This guy scared the shit out of me.
Let’s call him “Big Vince” for anonymity.
He was the ranking marketer, leading the most important pitch of my career at that point.
More anonymity here, sorry - but I can’t tell you the brand. You’d know the brand. You might even love the brand. Let’s call the brand something hopefully undecipherable, like “Gozborg”.
Gozborg had taken a chance on my team. We were the wildcard.
So, when we ended up outperforming ourselves in the presentation, Big Vince was probably feeling good. All we had left to do was say our goodbyes.
Then the lead SEO at Gozborg said, “Just one question...”
It felt like the floorboards moment in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds.
The question was about content. And I was firmly “the content guy” in the cast of this pitch.
Without thinking too much, I answered - honestly. Too honestly, maybe.
In the debrief, which included the C-suite of my agency, Big Vince opened fire:
“When Gozborg asks a leading question like that, you go with them on it. Even if you disagree. I don’t care - you follow them on it, and build on it. They need to know they can work with you, not argue with you every couple of calls. That’s what they’re testing out.”
And so I’d ruined it. All the prep I poured into the weeks prior.
All the anxiety dreams. All the conversations I pretended to be in. All the food I ate too quickly. All the coffee I didn’t bother to smell. All the PlayStation I didn’t play. All the trees I didn’t notice. All the bedtime stories I didn’t read. All the rehearsals. All the calculations. The scope, the deck, the comments in the deck, the check-ins, the tweaks, the overhauls, the narrative, the new narrative, the final narrative on the tab marked “FINAL”, the performance of a lifetime for those first 40 mins - in the pitch of a lifetime. All of it was now draped in a smock embroidered with the words “Rob’s Fault”.
A week later, we learned the client loved my honest answer.
We won the pitch.
The resulting partnership - and that same stakeholder who asked the question - changed my life.
Sometimes we agreed. Sometimes we didn’t. But we often laughed. And we always learned, together - for years.
Honesty was always allowed. I was always allowed.
Sometimes, maybe it’s better not to create.