Eric Siu: All right, so we're going to talk about five things your agency needs to do before pitching your first corporate client. We all want the big clients. We want the Amazons of the world. We want the Facebooks. We want the Apples of the world. Whoever you want as a corporate client, they're corporate, corporations, for a reason. It's because they've done really well, and they've become really big. We all aspire to work with the big clients. How do you do that? Well, I'll keep it really simple for you.
Number one, you need to have testimonials. You have to have some kind of validation on the work that you've done. On our site, on Single Grain for example, we have different testimonials from people saying, "I love working with Single Grain, because they're fun, because they integrate," whatever it is. People like to be able to see that.
Now the second thing you need, you have the testimonials first, but then you also have to have case studies too. You go a little more in depth with the case studies. Case studies will talk about, "Hey here's the problem. Here's the solution. Here's what the results were." People can see how you think about things, what kind of challenges you solved, and what kind of results that you bring to the table. Are these the kind of results that they want to see?
Now number three, this seems like a very duh statement, but you got to have some kind of validation. Most businesses are on the web nowadays. You've got to have a website. If you don't have a website, maybe you're an off-line business maybe, you have to have some kind of things that demonstrate professionalism. It could be brochures, for example. It could be a magazine. Whatever it is exactly, whatever business that you're in, you have to make sure that you have that kind of validation that you're a real business.
When I was starting off freelancing, and I used my Gmail account, people were like, "Are you legit? What's your website?" No website at first, and then second, I was emailing them from a Gmail account. Two things, right? That shows immediately. People's Spidey senses kind of kick off and they're like, "Well, I'm not really sure if this person is legit." It seems like a duh statement, but you have to make sure, especially when you're starting out an agency, that you get this stuff established, and it doesn't look like dookie. Okay? It can't look like dookie.
Number four, I talk about this all the time, you have to build a great team around you. If you're just starting out in the beginning, maybe your team, maybe these are virtual people, but people want to know the people that they're working with. For example, when people ask, "Who's going to be working on my account?" Okay, well there's this person, there's that person. This person has managed $20 million in spend. This person has managed a couple hundred thousand. This person has worked with your kind of business before. They want to have that kind of validation, that kind of confidence that they can trust you to do the work that is required.
The fifth thing is a well-designed deck. If you're going to be pitching people in the beginning, set something up, maybe using Canva, for example. Or if you want to build in your proposal and your presentation in together, in the same one, we use something called Qwilr. We have a well-designed deck that way. We have our branding assets in there. When you have that, again, these three things are demonstrating professionalism. You have your website. You have an email address, and you have your deck. Then they can see all of the other things that I've talked about, such as your team, case studies, testimonials. That shows you're legit.
Corporate clients, they work differently. There's a lot of red tape around there. There's certain things that they expect to see. You've got to have these things ready. I'm not saying that you need to have these for smaller clients, because the smaller clients, they don't care about this, especially the small businesses, because they're not worried about this stuff. They're worried more about the relationship. But if you're working with much bigger clients, they're going to expect this stuff. This stuff that you're presenting is going to go through a couple different departments. It might even go through legal as well, so you got to make sure that you're buttoned up and you look good, as well. So, hope-