Experiences 2

Thinking further about yesterday's post on new experiences, it's worth pointing out that many TV pitch meetings occur under the aegis of an unspoken but totally understood fiction: -

What is proposed in the meeting has been designed purely to get us all through that first meeting.  Most likely it will bear little resemblance to the end result of any collaboration

Really what is being pitched is the people around the table and everything else is an acceptable lie.  As ever there are wider parallels, I've come to see that part of my job as a consultant is to 'trick' my participants into trying genuinely new things.  That requires a relationship strong enough for the ultimate two word pitch:

"Trust me."

The best exponent of this that I know is an Australian events organiser named David Grant.  David has staged the 'must attend' parties for the IOC and major sponsors at eight Olympics - summer and winter - since Atlanta in 1996.  When you hire DG3 all you know is that you won't get what you expect and certainly not what you got last time.  And you won't be disappointed.

My old company, Instant Theatre, worked with David Grant Special Events (as was) in the early nineties and it was the most fun I've ever had in corporate.  My all-time favourite experience was being invited to a meeting and shown a mocked-up film poster entitled 'The Greatest Story Ever Sold' with the text surrounded by a pastiche of every 'Golden Age of Hollywood' cliche; Roman soldiers, vikings, Biblical prophet, a low-flying plane and so on.  He told me the name of the client (a hotel chain) and the conversation went like this:

Me: Great poster, do you need me to write up something for the pitch?
DG: Pitch was this morning.  We won. We start a 4-city roadshow in Brisbane in a fortnight.
Me: Okay.  How's the show going to run?
DG: No idea.  That's why you're here.

After all we were called 'Instant Theatre'.  We spent two weeks in and out of planes and hotels staging original and funny shows for enthusiastic audiences of usually cynical travel agents.  We ate and drank well and it was genuinely sad when it ended.  There are very few corporate experiences that I can say that about.

David had such an amazing reputation that most of the time "Trust me" was all it took for him to get the gig.  He also moved so fast that he had no choice but to spread that trust amongst his suppliers.  You felt privileged to be part of it and you brought your A-game.

The coolest thing about David Grant was that when he came to sell his company in 2009 he didn't go for the juicy buy-out from someone like WPP where he would be paid handsomely for his company, paid more in consultancy fees and more again for sitting on a global board.  Instead he asked two of his long-serving team-members to become partners (hence 'DG3').

He's never sold out.  Literally.