How to pitch effectively with Epigram's Pitch Process Health Check

How to pitch effectively with our Pitch Process Health Check

To put it in simple terms, a pitch generally consists of a short presentation or project aimed at attracting investors or clients to your business. Your specific needs are determined by your business, the client/investor you are pitching to, and the purpose of your pitch.

Many companies have outdated pitch processes that no longer suit the needs of them or their clients. At Epigram we have been working with Law firms and other professional industries since 1993 to help improve pitch processes. Over that time, we have developed a reliable system to improve your pitch process, tailored specifically to the needs of you and your clients.

What are the five key steps to a healthy pitch process?

The Health Check looks at the five areas that most often make the difference between a smooth submission and a stressful one. Here's what we measure, and why each matters.

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Communication and collaboration

How smoothly feedback and direction move between your BD, marketing and design teams. The less friction here, the faster and calmer every pitch. Both internal and external communication have major implications on the success of pitches. A breakdown in internal communication can lead to misalignment of expectations, missed deadlines, and confusion. This is immediately visible to potential clients or investors regardless of how well you manage your presentation. And poor communication between you and a potential client can undersell you and leave clients feeling uncertain about your abilities.

"Thankyou for the amazing document you have produced and the great support you have offered us throughout our project. You’ve made this a great and smooth experience for us all and we know it wasn’t always easy – we had a huge number of contributors to engage with and a large number of sections to deliver within a tight timeframe."

PracticeGroup Lead, Magic Circle Law Firm

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Roles and responsibilities

One of the best ways to keep a pitch clean is to ensure that everyone knows their part, handovers are clean, and one person owns the feedback. Clear roles keep decisions moving. Even if not everyone will be in front of the client, each individual contributing needs to know what their area of expertise is and how that fits into the pitch making process.

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Timelines and planning

Starting early enough and build in real time for design and review, rather than rushing at the end sets apart pitches and reduces stress. A clear timeline does not necessarily need to be fixed, a good timeline should adapt and allow for the inevitable hiccups that a job as large as a pitch can throw out. Changes in client expectations or priorities happen, pretending otherwise can set you up for failure. Our approach to timelines is always to maximise efficiency and flexibility whilst not compromising on deadlines.

"Great support from Epigram as always, they really are great and bend over backwards to help us often against crazy deadlines. Thank you."

BDManager, Global Top 10 Law Firm

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Content and design systems

Templates and assets let you tailor each pitch quickly, instead of rebuilding from scratch every time. A well-established content system keeps pitches on track, even with quick turnarounds and changing expectations. Even something as simple as a clearly defined image library can save hours in searching for the “perfect” photo.

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Amendments and review process

Feedback should be clearly consolidated and changes checked before submission, so amendments don't spiral into extra rounds. At Epigram we have a clear goal that work “leaves right first time” and we use a thorough 2nd Quality Check process to ensure this is achieved as closely as possible. A second quality check means that each job, time permitted, has at least 2 designers perform a quality check before it goes back to our clients. Whilst all creative work has room for some level of amends ensuring work goes through thorough quality checks can reduce the need for extensive back and forth.

How to improve your pitch process?

Can we help you improve your pitching process? The best way to find out is to take our quick Pitch Process Health Check!

Answer 20 questions and get an instant, personalised report on your pitching process. The whole process takes under 3 minutes! In a few minutes you'll see how your current process performs across communication, roles, timelines, content systems and amendments, and where you could save the most time before your next big pitch.

A strong pitch process is key to setting you apart to potential clients. It works with you to remove the friction that slows teams down. This pitch health check isn’t about selling you a product, it’s about evaluating your needs so you can make an informed decision about where to place your resources, weather that is internally or with external support from the experts.

Examples of our work around pitches:

Whilst pitches are often kept confidential our work around putting in place systems to help with pitches can be summarised by our Pannone case study. We provided a full rebrand including clear templates that made pitching easy.

Take a look at more of our design work over on the Our Work section.

Our expert advice

Epigram has over 30 years of experience working with professional and legal client to ensure that their pitches are running smoothly. Our wonderful design team produces perfectly polished pitch documents that support your needs and our fantastic account management team ensure everything runs smoothly to keep you on track.

Try out our perfect pitching tool.

If you want personalised support to help get your brand back on track get in touch with our accounts team!