Why coming second is worse than coming last

I'm sure most of us in agencies have been there. You first get to hear of the McWidgets account by your local favourite intermediary and he suggests you meet the prospect in the first round of 'exploratory chemistry' meetings. Only these days there's never such a thing as a chemistry meeting anymore - with more work and thinking going into these cosy love-ins than in the entire pitch a few years ago.

Somehow over a few posh sarnies, designer mineral water and a wall's full of creative starters you're through to the next round. Ten is whittled down to six and the next meeting's only a week away. So what are you going to show them this time that you didn't before? A bit of tarting up of the most well received ideas from the first meeting, a couple of extra ideas that didn't make it before but that the prospect has hinted at, and you should be fine. Only this time you want to bring the whole thing up to more professional levels and spend a fortune in the studio to make it look more finished, and probably conduct a little research too for good measure.

A few days later the intermediary tells you you've been invited to pitch proper. The team is exhausted already but you're told that the competition really starts now. So bells are elaborately returned, and whistles finely honed. The Chief Executive is wheeled out of his stately grandeur to deliver the opening and closing remarks. A 9am, adenalin levels reach their peak and an argument is forcefully and passionately delivered. High fives all round . The team, so animated just half an hour ago, collapse into their post gig pint.

Just moments later and speculation is rife of what happens next. Fee proposals, schedules and resource plans are produced by the dozen. It was four, but now it's three and most likely two. Just a bit more research, a bit more chartage, a bit more factory walking and the prize will be ours. That's what we believe for the weeks and months that endlessly drag on, until the day the e-mail arrives from the senior suit. A close second. A fantastic team. Breakthrough ideas. Rigourous project management. And yet we didn't quite have the x-factor after all.

In a two horse race, there are only two places worth finishing: first and last. Everything else is just wasted effort. And a lot more of its wasted to come second.