’s report is based on 675 client interviews conducted on behalf of design agencies and is a revealing snapshot of the client/agency relationship. As well as advising agencies, Up to the Light is also a brand consultancy that provides brand positioning and strategy for clients. So many consultants become theorists and teachers, slightly removed from reality, but Jonathan is continually involved at the sharp end presenting, pitching and delivering high profile strategic work for brands. This is of huge benefit to his clients. He is a regular conference speaker and trade press contributor and is a founder member of the DBA’s Experts Register.

Pricing options

DBA members receive a discount off the standard price. To talk to us about joining the DBA, email [email protected]. Prices include VAT. If you're buying from outside the UK please email [email protected].

Previous feedback for Jonathan

"Jonathan Kirk’s ‘Winning Pitches’ workshop and pitching guidelines were transformational for our business. Since completing the work with Jonathan we have improved our win ratio by 100%. We now approach pitching with the confidence that we have an approach that maximises our chances of success."

Jon Blakeney, Managing Director, I-AM Associates

“The session was enlightening, thought-provoking and engaging. Good stuff!”

Jackie Arnott-Raymond, Joint MD, Frontpage