How Fitch Makes Its (Fast) Pitch

These days, we're all pitchers. Maybe you're in advertising or design. Maybe you're selling software or cars. Maybe you're making an internal pitch for a revolutionary new product or software. Or maybe you're just trying to gain a few more resources so you can do a better job. Across the board, it's getting harder to chalk up the big wins. Prospective clients are hunkering down. And the few who are still out there have the luxury of waiting to pick a pitch that they really like -- generally one with a lower price tag. Worst of all, the old approaches to selling -- fire up that PowerPoint presentation one more time! -- seem, well, old.

If you're looking to remake yourself as the next Cy Young (or Roger Clemens), the designers at Fitch, an international brand-design firm with U.S. headquarters located in a renovated horse farm near Columbus, Ohio, think that they've got the perfect pitch: the fastball pitch.

The Fitch fastball pitch is actually a high, hard one. It's all about speed, intuition, and guts. Instead of asking potential customers for their business, Fitch designers use their pitches to fire off their point of view and challenge potential clients to love it or hate it -- with nothing in between. In fact, Fitch's pitches feature one all-important idea: to have an opinion -- even if it comes out of left field. And Fitch's pitches have one target: to nail "the big 'aha' that will make a client's knees wiggle," says Ron Vandenberg, chief creative officer of Fitch Americas. Such knee wiggling is caused by anxiety over an idea so radical -- something like changing the company's brand name -- that the potential client is profoundly uncomfortable. "You'll either completely disconnect with them or they'll clear their calendar for the rest of the day to talk to you," says Bill Faust, former CEO of Fitch Americas. "But at the very least, you'll have shown that you have some imagination."

So far, such risk taking has paid off. Fitch estimates that it has converted 30% more pitches into real business since it started using its fastball pitch, although Faust admits that the number of pitches that it takes part in has dropped due to the tough economic environment. Still, Fitch has added a number of big names to its client roster, including VF Corp. (maker of Lee Jeans) and Warner Bros., and has won work from such smaller innovative companies as movie-theater operator Pacific Theatres Corp. and Skinmarket Inc., a cosmetics retailer funded by the daughter of Bud Walton (Sam's brother).

So forget the credentials presentation. Forget the brochures. Forget the stupid tchotchkes. Grab a strong point of view, and study these four coaching tips on how to increase the velocity of your pitch. And remember: Good pitching always beats good hitting.

1. Assemble a good pitching staff.

Like a good ball team, a good business pitch needs the right players and the right coach. In the old days, says Faust, "you'd assign somebody to grab the PowerPoints, and you'd bring the brochures." For Fitch's fastball pitch, it's not what's on the table but who's in the chairs. So staff the team with people who will actually work on the account. "The old modus operandi was the bait and switch," says Stuart Hunter, a creative director at Fitch's San Francisco office. "You bring in the big guns the first day, and that's the last the client ever sees of them."

It was late in the game when Fitch went in to pitch its branding ideas to Skinmarket's executives: Fitch was a week behind the other firms on the shortlist.

To pull a come-from-behind win, Fitch knew that it needed skilled presenters -- not just execs with big titles. So it pulled together a core pitch team that included Kathy Tierney, the former CEO of upscale garden retailer Smith & Hawken and current head of Fitch's retail practice. Although Tierney had no experience in cosmetics, she knew what it took to create a place where people were willing to spend big money on plants, gardening tools -- even dirt that they didn't really need. Hunter, who would lead the creative work, brought in Jon Baines, a client-services director who would serve as Fitch's liaison to Skinmarket. Don Hasulak, a partner at Fitch's architecture and design branch, AAD:Fitch, in Scottsdale, Arizona, was also brought in. He had done work for Skinmarket in the past and had persuaded the company to give Fitch a chance. But Hasulak wasn't on the team just because he got Fitch in the door. Hasulak had to be in on the pitch because his job would be to deal with the logistics of getting Skinmarket's new retail look into 33 stores across several states on time and on budget by the first quarter of 2002.

2. Keep your eye on the target: the big "aha."