Asher Wren and The Secret Behind All Great Pitches

Asher Wren is a strategic growth leader with 15 years of agency experience in branding, digital design, creative technology and innovation. During his career, he's won about as many pitches as he's lost. Which isn't bad.

Today, he serves as SVP growth for DEPT® Americas. Like all agency new business people, he didn't make it as a rockstar. He lives at home in Brooklyn with his partner, Salina, and dog Clifford.

Asher chatted with LBB about his memorable first business win and why the best new business people don’t learn their craft in schools…

LBB> What was your first sale or new business win?

Asher> My first win – technically it wasn't a new business win. It was defending an account that I’d inherited. This was back in 2011, and I was an account manager for a small indie social media shop based in London, and the account was a giant game publisher based in LA.

The revenue was big for us – in fact, they were our biggest account. But small in the grand scheme of things. Low seven-figures. I’d never pitched before; I’d never left the UK for work, even, and so it was pretty exciting to get the opportunity to travel to LA with agency top brass to defend the business.

It wasn’t scary per se, I think partly because I had the agency leaders there to fall back on. It was gruelling, and my first experience of spending long days and nights working in a war room to perfect a pitch. It helped that the war room was at the top of the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica(!).

In a nutshell, the work was social content moderation. We were a team of community managers, moderators, and content creators in the early days of social media. Our competition was a SaaS company using early-days machine learning promising to do what we could do, lots faster and at a tenth of the cost, but not as well – we expected to lose out to the cheaper option.

When we arrived at the client’s office, we noticed the company’s values proudly displayed on the wall in the lobby. Scanning them quickly, my eyes landed on a value that stood out to me: ‘Good enough, isn’t’. Huh… I whipped out my laptop and pulled up the deck. I knew how many pieces of user content we reviewed every month on the client’s social channels (1M), and I knew the competitor’s promised accuracy rate (95%). I did the maths— that’s 50,000 mistakes they’re promising to make every month. I wrote that on a slide with ‘Good enough, isn’t’ as the header. The client’s eyes widened at the numbers, and they awarded us the business as they walked us to the car park. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.

LBB> What was the best piece of advice you got early on?

Asher> “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” Sounds simple, but I’ve kept it with me my entire career. In every pitch, I’ll tell the client ‘here are the three things we hope that you’ll take away’ – those are the key themes, our points of difference, woven through our narrative – and then I’ll wrap the pitch by reinforcing those same three points on a slide.

LBB> And the worst?

Asher> Maybe it’s not so much bad advice, but rather the omission of good advice – but I wish someone had taught me about the power of saying ‘no’ to the wrong opportunities early in my career. It amazes me how many agencies still don’t know when to say ‘no’.

LBB> How has the business of ‘selling’ in the creative industry changed since you started?

Asher> I don’t think it has – some of the tools have changed, but fundamentally ‘selling is still about relationships, communication and value exchange. Understanding what the customer needs and why, and delivering on those needs, will always be paramount. With AI, anyone can get smart on any facet of a customer’s business at the click of a button. This means that interpersonal skills, expertise, and strategic perspective are more important than ever for excellent salespeople.

LBB> Can anyone be taught to sell or do new business or do you think it suits a certain kind of personality?

Asher> The best new business people didn’t go to a new business school. They find meandering pathways into sales – they’re practitioners: technologists, strategists, creatives… that found themselves pitching a lot.

As with any craft, the right tools, training and practice will get you so far, but for the best in the business, it’s hardwired.

LBB> What are your thoughts about the process of pitching that the industry largely runs on?

Asher> When pitch processes are run correctly, they can be very effective – they should be designed to answer key questions: Do I trust this team? Will I enjoy working with them? Do we have a shared understanding of what good work looks like? Will they deliver for me? And the questions go both ways. The problem is that most pitches aren’t run correctly (on both sides of the value exchange), and there’s so much bad business behaviour that pitching becomes a necessary evil rather than a respected business practice.

LBB> Should businesses be paid to pitch?

Asher> They should. Though there are challenges there, too. Paid pitches can mean that agencies are giving away their process, expertise, conceptual creativity and even market-ready work for a fraction of what they should be charging. So the answer is ‘yes’ but with the caveat that any pitch process is entered into with alignment on what fair compensation looks like, relative to the value of the work produced for the pitch.

LBB> What are your thoughts about businesses completely refusing to engage in pitching?

Asher> I love the idea! Saying ‘no’ can be a powerful tool. It can help you understand if a client really wants to work with you, or if you’re an also-ran in the race. But I also think that every agency that says ‘we never pitch’ definitely does pitch. Or they just haven’t found themselves in the conditions in which they would pitch… yet. It creates a nice illusion of exclusivity, though, doesn’t it?

LBB> How can businesses perform well without giving ideas away for free?

Asher> It’s possible – demonstrate a track record of solving similar problems, a projected business impact for solving the one ahead of you, a process with which to do it, and a team bristling with curiosity and enthusiasm. But more often than not, it's the creativity that wins.

LBB> How do you go about tailoring your selling approach according to the kind of person or business you’re approaching?

Asher> Ask questions, listen, and intuit. It’s a conversation. Don’t come in swinging with all the answers because you’re probably wrong.

The one concrete piece of advice I have here is to get smart on the client’s business so you can ask the right questions and speak their language. What does success look like – what are the KPIs that matter – this differs client by client, and industry by industry. Make sure you’re speaking the right language.

LBB> New business and sales can often mean hearing ‘no’ a lot and quite a bit of rejection - how do you keep motivated?

Asher> Remembering it’s not personal. Remembering that most pitches are won before they’re issued, and half the battle is knowing which ones. And winning helps.

LBB> The advertising and marketing industry often blurs the line between personal and professional friendships and relationships… does this make selling easier or more difficult and delicate?

Asher> Yes, yes, and yes.

LBB> In your view, what’s the key to closing a deal?

Asher> Team chemistry.

LBB> How important is cultural understanding when it comes to selling internationally?

Asher> It is crucial, and it can’t be faked. If you’re selling internationally, ask why they’re looking for an international partner, and whether there’s a bias for local market support.

LBB> How is technology and new platforms (from platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot to video calls to social media) changing sales and new business?

Asher> Video conferencing platforms have made virtual pitches the default. Particularly in big countries like the US. But the fact is, there’s no substitute for being in a room together, so push for facetime if you can.

AI is changing the game, obviously – speeding up the research process, making ideas ‘real’ faster, driving efficiencies in time and cost. What we’re selling is the thing that’s changed the most – it’s no longer execution; it’s perspective, experience and taste.

LBB> There’s a lot of training for a lot of parts of the industry, but what’s your thoughts about the training and skills development when it comes to selling and new business?

Asher> There are some good courses to give you that extra edge. In a game of fine margins, that can be everything.

LBB> What’s your advice for anyone who’s not necessarily come up as a salesperson who’s now expected to sell or win new business as part of their role?

Asher> A lot of pitches say everything and tell nothing. Figuring out what you don’t need to say can be as important as figuring out what you do. I guess what I’m saying is: don’t let cramming too much information into your pitch get in the way of telling a great story.

Because great pitches are just that: great stories.