The importance of qualifying every pitch opportunity cannot be under-estimated. Pitching for the wrong accounts has a profound impact on all aspects of agency life, starting with the opportunity costs involved in every pitch process, through to imposing undue pressure on teams, damaging fragile confidences, giving away valuable consultancy (ideas) and ultimately wasted time.

What’s more, a strong pipeline of poorly qualified opportunities is a work of fiction. When management tracks the volume of leads rather than well qualified opportunities, revenue forecasts become unreliable. This inevitably leads to rushed hiring decisions (for revenue that doesn’t materialise) or reactive cost cutting when the pipeline evaporates.

The price of saying yes at any cost

The financial effect of a poorly qualified pipeline is one thing, the impact on individuals and the wider team is quite another. A policy of “pitching for whoever comes knocking” creates a relentless cycle of pressure, with late nights and weekends, which leads to burn-out and the erosion of leadership credibility. And where people are pulled off billable work through resource cannibalisation, the churn risk on existing clients increases as they sense they are no longer a priority. Ultimately, teams and individuals can smell a ‘lost cause’ pitch so forcing them to work on poorly qualified opportunities create resentments toward leadership which eventually undermines company culture.

Agencies that employ a rigorous and shared qualification process commonly enjoy a unified growth culture. If individuals and teams throughout the agency respect the decision to pitch, then they are more likely to lean into each opportunity. Building a shared growth mindset should be the goal of every agency leader, but it can only be achieved through modelling the way. And this requires qualification discipline, clear evidence of declining opportunities when they don’t meet agreed criteria, and living the maxim: “pitch less, win more.”

So what does good like when it comes to qualification? It’s here that most agencies can learn from sales systems and experts such as Sandler (Sales for non-sales professionals), Jim Keenan (Gap Selling), Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson (The Challenger Sale) plus others who routinely share tips on LinkedIn such as Spencer Gallagher (Agencynomics), Robert Craven (Grow Your Digital Agency – GYDA), and Camilla Honey (JFDI).

Reclaiming the growth engine

Adopting a proven sales methodology is not about forcing ‘salesy’ tactics on a consultancy business; it is about reclaiming control of the agency growth engine, protecting agency margins, and scaling the agency’s expertise. For those that fear sales’ or for whom a disciplined approach is counter-cultural, the argument to change is simple. A well-managed sales function is a protective framework against the chaos of procurement and pitch cultures.

Put simply, sales in the PR sector should not be seen as selling in a conventional sense, it is diagnosis. It is the consultant’s mindset, which when embedded in the qualification process, shifts the balance from ‘selling’ to diagnosing. And by embracing this, agencies will come to rely less on the Founder’s charisma and more on the combined talents of the wider team. A simple shift that allows for faster scaling.

Investing in sales training with one or other of the methodologies or with a growth advisor, or by simply spending time deep in the literature can change an agency’s growth trajectory. Adopting process, putting in place systems, and communicating qualification criteria with teams will all contribute to significantly reducing an ‘over-pitching’ culture. Pitching less but winning more is not a pipedream. It takes courage and discipline, but when done properly will reap huge rewards.