For years, we opened every proposal with our best-looking, most industry-relevant case studies. Then the clients who hired us kept telling us the same thing after we won: they picked us for the process and for how we looked after them. Creative quality can get you cut. It doesn't get you chosen. In this episode, Symon and Marcello dig into how buyers should choose an agency when every firm on the shortlist already has a strong portfolio. Their argument is that hiring runs in two stages, and most buyers run them as one. The work gets you past the first cut. Referrals, relevant experience, and how clearly an agency explains itself decide the second. They don't fully agree on how far to push it: Marcello stopped leading with case studies, and Symon thinks Tennis may have overcorrected. Fair warning: this is an agency telling you how to pick an agency, and we've bet our own pitch on the argument. Weigh it accordingly. If you're shortlisting agencies or writing an RFP right now, this one is for you.
💡 Key Topics:
✦ Cut vs. chosen: creative quality was the top reason North American marketers gave for passing on an agency (RSW/US, 50%), with category experience close behind (48%)
✦ Referrals still win: 71% of buyers found a new firm by asking a friend or colleague, and an existing relationship was the top deciding factor in the 2022 follow-up (Hinge, 822 buyers)
✦ What a real RFP rubric rewards: one national health association's website RFP gave work samples 20 of 100 points and capability and experience 30, so half the score was about what you've already done
✦ Why "high quality" is a weak filter: nearly every bidder clears it, and quality is measured against whose benchmark?
✦ The buyer the portfolio fooled: a well-known creative agency with a polished signature style, hired for a UX-heavy platform it wasn't equipped to design. A portfolio shows the look. It can't show whether the look solved the right problem.
✦ Your proposal is the first work sample: anyone can fake a process slide, but you can't fake clear writing. In our experience, lost pitches almost never come down to design. They come down to miscommunication about whether or how we can do something.
✦ The overload trap: B2B buyers facing contradictory information are about 153% more likely to settle for something smaller and less disruptive than planned (Gartner, general B2B buying rather than agency hiring)
✦ The one change to make on your next shortlist: screen on the work, read the process closely, then ask finalists to come in and walk you through a case study
📖 Chapters:
0:00 — Creative gets you cut, not chosen
1:02 — Why we stopped leading with case studies
4:20 — How one RFP actually scores the portfolio
6:48 — The buyer the portfolio fooled
9:00 — Process slides vs. the proposal itself
12:09 — Make them present the case study
15:16 — Judge our proposal however you like
🌐 Tennis web design & development services: https://www.designtennis.com/services/website-design-and-development
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7tufP8mSXC1YrLxrLzw3Ju?si=3839798c83264d9b
📸 Instagram: Tennis.digital
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/designtennis/
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