Ben Levy has spent years helping some of advertising’s sharpest minds sell their best ideas. As a presentation coach and advisor to teams at Mischief, Droga5, and 72andSunny (and now Curiosity), he’s also helped shape award-winning work for brands like Coca-Cola, Liberty Mutual, Sony, and Planet Fitness.
On this episode of Question Everything, Ben breaks down what most people get wrong about pitching ideas: they obsess over polish and forget persuasion. We talked about the four questions every winning pitch must answer, how to identify a client’s invisible brief, why nerves are usually misread as excitement, and why silence may be the most underrated tool in the room.
Most agencies are trained to make the work great but not as many are trained to make the room believe in it. Ben’s lessons will change that.
Most presentations fall apart because they don’t tell a coherent story. That’s not usually because the thinking is weak. It’s because too many people have added too many pieces, and the narrative gets buried.
A strong pitch should answer four questions:
If you can answer those four questions clearly, you have the bones of a persuasive story.
Ben used REI’s #OptOutside Black Friday campaign as an example. Instead of competing in the annual discount bloodbath, REI closed its stores and told employees and customers to spend the day outside.
That story works because it’s easy to follow:
The point is bigger than one campaign. Winning pitches help people see change. They make the future feel not just exciting, but inevitable.
Clients are never evaluating your idea in a vacuum. They’re evaluating it through their own motivations, pressures, and ambitions.
Some want growth. Some want recognition. Some want control. Some want to make a mark. Some want to avoid being blamed. If you don’t understand what the people in the room actually care about, even a strong idea can miss.
That’s the invisible brief.
We like to think we’re presenting ideas to the intended audience. Usually, we’re not. We’re presenting to the people who have to approve, defend, fund, or champion those ideas internally. If you speak only in the language of the consumer and not in the language of the decision-maker, you make it harder for the room to buy in.
Before you walk into a pitch, Ben suggests getting clear on three things:
That last one matters more than it should. Is the goal approval? Alignment? A gut check? A directional nod? Teams skip this step all the time, then wonder why a meeting that “went well” still goes nowhere.
The invisible brief is not another strategy deliverable. It’s a discipline. And it can be the difference between presenting an idea and actually selling one.
We love a good guest question on Question Everything. Mischief’s Head of Growth, Oliver McAteer, wanted to know:
“Presenting can be emotional: What’s your number one tip for beating the nerves?”
His answer was refreshingly unsentimental: nerves are often just excitement with bad branding.
The physical symptoms are real. Dry mouth, elevated heart rate, restless energy. But those same signals can mean you care, you’re engaged, and your body is preparing you to perform. The trick is not eliminating the feeling. It’s interpreting it differently.
Ben’s advice to ease presentation anxiety:
If you catch the spiral early, you can stay present. If you let your brain decide you’re in trouble, the whole thing can unravel fast.
Ben was also careful to draw a line between ordinary nerves and actual panic. The goal isn’t to pretend those experiences are the same. It’s to recognize that many of us label manageable discomfort as catastrophe long before it becomes one.
Silence is one of the clearest signals of confidence in a presentation. It cuts filler. It gives your audience time to process. It puts weight on the sentence that came before it.
Ben’s advice is simple, “stop talking so much.”
Most people experience a pause as awkward because they’re inside it. From the outside, it usually reads as thoughtfulness.
Here’s how you can practice: pick any topic, talk about it for two minutes, and the moment you say “um,” you lose. The point is not to sound robotic. It’s to train yourself to replace filler with pause.
Then watch the recording back as what Ben calls a “dispassionate, objective observer.” Chances are, the moments that felt most uncomfortable to you will look far more composed than you expected.
If you’re presenting with a team, tell them you plan to pause. Otherwise, someone may rush in to rescue a silence that didn’t need rescuing.
Overall, Ben’s advice can be summed up in one word. Clarity.
Clarity about the story you’re telling.
Clarity about the people in the room.
Clarity about what your body is doing under pressure.
Clarity about when to stop filling space and let the point land.
That’s the secret to selling in bold work.
To hear the full conversation with Ben Levy, including more on virtual presentations, storytelling, and how to make better ideas easier to buy, watch the full episode here on YouTube.
ABOUT THE QUESTION EVERYTHING PODCAST
Part interview, part therapy, part Price Is Right, the Question Everything podcast puts your favorite CMOs and thought leaders in the hot seat. That means while they're facing off against our game board, you'll learn from the successes and failures of the best in the biz who were daring enough to be curious.
