A better-looking pitch deck cannot fix a pitch that fails to solve the prospect’s problem.
Before you polish the next pitch, ask whether your strategic insights have actually changed the way you understand the client’s challenge. Suppose a prospect says, “We need more leads.” Your team could immediately begin discussing paid search, landing pages, content and media budgets.
Or it could pause and ask a more useful question: why aren’t enough of the right people becoming customers? Those two starting points can produce very different recommendations: one begins with work the agency can sell; the other begins with a problem the client needs to solve.
Start with the business issue, not the deliverable
A request for a campaign is not the same thing as a diagnosis. Neither is a request for a new website, a social program or a media plan.
The RFP may ask about those tactics, while the business may really need to improve customer acquisition, reduce churn, increase consideration or protect profitability. The assignment often is the work being requested; the business issue is the reason that work matters.
Imagine that the prospect asking for more leads already generates substantial interest, but buyers hesitate when they have to choose. More traffic might be helpful, but it may not address the barrier that matters most.
Before prescribing a tactic, ask what the organization needs to change. Then ask what evidence would help explain why that change has not happened.
This does not mean ignoring the brief or assuming the client has misunderstood its own business. It means making sure your recommendation answers the critical business need behind the request.
Strategic insights require more than information
A research deck can tell you a great deal without giving you a useful direction. The strategic work is making sense of the evidence, not simply arranging it on slides.
For example, prospects may repeatedly return to a software company’s setup FAQ, yet many still do not begin a trial. That is an observation. A data point. One possible interpretation is that they are concerned about the difficulty of switching. There are other explanations, of course. The FAQ might be confusing, pricing might be unclear, or the people reading it might not be prospective buyers at all.
The task is to investigate those possibilities, not promote the first plausible explanation as fact. If further evidence supports transition anxiety, an insight worth exploring could be that these buyers need confidence in making a change more than they need another list of product features.
That would suggest a different conversation. Instead of simply promising more capabilities, the brand could explore ways to make the transition feel understandable, supported and manageable.
The point is not that this is the right answer for every software company. It is that the thinking has moved beyond “we need more leads” toward a specific explanation that can be tested.
Look at the competition, the customer and the brand together
Do not let one interesting finding do all the strategic work. Examine what is happening around it.
- Competition: What does everyone promise, and what assumptions does the category keep repeating?
- Customer: What are people trying to achieve, what concerns them, and what gets in the way?
- Brand: What can this Brand credibly offer that addresses the customer’s situation?
For the illustrative software company, a promise of an easier transition would need support from the product and service experience. If onboarding is genuinely difficult, a reassuring campaign alone is not an adequate answer.
Likewise, if every competitor already makes the same promise, the agency needs to understand what would make its approach distinctive and credible. The overall insight should connect the evidence, not float above it.
Show the client how you got there
Once you have a point of view, resist the temptation to bury it under every fact you collected. Present the reasoning that makes the recommendation worth considering.
Start with the business issue. Explain the evidence that changed your understanding, the insight you developed and the direction it suggests.
A simple strategy map or a clear before-and-after shift can help the client follow that logic. The visual earns its place when it makes the thinking easier to understand.
This is also a useful discipline for existing-client conversations. Instead of leading with another service you would like to sell, begin with a business challenge you can help the client examine.
Practice the thinking, not just the presentation
If you want your team to build this capability, join Robin and Steve Boehler of Mercer Island Group and Drew McLellan of AMI for Selling with Strategic Insights, October 22–23, 2026, in Denver (workshop details). The two-day, hands-on workshop teaches a repeatable framework for developing meaningful insights using real business challenges from real clients (AMI).
The workshop is designed for agency owners, leadership teams and business development directors working to win new clients and grow existing relationships. Bring the people you want contributing to those conversations, not just assembling the slides.
Register for Selling with Strategic Insights. Start with a better understanding of the problem and give your next recommendation a stronger foundation.
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
Robin Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Discover Financial Services, Viator, Sevrpro, Ulta Beauty, UScellular, Seabourn, Kaiser Permanente, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Giant Food, Brooks Running, and numerous others. She is an industry leader, captivating speaker and strategist that is often called upon to speak on a variety of marketing services and agency topics.
Mercer Island Group helps marketers and agencies succeed. Company leadership is as much at home with marketers and their C-Suites as in an agency’s boardroom. With marketers, Mercer Island Group is a top 5 agency search consultancy covering all types of agency relationships (creative, media, web, PR, experiential) and assists marketers with marketing organization structure, workflow and critical skill development (briefing, creative evaluation & feedback, etc.). The company also supports leading and aspiring agencies with positioning, pitch and strategy training and pitch support.