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The Presentation Beauty Pageant

There was a time when we were beauty pageant contestants. It's true, we were! Let me explain...

An RFP would come in and we would work tirelessly to make ourselves attractive to a panel of “judges.” We would practice our lines, run over our strategy and ensure that our concept design was foolproof. We were typically in a mix with 5 – 6 other contestants who also prepared in a similar fashion.

On the pageant day each contestant would take their turn in front of the judges to make their huge global claims about how they will change the clients’ online world. We would bat our eyelids and leave the presentation with our fingers crossed to be the selected agency.

The judges would then discuss amongst themselves who was most attractive, gave the best spiel (or we like to call it dribble) and made the most promises. The contract would then be awarded to the lucky beauty contestant, and the client and winner would celebrate. It’s wasn't until later, after the project would be in full swing, that things would start to go wrong.

You see, the contestant who typically wins these beauty pageants are the ones who do most of the talking during the RFP process, and never take the time to fully identify what you actually need. They use their charm, ideas and pricing to win the work. The problem is apparent only after the project gets started and your goals and contestant's goals begin to misalign. The first thing to go is the charm, followed by scope changes, heated communication, and a project that, if it finishes, never meets the true objectives. 

You, the client, is left wondering, "how did this happen?" You had everyone present and you picked based on carefully thought-out criteria.

But what we discovered is that most businesses don't understand the criteria they need to ensure success. 

Here are a few additional questions you should ask of the agencies you are looking at:

  1. Has the agency taken the time to understand how our business works and the specific goals to be accomplished?
  2. Are they uncovering goals we didn't even realize we should be concerned about?
  3. Has the proposal arrived in our hands extremely fast, suggesting an out-of-the-box solution?
  4. Are they just trying to win the deal? Is it generic agency talk with a lot of jargon we don't understand, or do they really seem to understand our needs and requirements?
  5. Do they have an ROI projection for our project and is it justified? Do they have data/analytics to support the project and proof of results to back it up?
  6. Do they outsource any of their work (design, development, online marketing)?
  7. What is the planning process, do we get an opportunity to see a working prototype before we spend the majority of the project worth in development?
  8. Are they addressing each key stakeholder to get their views and requirements?

These criteria will help determine if the agency has your best interests in mind, or theirs.

Author: Joel Egan, Acro Media Business Developer