6 Lessons From My Worst Pitch: A Marketing & Advertising Tale Of Horror

It Only Felt This Empty

Since the first in this series has been well-received, I think I'll make a habit of it. The point, as always, is to not work from fear... but to learn from every mistake. Besides, they make for the best stories later.

I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of different things in my career. In my early 20s, I was the lead singer / songwriter and manager of my own rock and roll band. The band was the focus of everyone involved for several years. We went through a lot of personnel, released four different collections of songs (tapes and CDs), made a video (link later) and T-shirts, and played several hundred club and showcase dates in a bunch of different areas. We were good enough to play a couple of major music industry trade shows, with South By Southwest, twice, being the biggest feathers in our cap. For a time, we all thought we were going to be signed and have a shot to do things at a national level. But the turnover and slowly dawning realization that while we were pretty good, our music was not absolutely essential to anyone's lives but our own, ended the dream. No regrets; I learned a lot. As you'll see.

My Worst Pitch Ever story came in the middle of our run. We were getting some radio play here and there, and some of that was coming from a college town about six hours from where we were based. I checked with my friends in other bands to see if they knew what the best room in town to play was, and if they had any leads on booking agents or venue owners to get us an opening slot. A venue was found, I smooth talked our way into an opening slot for a Saturday in August, and hey, we're in a new market. I went to work to try to get the radio station to promote our appearance, but didn't think too much about this, because the club booked us and I've been told it's a good venue, so everything should be fine. The day comes, and we gas up the van and go.

Six hours later, we pull up... and it's really nice. As in way too nice. We were a hard rock band, with elements of punk.

And it's crowded, with about a hundred people who are all ready for music. And they are also all about twenty to thirty years older than us, or anyone who has ever been to our shows.

We then checked out the headliner's gear, and they all had acoustic instruments and hand drums. Us? Not so much.

So the band looks at me, and I look at them... and we're faced with three not great options. Do we:

1) Turn down all of our instruments and play as quietly as possible, in deference to the headliner and their crowd, and fulfill our contractual obligations and slink out of town.

2) Play our normal set, because that's what we do best and have rehearsed, and maybe some in the crowd will respond well to it, and make our gas money back through CD and T-shirt sales.

3) Get back in the van without playing a note, because nothing in the next hour is going to be better than getting back into our own beds an hour faster than otherwise.

We chose Door Number Two.

I'm biased, of course, but I think we played great. We were tight, made no mistakes of note, had no technical problems, and looked every bit the part of an up and coming rock and roll band that was brimming with confidence and chops.

We also cleared the place of over 90% of its occupants in about a minute, with a scatter pattern that was like something out of an action movie.

* * * * *

Direct marketing lessons learned!

1) Never forget that your list is more important than your offer, or your creative.

I think we could have been the Rolling Stones that night, and it wouldn't have made a difference. We were just the wrong band, at the wrong volume. If you are selling to the wrong people, everything else is academic.

2) To thine own self be true.

We could have taken option #1 and made more friends with the club and the headlining act. It certainly would have been the more comfortable option on a personal level. And door number 3 might have been better for the headliner and venue.

But the plain and simple fact is that we were never going to get another gig at that venue, or have any relationship with the headliners. Twelve hours of driving and gas was a sunk cost. So the 10% of the crowd that stayed and bought a few CDs and T-shirts, and signed the mailing list, were everything to us. Besides, a good live hour of practice had value. (Also, if our watered-down set *had* worked, we could have easily gotten sidetracked into formats that we weren't as good at.)

3) If your creative is also your management, you may only be doing both jobs at 50% effectiveness.

As the manager, I should have done more due diligence on the venue or headliner. In fairness, this was a pre-Internet age, and  research was harder. Had I insisted on a phone call with the headliner to get a sense of what their audience was like, and if there was likely to be a fit, we might not have wasted the day. I could have delegated some of the pre-gig legwork, and should have.

4) Don't make a business decision for just one reason.

The booking agent for the venue should have, of course, done their homework and listened to my band's music before making the booking. But when presented with "new band for the area that's getting radio play", they didn't need to hear more, especially for a relatively low-pressure opening slot. On my end, I was so wrapped up in paying off the radio airplay story that I didn't realize it wasn't going to produce much in the way of headcount at the venue.

5) Timing matters.

If I had waited a month for the booking, we might have had a very different experience... because playing a college town in mid-August is not exactly a great way to reach a college-age audience. It also might have drastically changed the demographics of the room, or the nature of the headlining band.

6) Perform with no fear.

I've been fortunate enough to pitch to C-level execs in a wide range of consumer categories. Some of those have resulted in major business. Others have resulted in a swing and a miss. But in every one of those, I've remembered the Worst Pitch Ever before starting, slowed my breathing, and have never had too much of an issue with nerves.

Because no matter what happens, the people in my pitch meeting aren't going to walk out of the room with their fingers in their ears. Or throw beer, or make rude gestures and yell angry things, as they scatter.

In short, I've already gotten the worst presentation of my career out of the way.

And it didn't kill me.

So why be afraid of any presentation that, by definition, will be better than one I've already had?

* * * * *

The promised music video link, I'm the guy getting burned at the stake. Good times.

You've read this far, so by all means, connect with me personally on LinkedIn.You can always email me at davidlmountain at gmail.com. And, as always, I'd love to hear what you think about this in the comments.

And I'd love to hear your worst pitch in the comments below...