Whether you’re the agency crafting a compelling credentials presentation or the client about to meet an agency for the first time, both sides are trying to assess whether there’s a potential fit.

And telling – or listening to – a credible story in a sea of sameness is the all-important difference between hearing, ‘looking forward to seeing you at our next meeting’ and ‘best of luck with your future endeavours…’

So what are the secrets to creating or reviewing compelling credentials presentations?  Here are ten worth remembering:

Credentials happen all the time

While most people think of ‘credentials’ as a formal presentation or a carefully crafted leave-behind, the truth is a credentials overview can also happen as quickly as a sixty second elevator ride.  A succinct and compelling answer to ‘why’s your agency so good…?’  or ‘how do you differentiate yourselves from others…?’  can sometimes open more doors than pages of Powerpoint.  So if you don’t have that killer, thirty-second pitch – it’s time to get one.

Credentials aren’t history lessons

How you got where you got to may be interesting to you, but unless you can articulate it in a minute or two, chances are it’s not interesting to whoever you’re talking to.  The history of your business and the struggles you went through to build it into what it is today, likely aren’t relevant to how or what you’ll be doing to help the client you’re talking to.

It’s not a check-list

A popular misconception is that credentials presentations should be delivered as a check-list of services rather than a conversation about how you could best help your prospect. 

To avoid the ‘check-list’ approach, tie your messages together with a narrative that’s compelling, distinctive and something clients will remember after they’ve left the building.  As you ask questions along the way, you can either expand on particular areas of interest, or point to further information in your leave-behind document.

Detail in the leave behind

One of the biggest mistakes agencies can make is to dig into details that take away from other areas that may be more relevant.  If a client has asked for a credentials presentation and asked an additional twenty questions around process – cover off the questions at a high level during the presentation, but put the detail in your leave-behind.  That way you get to spend more time talking with your prospect rather than presenting to your prospect.

You’ve got half the amount of time

As a general rule of thumb you should allocate half the amount of time available to present your credentials and leave the other half to discussion.  If you spend the whole time presenting, leaving just five minutes for questions at the end, your client will likely feel left out of the ‘conversation’ and you’ll learn little or nothing about what their true needs are. 

Case studies shouldn’t be an afterthought

Case studies can be incredibly powerful in credentials presentations – provided they’re delivered properly – in short bursts at the right time.  Generally speaking, case studies need to demonstrate a recognizable client name, a succinct problem and solution, and an eye-popping result. When used to demonstrate a point, they can be much more powerful than out of context facts on a slide about your agency’s capabilities.

Don’t engage too early

A first meeting or credentials discussion is an opportunity to evaluate both capabilities and your team’s fit with a prospect.  Asking tough questions of your prospect before you’ve had the opportunity to assess some sort of fit can sometimes backfire – simply because your prospect doesn’t feel comfortable in sharing the information you’ve asked, and possibly make you seem too ‘pushy’.

Be careful with your assumptions

During a first meeting, sharing assumptions or insights you’ve gathered from preliminary research can be risky because it may be those are the very assumptions that are proving to be a challenge for your prospect.  It’s always better to stick to facts and capabilities and let the client share their insights and challenges first.

Test it on those who know you

One of the best ways to evaluate your own credentials is to present them to those who know you – your own employees or incumbent clients – to get their opinion on your story.  Chances are your own team or clients are going to be much more forthcoming on what resonates and what doesn’t, and you can hone your key messages accordingly.

Process is boring

While many clients may ask for process information, describing the details of that process isn’t interesting.  Sorry, but it just isn’t.  We’ve seen charts, circles, boxes, arrows, venn-diagrams, and dotted lines in every shape, size, colour and pattern you could imagine.  The best way to tackle process is to provide an overview but support it with an example or case study.  Again, expand the detail in a leave-behind.

Credentials typically have one single purpose:  To get your prospect engaged enough to want a follow-up or deeper discussion about their business.  If your story isn’t coming together or you think your credentials could use a competitive tune-up, we’re happy to come take a look.

Over the past two decades I have seen more than a thousand agency credentials presentations, either in reviewing an agency or as part of the pitch process. I am often asked to help agencies refine and sharpen their agency story. You would think that advising a company that is tasked with developing their client’s brand story would be redundant. But for some reason, very few advertising agencies appear to know how to tell their own story.

Because of the prevalence of storytelling as a business skill, many agencies will declare they are going to share their agency story. But what follows is far from a story, let alone a powerful and compelling one. Instead it is a lists of features such as the people, clients, capabilities and case studies. These lists are almost never distinctly unique to the agency, filled with the hallmarks of every good agency and therefore not particularly distinctive or memorable.

The question is why?

Agencies are filled with smart, talented people who are professional storytellers. So why do agencies find it so difficult to develop and tell their own story? The issue is the way most agencies think about their credentials and the associated story about their agency.

When you talk about a credentials presentation, many agencies immediately frame this as a commencement step in the maligned pitch process. This is quite a narrow view of the role of a credentials presentation. You may need to present your agency credentials in many situations, other than as part of a pitch. It could be to introduce the agency to a new CMO of an existing client. It could be as an introduction to a marketer wanting to know more about the agency. Or any number of other opportunities to pitch the agency and what it can do.

A laser-like focus

To understand what makes a great credentials presentation, you need to have a laser-like focus on the purpose. For me, there is only one purpose and that is to get to the next meeting that will lead to being awarded more business. This is where the agency story is essential. Unlike a list of facts and features, a great agency story captures the single-minded thought you want the audience to remember and associate with your agency. It is memorable, based in a truth of the agency and creates a desire in the audience to know more.

Independent agencies have the opportunity to create their own story. While for network agencies it is important to take the network story and customise it to your market situation and reflect your local positioning. You can achieve this through the inclusion of the relevant proof points.

The proof points for the agency, previously a list of features, are delivered as benefits that support an agency story. Each proof point builds on the credibility and the power of the agency story. It requires discipline to only include the proof points that support the story and to leave out anything that is irrelevant and confusing.

When you have developed your agency story, the first people you should share it with are your staff. They will tell you if it rings true, and possibly it might motivate them to greatness. Then share your story with your existing clients.

Clients as ambassadors

Too often agencies put all their effort into winning clients and forget to update them on how the agency is evolving. Who knows, you could even win extra business by sharing the proof points they may not know. Even if they don’t, your clients are the best ambassadors for talking about you to their friends and colleagues in marketing.

The other thing about a truly great agency story is you can make the telling as long or as short as time allows, by adding the proof-point details to support the story or by leaving them out. If you have an hour-long meeting, plan and practice telling the story in less than 30 minutes, leaving time for the client prospect to share their story. If you have 30 minutes, tell the story in under 15 minutes. And if you have 2 minutes in an elevator, tell it in 60 seconds. (It’s why it is sometimes called the elevator pitch).

Imagine meeting a marketing prospect socially and when they ask what you do, rather than telling them just the name of the agency and the type of agency, you give them a taste of the story in a sentence that makes them want to know more?

There have been some great one liners that capture the agency story, the promise of a benefit that makes the agency distinctive and memorable in the mind of the advertiser and the industry. I am sure you would be able to name these agencies just on the lines from their agency stories such as ‘Nothing is Impossible’, ‘Brutal Simplicity’, ‘The Disruption Company’, Truth well told” and more.

But the agency story is not these lines. The story, like all great stories, is in the telling.