PushFar, founded in 2018, is a career progression and professional mentoring software platform.
Headquartered in London with additional offices in Bucharest, PushFar now provides its technology to individuals and companies in more than 100 countries.
Whether you love or loathe the pitch process, as part of Life’s a Pitch, brand leaders share their experiences with the pitch process and tips for agency success.
In the first edition, we chat to PushFar’s CEO and co-founder Ed Johnson…
What does your brand do in a nutshell?
We’re a mentoring and coaching software company. We enable organisations of all sizes to launch, run and scale mentoring and coaching programmes.
Which agencies do you currently work with?
Hatch, based in Leeds.
What’s the secret to a strong brand/agency partnership?
Proactivity from both sides. As a fast-paced and fast-growing startup, the news we have internally doesn’t appeal to many press publications. However, the proactive work that our PR agency (Hatch) do for us and the quick responses we provide them with around quotes on HR, learning and mentoring, enable us to collaboratively get our brand out there.
What’s the most common mistake made by agencies when pitching for work?
They present all the target publications such as the BBC, Daily Mail and Sky News but the reality is that there are far more realistic targets to go for immediately. They sell the dream and disappoint within weeks. Hatch sold us a realistic vision of coverage, collaborative work and ensured that they were clear about what we, as the business, needed to deliver to help them.
What question do you always ask a pitching agency?
What do you need from us? We don’t have many stories. We needed an agency who could find stories, find scoops and find opportunities for us to quote. Something broader than just “mentoring” but looking more widely at careers, learning and education.
What’s the best pitch you’ve ever seen?
Hatch’s pitch, undoubtedly. It secured them, and us, a 12+ month relationship which is still going strong. They put forward some thoroughly realistic and some big-thinking ideas, all of which have resulted in real coverage and truly helped to boost PushFar’s brand awareness, consistently and continually. We have calls with them every Friday and it feels like a really healthy, productive and strong relationship as a result.
And the worst?
We’ve seen a few. I think the worst involve us being the number 1 brand in a matter of weeks, with a huge upfront cost and no long-term thought.
What qualities do you value in an agency?
Proactive, outspoken, honest and out-of-the-box thinking.
How could the pitch process be improved?
More honesty is so important. The more honest the results are likely to be, the more appealing the whole process becomes.
If your brand would like to take part in future editions of Life’s A Pitch, please email rachael@prolificnorth.co.uk
