How many days or weeks will it take to find the most appropriate agency for your pitch, is a question of collaboration management and organizational behavior. To nail it, you have to be aware of the different options. Following a pattern is the most logical next step in this case:
- Make a reasonable schedule for the whole process. Realize how many people or departments must approve the service provider and who has the final word for the choice. If two or three people are in charge, it won’t be difficult to coordinate them. But if several teams and their managers are involved, it will probably take a little more time and a plan to go ahead. Write down the specific dates for the different phases. Also, note when the final decision will be made.
- Prioritize wisely. When you prepare the selection criteria, think about what is most important for you as a person that will make the choice, and as well as for the organization. Can you make a compromise with anything, are there features that you will specifically watch out for? In this way, it will be easier for you to decide quickly on the go, especially if there are more applicants. This will be a rational method also to follow the drawn-up schedule.
- Organize yourself. To lead the process of timely selection, it is extremely important to be able to handle your attitude. Personal timing and self-control are the keys to effective management of the whole process. Any small helpers such as reminder notifications, blocked reading time for the proposals directly in the calendar, and even a system of email flags and weekly to-do lists will make it easier to follow the process. We also send reminders for some of the most significant steps when using the Pitch Zone of Brand Network.
Several markers symbolize bad management:
- Lack of efficiency. If you can’t arrange your tasks, priorities, and perspectives, then you can’t achieve the result you need, namely – overlapping the schedule with the set deadline. First things first, people say. And it is no accident.
- Waste of time. Leaving tasks to waste and procrastinating shows that something is seriously hampering regulation. Too wasteful deadlines take you out of rhythm and are not useful to anyone.
- Loss of control. If you do not know how to arrange the criteria and priorities, you probably suffer from loss of control over your life. This can increase stress and anxiety levels. And they, in turn, will not allow anything to go according to the plan – at least the pitch. So try to decide what is important to you, and focus on it. Even if it’s just taking care of your dog all day. Somebody will always accomplish the pitch – and she or he would have a much better chance of running it successfully if your priorities are set elsewhere.
And last but not least – the logistics. As with any planning, it always starts at the end. You probably remember that some of the famous people make their employees imagine the result, the complete product, and thus begin the process of creating it. It’s the same with the brief. When a campaign should begin is the cornerstone of any other choice, not only because it cross-depends on many factors, but because all the other deadlines need to be organized around this settlement.
The starting date for the activity should allow enough time for preparation after deciding who will be your partner in the implementation. Sometimes, really rarely, the ability to react quickly can be a decisive factor in choosing a service provider. But we all know that for most things there is a technological time that we can hardly skip successfully.
The deadline for the selection of a service provider is the next step we need to fix to move forward. And forward – or backward, in this case – means the deadline for submission of the proposals.
Do not overestimate yourself with too short deadlines for reviewing and evaluating the received proposals. Even if it’s up only to you, you may be able to read all night before the deadline. But the bad thing about doing it at night is that you can’t get an answer right away. And usually, there are open points for clarification. In most organizations as well as in the case of a bigger pitch, it is unusual for a person to decide by themselves. Therefore, according to the hierarchical structure, approval procedures, and corporate culture, it takes between 2 days and 2 weeks (if the project allows) for feedback.
For your convenience and to avoid input errors, the algorithm of the pitch calendar at brand-network.me prevents you from setting impossible deadlines. But still – it allows the magicians to get their schedules tight.
And once you’ve framed the timing of the process, the next thing to do is to fill in all the pitch details in the respective field of the template – after all, some of these details are crucial for success. Read more about this in our next blog post.
How to create an effective agency brief? Read HERE.
How to create a name of the brief using the six thinking hats – read HERE.
