How to present and sell creative ideas
A one-day course that greatly improves your chance of selling creative ideas to your clients.
During my 20+ years working as an advertising creative, I’ve seen countless great ideas killed by people with good intentions.
Everyone was after the same thing: effective work. But differing interpretations of what that meant and how to judge it led to rejection of the ideas.
I’ve sat through dozens of bad presentations that failed to sell the ideas. As well as dozens of good presentations that totally nailed it.
This course is a distillation of everything I learned about good and bad presentations over the years. It’s been informed by conversations with both agency-side and client-side veterans.
And it’s designed to help you sell ideas more effectively, keep clients happier and win more business.
How to sell creative ideas
In simplest terms, the job of any marketing agency is to deliver ideas to its clients that will help to nudge the needle in some way. These ideas are the agency’s product, so when a client rejects them, there’s a failure somewhere along the line. And that has a knock-on financial impact.
Anything an agency can do to increase its strike-rate is good for business.
This session looks at the entire process to explore simple adjustments that can increase the chance of selling ideas. These start before you’ve even taken the brief and extend all the way through to delivering the presentation itself.
This session offers practical advice and concrete actions you can implement immediately. All without being boring.
What You'll Learn
- How to kick off a project in the best possible way
- How to set expectations from the start
- How to keep everyone aligned throughout the process
- How to improve your client’s judgement
- How to prepare a presentation
- How to deliver a presentation that showcases the ideas in the best way
How you'll benefit
- Practical approaches that you can implement immediately
- Ideas that answer the brief more precisely
- Differentiation from other agencies
- More engaging presentations
- More aligned employees
- Less rejected work
- Happier clients
This workshop is designed for up to 12 attendees. That’s the best size for maximum benefits.
OTHER WAYS I CAN HELP YOU
If you’re serious about this opportunity, I can help you beyond the training course.
Here are more ways I can make an impact on your business.
Advising
I can work on a longer-term basis with agencies that are committed to elevating their creative skills. I advise on every aspect of the business that has an impact on people’s ability to have great ideas.
Workshops
I often get called upon to help companies run idea-generation sessions when they’re working on important projects or pitches. I’ve done this for PR and ad agencies. We always get a batch of good ideas.
Training
I have a number of other training sessions that can help your business. I teach strategy, presentation skills and how to manage teams for great ideas. Some agencies also ask me to train their clients.
Talks
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and lots, lots more
ABOUT DAVE BIRSS
Each of these sessions is run by author and educator Dave Birss. Dave is a former advertising creative director who picked up lots of awards for his work during his years in the industry. Over the last few years, he’s been called on by a number of PR and advertising agencies – from independents to multinationals – to help them get more impactful ideas out of their teams.
Dave’s best known for teaching, speaking and writing books on creativity and innovation. But he also consults for companies to help them benefit from creative thinking..
Dave is a Visiting Professor at Kingston School of Art and has taught at universities from London to New York, Santiago to Singapore. He’s also developed a couple of courses for LinkedIn Learning. And he has another four in development which are due for release later in the year.
TRUSTED BY BIG BUSINESSES

BOOK YOUR ‘HOW TO SELL CREATIVE IDEAS’ SESSION