What do bankers do when they "pitch"?
MBB consultants here. Various of times I hear bankers complaining about pitching. Was interested what exactly a day-to-day for you looks like when you pitch on something? It looks like this is all done simultanously to being on live deals/other works? Context why I'm asking is that I am considering a move to M&A, have some options on the table, but really want to get to know the work a bit more in detail. Some of the shops have been described at "you will have to do a lot of pitching with the MDs who sit there".
Let me give some points on the consulting "pitching":
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you only do this when you are off a project ("on the beach")
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typically involes two situations (1) official RFP (client wants X, with clearly defined criteria what we should bring in our proposal), (2) initial discussions (there is no RFP, e.g., PE investor thinks about investing in X, can you give us your thoughts on the asset/market)
Both are super tedious in terms of what you need to do since nobody is really responding well from the higher ups (they are too caught up with their main project) and typically as a junior you just need to run on your own "just pull a few pages together, we should have something on the shelf".
However, the hours (for me at least) doing this kind of work have been super light. Like not kidding averageing probably 4-5h / work max per day on the beach (something like 10-6 with a lot of breaks inbetween).
In banking it seems like these pitches are much more high pressure and you actually need to work on them past midnight for some over demanding MDs?
Although being on a live project wears you down more because it is high intensity and little sleep for extended periods of time, receiving an RfP with a 1-1.5 week submission deadline can be absolutely brutal.
It usually involves views on the sector and company, potential buyers/investors, extensive benchmarking exercises, detailed valuation, credentials etc.
Even though you have probably done a bunch of proactive marketing already when you get to the RfP stage, a lot of seniors will want to refrain from using too many off-the-shelf materials because they don’t want to give the prospective client the impression that you are half-assing their work. So a lot of the materials will be re-invented or created from scratch.
Proactive pitching / marketing is more relaxed because there is no client-imposed deadline and pressure regarding completeness of the materials is not as high.
Agree with the above but I would like to add for OP that unlike in consulting, you are working on multiple deals and pitches at the same time. So for example it would be pretty standard to be staffed on a live M&A mandate, an IPO RFP and a couple of ad-hoc marketing decks simultaneously. So as OP mentions that hours doing only pitching work would be 4-5hours per day, in IBD its quite likely you're going to be tied up between 9-7pm on calls / dealing with urgent deal related stuff and then its only in the evening that you can really start the "4-5 hours per day" of pitch related work that you mention (which can often be a lot more than this in reality).
Interesting. So as you said it would not be uncommon at a bank to work until e.g., 8-10 PM on a live deal and then still be expected to put in another 3-4h on a pitch? That sounds absolutely brutal, coming from my lifestyle standards.
Don't wanna sound stupid but had the feeling WLB got significantly better in banking and sometimes thought that I don't work much less than bankers so why am I doing this for less the pay.
Pitching business is like going on a first date with a hot girl. You do what is required for her to want to go on a second date. You have to read the situation accurately and behave accordingly. If you are good at pitching business, you will be the most valuable player on the team.
Hard to give a one size fits all answer here but all I will say is that the pain is highly dependent on the senior + project and your current workload. If someone is warning you that the shop is pitch city I would personally reconsider.
For example, if I am being throttled by 3 live deals that are actually high priority and also have a high fee pitch going on this becomes quite painful. But it really starts at the top, if the pitch is with a senior who hasn't closed a deal in months - GGs, your life will be terrible as this is their sole focus. You are constantly hounded on the most meaningless value add slides you could possibly think of, rest of junior team starts tweaking because the senior is frantic etc etc. Deck goes from off the shell to 30 to 80 pages real quick. Pitch is a month away? You may think you have a ton of time and it will be slow burn... Nah. More like, lets get a complete draft done 3 weeks ahead of time so the VP + senior can incessantly add more comments, back pocket analysis "just in case" and requests all the way up till the hour before the meeting such that will make you second guess your career choice.
And btw this is all for a deck that won't make it past page 8 (if it is even opened)
Crazy. That legit sounds like consulting 2.0 in a way. I wanted to get away from consulting to do more quantitative / modelling work.
The "non-value add pages" hit so much home .. "can we do an analysis on this? can we put in a page on that? can you make a deep dive on that?".
Echo the above, if the place is being described as a high-volume pitch place, you're in for some brutal years as a junior.
The worst is if you're at a generalist shop - you'll create so much stuff and analysis from scratch and you'll be sifting through tons of data, internal documents, and market analysis to fit your MDs narrative. It's not just about finding some general market data, you need to delve into the market and find data that supports the valuation you are presenting, your growth projections etc. This means you're probably cherry-picking to find something that matches up to whatever number your MD wants you to provide, because most of the time they'll have some figure in mind for the base case.
To give you an example, one of the most tedious pitches I have ever worked for was for a sweaty PE seller, which involved a 50 slide buyer section that outlined the "from the outside" most interested buyers, including their portfolio companies, acquisitive nature, dry powder, recent transaction history (including multiples, if available), press releases about acquiring, interviews with the media, earnings calls etc. The whole deck was like 140 pages, and we lost the thing. Needless to say, this is soul crushing work, and can in no way be compared to what you are used to in consulting as you'll get this on top of everything else you are doing in a day.
Particularly this.
When Hard work is rewarding, and fruits come along (deal gets closed, bonus, promotion whatever) it is actually very estimulating. It is ok to work on a failed deal, often the most learning experiences. But to pitch, invest time (sometimes opportunity costs such as friends & family, sleep,...) sweat and tears to find out that the deck was not even considered is brutal to motivation and sense of purpose. It is also limited, after a while, what you can learn from it.
As mentioned above...Many times the team is driven by an insecure, nervous and failing MD; meeting all chips on a game he is not even invited to play. It is ok to hustle, try your chances try to break in, be the underdog. But often times... Man, just face it. Team immediately loses respect for this kind of leadership . Is not hustle, is plain delusion at the expense of others.
I've worked on a lot of pitch decks like the one you described. The WORST part is when you realize that they often don't even open the pitchbooks during the meeting, so it was all for nothing lol.
Pitches can also be more broadly just a general market update and discussion with the clients. The MDs often have to meet with client once a quarter for internal and relationships sake and showing up with a book of at least the market activity is often what they bring. Maybe a few targets but usually high level analysis. These aren’t too bad in a coverage group given most of the slides are already created and these meetings are how MD’s get information. It gets really bad when as described above, the MD wants a really detailed analysis to convince the company to do something to get a few and you end up working a shit ton on a BS book.
If kept simple and high level and using mostly off the shelf slides, it’s not too bad, just an annoyance. Unfortunately it becomes too bad all too often!
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