Most people think the pitch starts when the deck opens.
It starts much earlier than that.
It starts in the way you handled the last difficult conversation. The care you put into the work when nobody was watching. The email you sent without being chased. The problem you helped solve, even though it was not technically yours.
By the time a new opportunity appears, people may already have decided whether they want you in the room.
Trust before the pitch
I was recently interviewed by VeraOps about the role relationships have played in building LO:LA.
You can read the full interview here.
It made me reflect on some of the opportunities that came our way when we first launched the agency.
Many came through people I had worked with before. Some brought us into their new companies. Others introduced us to someone they believed we could help.
But they were not responding to a sales campaign.
I was not asking them for a favor. We did not have the largest agency, the longest credentials deck or the most sophisticated new-business machine.
What we had was their trust.
They knew how I thought. They had experienced the care, standards and energy I brought to the work. They knew what it was like to solve a problem together.
The relationship had already done much of the work before there was a pitch.
That is something we can easily overlook when thinking about growth. We focus on lead generation, conversion rates, sales funnels and presentation materials.
All of those things have a role.
But the best new-business strategy may still be how you handle the business you already have.
Your reputation is always working
Reputation is often treated as something abstract. A general sense of whether a person or business is respected.
In reality, it is far more practical.
It is the accumulated memory of every interaction someone has with you.
How did you behave when the pressure arrived?
Did you make the complicated feel clearer?
Did you listen before presenting the answer?
Did you care about the outcome, or were you simply trying to complete the scope?
Did you bring energy into the room—or take it out?
The answers become part of your reputation. And that reputation travels.
It travels through private conversations. Recommendations. Introductions. Informal discussions between colleagues. Quiet moments when someone asks:
“Who do you know who could help us with this?”
Your reputation is entering rooms you are not in.
The question is what it says when it gets there.
Brand is what people remember
This is where relationships and brand become inseparable.
A brand is not only the impression created by your advertising, identity or website. It is also the feeling left behind by hundreds of small experiences.
Every email is part of the brand.
Every meeting is part of the brand.
Every presentation, deadline, decision and difficult conversation is part of the brand.
You cannot claim to be collaborative and then refuse to listen.
You cannot describe yourself as agile while making every decision unnecessarily complicated.
You cannot promise care and then disappear when the project becomes difficult.
A brand becomes believable when the experience supports the promise.
For service businesses in particular, the relationship is often where the brand becomes real.
People may initially choose you because of the work.
They recommend you because of what it felt like to create it together.
Staying visible is not enough
Of course, relationships need attention.
People move companies. Priorities change. Time passes. Even strong connections can become distant when everyone becomes busy.
But there is a difference between maintaining a relationship and managing a contact list.
We have all received the empty “just touching base” message. It usually arrives because someone wants something, even when the request has not yet appeared.
That is not a relationship. It is a delayed transaction.
The better question is not:
“How do I remain visible?”
It is:
“How do I remain useful?”
That might mean sharing an article because it speaks to a problem someone is facing. Congratulating them when something good happens. Making an introduction. Sending a thought sparked by a previous conversation. Offering a useful perspective without immediately attaching a meeting request.
The aim is to stay useful, visible and human.
Not every interaction needs to produce an opportunity.
In fact, that is often what makes the relationship valuable.
Build before you need it
When we are younger, it is easy to see professional relationships primarily as a route to opportunity.
Who can introduce me?
Who can open a door?
Who can help me get to the next thing?
Over time, you begin to understand that their value runs much deeper.
Good relationships give you perspective. They keep you grounded. They remind you what you are good at when business becomes difficult.
When I left the structure of a large agency to build LO:LA, I was excited—but there was uncertainty too.
The people who returned, made introductions or simply told me they believed in the way I worked gave us momentum. More importantly, they gave me confidence.
They reminded me that I was not beginning from zero.
I had spent years building something I could not necessarily see: trust.
But you cannot suddenly manufacture that trust at the precise moment you need it.
You have to build before you need it.
By doing good work.
By being generous with your thinking.
By keeping your word.
By staying connected without always needing an outcome.
By behaving in a way people will remember for the right reasons.
Do the work properly
There are endless systems, platforms and processes designed to help us manage relationships more efficiently.
Some are genuinely useful.
But no system can replace substance.
You cannot automate genuine care. You cannot scale authenticity by pretending to be personal. You cannot manufacture a reputation through a series of scheduled check-ins.
The fundamentals remain surprisingly simple.
Be generous.
Be consistent.
Care about the outcome.
Treat people properly.
Do work worth remembering.
Because the next pitch may not start when the brief arrives.
It may have started years ago.