359: Pitch Perfect

Jeremy’s usual marketing work involved clients developing the product and him pitching his ideas for a sales campaign to them.  That was how marketing always worked.  Product - pitch - campaign - kudos and money and a happy Jeremy’s wife.  It’s what he was born to do and Jeremy was damn good at it.

One morning Jeremy woke with a fully formed perfect pitch in his mind.  He could see the adverts and the posters, hear the music, knew which stars he wanted for the lead roles - the guy from TOWIE and one of the blonde Made in Chelsea girls for the juxtaposition - and had half a dozen locations in mind for when shooting began.  The slogan was exquisite.  He was the most excited he could ever remember being.

But Jeremy may have had the pitch but he didn’t have the product.  Or the client.

He wondered whether perhaps he should develop a product himself.  After all, it had been his idea and he wondered if he should offer anyone the chance to cash-in on his expertise.  Jeremy realized though, that he knew an awful lot about marketing and USPs and SWOT analyses and next to nothing about product development and design and other stuff.  He didn't even know what other stuff there might be.  So he needed a partner at least.

Over several coffees, he drew up a grid of his most successful collaborations, complete with pros and cons of working with each company or developer.  He decided some were too stupid, some too ordinary,  some he couldn't trust, some he plain loathed and those whom he had only worked with because of the money.  There were quite a few of those.

Very few met his strict criteria of intelligence, a wow-factor, honesty and integrity and someone he actually liked.  If he would spend perhaps years working closely with this person, he wanted them to be as perfect as his pitch.  A wanted another Jeremy.

He looked at his short list.  List was almost an exaggeration.  There were two names on the paper, Anneliese Gregson and Bernard Templar.  Jeremy considered both for a while, and decided he really didn’t have a preference for whom he worked with.  Anneliese was attractive, always popular with clients but she was a frightful bore about her holidaying.  Bernard was calm and reassuring but he made a little snort every so often when he breathed out.

So Jeremy decided he would ask them to pitch to him.  He’d offer them both the chance to come in with a product and whichever he felt had the best chance of success and keeping his wife spending happily, would be his choice.  He reached for the phone and dialled the first number.

“Hi, it’s Jeremy Eynham here.  I have a perfect campaign and slogan for you and I’d like you to pitch me a product,” he said when he got through.  “What would you think of if I said to you ‘I do it in pyjamas with the cat and a bottle of wine’?”