The New New Business: Learning the Art of Being Resilient with Mike Larmer

Mike Larmer is one of the most experienced agency leaders in New Zealand today with a multi-award-winning career spanning 30 years in both the UK and New Zealand. 

Mike started life as part of the London team of direct marketeers who created WWAV Rapp Collins which grew into UK Campaign Magazine’s Direct Agency brand of the decade. Mike became MD for over five years; winning numerous domestic and international accolades.

In 2006, with the Agency part of Omnicom, Mike moved to NZ and partnered with David Walden as Managing Director of TEQUILA – Whybin\TBWA’s CRM and digital brand. Mike successfully helped grow the Whybin\TBWA\Tequila group winning many awards culminating in the Marketing Association’s RSVP Grand Prix two years in a row.  

In 2009, at the height of the GFC, Mike was headhunted client side and joined Mercury Energy in a specially created role to head up marketing, sales, and customer experience. During his tenure Mike led a business and marketing transformation of the business, which culminated in the accolade of becoming Deloitte’s prestigious Energy Retailer of the year. 

In 2012, Mike left to set up Chemistry with Joseph Silk, ex GM of Wunderman NZ, Susan Young and Pat Murphy, both creative directors at Rapp NZ. Over the next ten years Chemistry has grown from six to over 20 people, with a turnover in excess of $5 million per annum. The agency counts Jaguar Land Rover, AMI and State Insurance, Samsung, Schick and MTF Finance among its clients. 

LBB> What was your first sale or new business win? (Was it a big or small job? How difficult or scary was it? What do you remember about how you felt? What lessons did you learn?)

Mike> The first biggest pitch that I can remember was HUGE for the agency I was at. It was a big financial services brand, and I was really intimidated. I was made pitch leader, and that really stressed me out. So many lessons learned from that early experience :

• Pitches are always won by a team. Having a clear direction early on for everyone and very defined roles and responsibilities is absolutely critical. 
• Bespoke knowledge and insights are everything. I remember two of my team called me from a train coming back from seeing an existing client. They were sitting behind a group who, from the conversation they could hear, had clearly been to see the pitching client and were sharing their experiences over a vino in the carriage. From the feedback session, my team was relaying all the extra nuggets of info they were overhearing. 
• Memorability: Make sure you are memorable in your pitch so you stand out from the rest. We created a seriously huge box 3m x 3m to illustrate our 'clever' customer value model process, and after we had presented, it stayed in the room while all the other agencies were pitching - that must have been so annoying 
• Tell an engaging story - don't just present 52 slides of data 
• Don't have a lost soul in the room, make sure everyone attending has a cohesive part of the presentation to own 
• Practice, Practice. Practice. 

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

Mike> First and foremost, a client buys people they like, and that they can easily imagine working with every day. Conveying this is just as important as your thinking and your creativity. 

LBB> And the worst?

Mike> Create a new business team/person that does all the pitching. This is a terrible idea, 99% of clients want to see the people who will be in their business every day not the peeps who will pitch superbly never ever to be seen again.  

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

Mike> I don't think it has. We just have more tech at our disposal to make selling more engaging. 

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

Mike> I think both are right. Anyone can hone skills by learning from collective experiences and be taught pitch hacks, but it is also true that some people are instinctively good at it. In my view, 55% of agency people are farmers, 35% are hunters, and 10% are good at both. 

LBB> What are your thoughts about the process of pitching that the industry largely runs on? (e.g. How can it be improved - or does it need to be done away with completely? Should businesses be paid to pitch? What are your thoughts about businesses completely refusing to engage in pitching? How can businesses perform well without ‘giving ideas away for free?)

Mike> I know this is an emotional topic but it's mainly the big global network agencies with huge resources who are moaning about how pitches are run. In my experience 80% of pitches are conducted by clients perfectly well  - there is always 20% who handle their pitch poorly and that invariably is down to the personalities in charge. The two things that are counterproductive are the big clients who maintain a roster of agency partners but require member agencies on the roster to pitch for every project and the big pitches that happen only for the required optics, and the winner has already been secretly chosen. These are both sub-optimal in being effective in achieving better outcomes or saving money and are never conducive to a thriving client/agency relationship.

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

Mike> At Chemistry, we are big fans of the art of flex talk pioneered by an inspirational management consultant called Nigel Risner. Nigel argues we are all members of an animal tribe - Lions, Monkeys, Elephants or Dolphins. Nigel postulates that for best engagement - learn to talk Lion if the client is a Lion, Monkey if a Monkey. Better pitch communication with a client always occurs when you learn the client's language and that of the brand culture she/he represents.  

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

Mike> This really comes back to spending time in the University of Life aka hard knocks. We all need to learn the art of being resilient. People will say yes, no, maybe throughout our careers so pitching is no different. Tomorrow's pitch is always a new day and it gives us an opportunity to deploy our learnings from our latest experience - regardless of a win or loss.  

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?

Mike> In my experience no - if both sides remain objective, dispassionate and professional. If those three behaviours cannot be maintained then life can be difficult regardless of the level of friendship. 

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

Mike> Two things are key, the client doesn't feel they are being 'sold' and the agency doesn't appear to be selling. If one or the other are evident then something is wrong and the level of trust is too low. Closing the deal really means successfully helping each client solve a problem or achieve a goal not of ‘selling’ a piece of creative or strategy.  

LBB> How important is cultural understanding when it comes to selling internationally? (And if you have particular experience on this front, what advice do you have?)

Mike> Selling is at the end of the day a people business so understanding cultural norms are crucial and the best advice is to make sure you have high level experienced local advice. Pitching to a Japanese brand or a French one is very different to pitching to a British or Kiwi one. There are subtle nuances even between the latter. 

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

Mike> For high volume sales, these platforms are brilliant for helping a brand to proactively manage their client lead management but for an average creative agency it is really taking a mallet to crack a nut. 

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? 

Mike> There is very very little quality training and skills development in this space. 

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?

Mike> There are six golden rules for a newbie 

1. What is your agency’s Elevator pitch? 

2. What is your client's category - what are the 2023 trends in it? 

3. What is the SWOT on your client’s role in its category as a brand and product?

4. What is the client’s problem? 

5. What is your agency’s hypothesis for fixing this problem? 

• Strategy 
• Creative 
• Innovation 
• Channel 

6. What personality is your client, how do they like to receive information?