I had a wild concept.

Wild concepts are our greatest and our worst moments.

It was again once I labored at a big nationwide fundraising company. I’d just lately made the transfer from copywriter to inventive director, which suggests I had frontline position in new enterprise pitches.

And we had been pitching a doozy.

It was a big group. Extraordinarily massive and well-known. You’ve heard of them, I promise. It was the most important group we’d ever pursued, by a protracted shot, a part of what we hoped could be a shift from the medium-size nonprofit market to the excessive finish of the market (in dimension). This was an enormous deal for us.

And I had an concept.

We’d found that they had been dramatically over-spending their funds in a single space of donor acquisition. And it simply occurred that space was a specialty of their company. (Yeah, massive shock, proper?)

So to make the purpose that you just shouldn’t make selections primarily based on what you need to do, we determined to start out our pitch assembly with me speaking about how wonderful the e-book Walden by Henry David Thoreau is. I might speak about it for a full 5 minutes, after which I’d hand out copies to everybody within the room.

Then one other member of our pitch crew would lastly problem me, saying that simply because I cherished this e-book doesn’t imply it’s a terrific alternative for everybody… After which we’d pivot to our precise pitch, which was about how we’d have a data-driven method to choice making that will maximize their income, and so forth., and so forth.

Right here’s the believe-it-or-not half: We really did this.

And right here’s the much more believe-it-or-not half: We received the account!

Wanting again, I can’t fathom why my more-experienced colleagues let my concept really occur. I can also’t fathom the way it didn’t scuttle our pitch, which was strong with out the Walden bit. However we did it, and it labored (or at the least it didn’t shoot us down.)

Which tells us a number of issues about wild concepts:

• It’s good to have wild concepts. I’ve a sense my Walden concept did extra to assist us perceive and deal with the shopper’s problem than it did to influence them.
• Generally it’s good to truly strive them out. Higher in a testing scenario than a one-try, win-or-go-home one like this one!
• It’s arduous to inform a superb wild concept from a nasty one. All of them look good, at the least for some time.
• At all times attempt to have a number of wild concepts. They’ll result in your greatest work, even when they aren’t so nice themselves!

And in the event you get the prospect, learn Walden. It actually is an excellent e-book.

(This submit first appeared on April 12, 2019.)