Here’s fun: Open up your cold channel creds deck (you know, the one that you have JUST for people who wish they’d not answered the phone to you but did and are now trapped having agreed to look at “some creds”).

Ok – real quick… flick through and award each page a score from 0 to 5 based upon how likely they are to be a deal-clinching slide. “Hello” pages get 0, quirky photos of staff in circles also score 0, case studies showing not only the sexy work you produced but also the commercial outcomes they resulted in get a 5. Come back to me when you’re done.

Hi. So, you probably have a score sheet that looks something like 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, CONTACT US!

It might be better than this, but chances are we’re about to disagree over what information impresses prospects and what information simply impresses yourselves. Agency new business is our thing, so trust us for a mo…

The second part of this fun exercise (isn’t it though!) requires you to now delete the second half of your deck. If you had 12 pages, p7 and onwards no longer exist. Why? Well because if you think anyone looks through ALL your creds out of the blue, you’re kidding yourself.

The first few pages ‘earn’ you the chance to have more pages read. If (after killing the end 50% of your deck) you are left with a bunch of really low-scoring pages that include photos of yourselves, a page that discusses the year in which you were founded (and how your office was once a toothpaste factory) then you’re missing the point of cold channel creds. You aren’t having a cup of tea with referred chums; you’ve been given three seconds of a cold prospect’s day to shout something so exciting in their face that they give you a further 30 seconds.

“Hi – we’re the guys that increased IKEA’s online sales by 35%. Then we increased engagements by 4,000 a month for Pot Noodle. Then we… etc.” THESE are deal-clinching slides. If they’re not at the VERY front, then you’re kidding yourself as to how many companies hire you because of your faces.

GAME OVER. Now try again at a harder level.