The Commitment of the Pitch with Stephanie Hanley

A firm believer that collaboration leads to the most impactful work, Stephanie Hanley joined EP+Co in fall 2024, and has already earned a reputation for being a true partner with an always-fresh perspective.

Most recently, she served as head of account management at the Atlanta-based shop Fitzco, where she played a key role in navigating the agency’s transition to independence, doubling the agency’s size, and, in 2022, earning them Ad Age’s Small Agency of the Year award.

Before that, she held a hybrid role working for The Richards Group, sitting on-site at her client The Home Depot’s headquarters, where she was embedded as the agency leader within the organisation’s creative/marketing group. Her (undeniably impressive) client roster includes icons such as McCormick-owned brands French’s and Cholula, Hilton, Coca-Cola, New Balance, Guinness, Red Stripe and L’Oréal.

When she’s not putting her money where her mouth is and exercising her passion for mentorship and collaboration – both within the agency and with her client partners – Stephanie can be found pounding the pavement on what some would call way too long of a run. But being the optimist that she is, especially after a few cups of coffee, Stephanie would say that more miles equals more endorphins.

LBB> What was your first sale or new business win? What do you remember about how you felt and did you learn any lessons from it?

Stephanie> When I was an assistant account executive at Grey, my first pitch was a birth control launch within a pharmaceutical company. I was the target, and the only ‘target’ on the team, so I was brought into the final. That was amazing for someone at my level.

Today, you’ll have an audience of four to six key decision makers. But this was to an auditorium of probably 60 marketers – the entire marketing organisation.

I didn't have any experience presenting, never mind standing at a podium in a packed auditorium, knowing winning or losing a piece of business was on the line.

That was over 20 years ago, and a lot has changed since, but it taught me to go all in and do the things that scare you, which I hold onto still today.

LBB> Interesting, what has changed?

Stephanie> More than a few things. These days, you’re not pitching to the entire marketing organisation. You’re presenting to a much smaller team on the client side. But, what’s interesting is that the whole marketing team eventually has to work closely with the agency they choose, so maybe the way it used to be was more effective. Everyone gets the opportunity to buy in on the decision.

Looking back on my first pitch, I wasn't pulled in because I was going to work on the business, but because I was the target audience. Fast forward, and we've gotten so much savvier as an industry. There are a million different ways we can learn about a target. Our only option isn’t just talking to the one young woman on the team. But, how cool of my boss to give me a swing at a time where she wasn't sure how I'd show up. (Admittedly, she probably didn't know we were going to be in a room of 60 people).

Some of our junior team members can be really powerful in rooms like that today, not only because they dive in on the business, but because they’re a demonstration of the agency of our culture – our commitment to talent. We’re in a pitch right now, and a mid-level team member will be in the client meeting because she’s perfect for the business and to show the clients the spirit of EP+Co.

LBB> Sounds like your boss was a special person.

Stephanie> Yes, her name was Allison Bailey McEachron, over at Grey. She's since passed away. She was a lovely mentor, and she put so much trust in me, even giving me a chance to run a small piece of business while I was very junior.

I still laugh thinking about the times I’d sit one row in front of her on cross-country flights, so she could coach me on deck updates. Allison helped me fall in love with this business.

LBB> When you think about those early days, did Allison or someone else provide you with any advice? Was there anything that kind of stuck with you from those early first or second jobs?

Stephanie> Two themes – maybe more than advice – have stuck with me throughout my career:

1. Pitch the way the agency wants to pitch, not necessarily the way the client is asking you to pitch. It's a pitch that reflects you, not them. Agencies tend to think we’ll win the business by telling the brand what they want to hear. And maybe that’s true. But if you haven’t been true to who you are from the very beginning, it's not going to be a good long-term relationship fit.

2. It's always an idea that wins. A tension in pitching is that we're often asked to cover a lot of content. And, of course, we go on to deliver full-funnel marketing plans once engaged in a business, but, ultimately what inspires a partnership is an idea. Something brilliant that the client can't stop obsessing over.

LBB> Have you ever been in a pitch process where you can already sense, and you don't have to name a name, that the potential client loves the idea, but you know you aren’t going to work well together?

Stephanie> Definitely. When I was at a previous agency, we were in the running for a dream client – one whose name we were dying to put on our roster. But from the first conversation, we felt the relationship wouldn’t stick. The pitch was hard, the conversations were difficult, and feedback was inconsistent from meeting to meeting. The clients didn't seem to really know what they wanted, and instead were using the pitch to figure it out, rather than coming in with a clear vision and inviting an agency to challenge it, shape it and execute it. Unfortunately, I’ve seen that more than once.

We learned a lot from that pitch, and by the way, this client ended up staying with their current agency.

LBB> We're hearing about more pitches where the client still ends up with their current agency. There's been some concern that brands are doing it as a pricing exercise. Are you seeing this?

Stephanie> Yes. I’d say over the last three to five years, this has become more prevalent, and it’s tremendously difficult on the agency as we put incredible amounts of effort into our pitches.

Marketers are in a really tough position because they're being asked to do so much more with the same, or less. One of their major expenses is their agency partnerships. So, assessing whether they're getting the right value out of that – I can empathise with that tremendously.

The challenge is that pitches take a whole lot of time, emotional energy and commitment from agency teams, and I do wish brands understood how much it really takes in terms of our time and talent.

LBB> What's a better way to do it?

Stephanie> If you're not really looking to award the business to someone else, don’t pitch it. Instead, stop, assess your goals, and hire a consultant to come in and help you. There are some wonderful consultants out there who can tell you what's happening in the market and help you get your own house in order, whether it's financially or strategically.

If you're unsure about a partner's value, use a project to vet the agency you're considering. See how that goes. Understand the pricing through the lens of that project. The risk is much lower, and you’ll get to know another agency in a real scenario – not one manufactured for pitch purposes.

LBB> Anything else you’d add about the new business process?

Stephanie> It's a commitment to pitch. We ask ourselves, ‘Is this business worth our efforts?’. It’s important to know how many players are in the pitch, the true value of the opportunity, and the timeline to actually award the business. If you can't get those answers, it becomes increasingly difficult to participate.

LBB> How do you keep motivating people after you’ve had a few losses?

Stephanie> You need to believe you're going to win every single time, until they tell you that you didn't. That’s how you stay motivated. How you communicate internally is crucial. For our junior and mid-level talent, it can be super daunting if you’re negative. When I look back at my career, there have, of course, been far more losses than wins. But, I don't remember the losses. I remember the exciting wins.

LBB> Do you think there are even more project opportunities now?

Stephanie> We aren’t seeing the death of AORs. But, in the last couple of years, yes, we have seen a swing towards projects. It’s cyclical and often whatever's on trend.

I do wonder, as marketing budgets get smaller, can brands afford to operate without the efficiencies an AOR can offer? I also think brands have lost sight of the other ways to incentivise agencies.

LBB> What do you mean by that?

Stephanie> As part of our pitch process, we ask our potential client to agree we can promote the work that we do for them to the press, or with awards. That's how we sell our creative product to new clients, in the same way we're developing advertising for them to sell their product. Surprisingly, many partners struggle to say yes, which causes us to default to the traditional approach: the financials.

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

Stephanie> Ultimately, you either like new business, or you don't. I'll be honest with you, if you had told me 10 years ago that I’d have ‘growth’ in my title, I wouldn’t have believed you. I was all in on client management.

For me, today, it's the excitement of the chase.When someone new comes onto a pitch team or starts to work in new business, I’m not sure specific training is necessary as much as coaching them to apply a general spirit of curiosity. In a pitch, even when we don't win, we learn something. We get to work on someone else's business – even if it's for a short period of time – learning about a new category, new audience, or even new operational model within an organisation. Treating every pitch like a learning opportunity is development in itself.

LBB> Any advice you would give your younger self?

Stephanie> The one thing that I would tell my former self is that running a new business pitch is not running a piece of business. The flexibility that you need to deliver for a pitch is much higher than the flexibility you sometimes demonstrate on a piece of business you already have.

If you're too rigid, you’ll lose the opportunity to take advantage of the fluidity of ideation and creativity that is so exhilarating in the new business process.