The art of bringing fresh clientele into the fold should rank up there with classic sculpting and bomb disposal. People will tell you it's high risk/high reward, but when they do they're almost always talking about the reward. However, if one feels that avoiding a discussion of the risk is a bad case of denial, reconsider. It's more akin to not wanting to recount having one's spleen removed with a butter knife and salad tongs.

The following stories are true. The names, clients, personnel and locations have been changed to protect the innocent. Keep in mind that agencies may spend into six figures to pitch an account, so losing too many pitches can fold the tent quickly. Likewise, great opportunities don't come up every day, so every pitch has to count because it's never a sure thing that another opportunity is waiting just around the corner.

Agencies do tons of research to prepare themselves for a new-business pitch. Indeed, I was once told the goal was to "know more about the client than they know about themselves." The theory behind this is they will be dazzled by the effort. Perhaps so dazzled they'll hire that agency on the spot. However, things can work the other way as well.

Consider the case of Harvey, who walked in to pitch a piece of business full of factoids to throw out during his presentation. Sales figures, market share, competitive spending, and on and on. All was well until one of his numbers clashed with the number the client had. No problem, right? Make the adjustment and keep moving. Except Harvey was so mesmerized by his numbers he started to argue with the client over who was right.

Now Harvey may have been right, but in this case no matter what, he was wrong.

On his way home no doubt he couldn't figure out where he went wrong, but in fairness his head was too full to think straight. Duh!

Agencies, like professional sports franchises, love to hire high-priced talent. They do so in the hopes that the big free agent will supply the missing mojo to the agency that will bring in those key clients that have always seemingly been just out of reach. Not only do agencies compensate these people lavishly, but they tolerate all manner of eccentricities, hoping that the magic will be worth the indulgence.

Consider the case of the Carolina agency pitching a public broadcasting affiliate. The win would give this shop a huge amount of billings, cache and visibility. In the week leading up to the final pitch the superstar disappears into his office. The door is closed and the "Do Not Disturb" sign is in place.

He doesn't come out for planning meetings. He doesn't come out for lunch. He just goes into his sanctum in the morning and works until late in the night. But this is no problem because he is surely crafting THE BIG IDEA. Why else would he be cloistered in his office? Did Michelangelo paint the conference room or the Sistine Chapel?

However, while the genius incubates his ideas and seeks his muse, the rest of the agency goes ahead and prepares their own pitch, so there's a basis for internal discussion before going to see the client. It all can't be hung around the neck of one guy, right?

The morning of the pitch, the superstar emerges. No scripts. No storyboards. No nothing. He swaggers into the conference room the peons have been slaving in for a week, living off black coffee and cold pizza, and hands the agency CEO a folded piece of paper. The boss opens it and sees the words: "Intelligent Television."

He carefully ponders the money he has invested, and that it has yielded two words. Or 21 letters, not counting punctuation. He reaches for his pen and writes, "Stupid idea" and hands the paper back to his hired gun.

The agency wins the account with the sweat of its lesser lights. The superstar is gone before the month is out.

There was a time in America when the windows in tall office buildings were as transparent as, well, glass. No fancy coatings, no reflective films.

One afternoon Tom is sent to make his agency's credentials presentation. Alone. No problem, because Tom knows the agency backwards and forwards. Heck, he wrote the agency's new-business materials. What could happen? Stay tuned.

High up above the street our intrepid agency man sets up his easel and foam core boards, since PowerPoint was many years away from being invented. He sets up in front of a window, since that part of the office has the most room available.

He begins his pitch and right away he can see he's getting all the right signals from the client. Eye contact is established. The one-liners get appreciative chuckles. Tom is on a roll.

A few minutes into the pitch, however, the client begins looking over Tom's shoulder. No problem, because Tom is a pro and he's been here many times. But no matter how hard he tries, he can see he's losing his prospect's attention every passing second.

Finally he gives in and turns around to see what has the client so entranced. In the building across the way a man is semi-reclining in his desk chair. A female companion is in another posture utilizing her knees and is enthusiastically engaged in an activity probably not sanctioned by the Junior League or the American Dental Association.

Tom, a professional's professional, realizes he can't compete with what is going on across the way, so he takes a seat until the couple have each achieved the desire result. As if on cue, they adjust their clothing and walk out of view, allowing Tom to finish his presentation.

There is no record of whether Tom's agency ever did business with that client. It is a nasty rumor they immediately looked into locating new offices in the building across the street.

The Spiffy Agency Ð back in the 60s -- had its offices in a downtown high-rise, adjacent to a fancy hotel. Behind the hotel was a swimming pool with an eight-foot privacy fence.

One day one of the men working for Spiffy looked out the conference room window and observed quite a few young women lounging around the pool, in various states of undress, catching the sun's rays. This gentleman brought in a pair of binoculars and found that he could see all kinds of things from his perch several stories above the pool.

Not one to keep this to himself, he shared his discovery with his peers. Boys will be boys, and pretty soon every guy in the office had his binoculars on his desk. In that other era, it was simply understood that looking was OK, as long as it was done on one's lunch hour.

Then one day the agency gets a call. The Nifty Company is going to fire its agency, and if Spiffy can wow them that same day, they get the business. The agency scrambles and pulls together a presentation. The client shows up and all retire to the conference room for the presentation. The agency hits the ground running. This is destiny and they mean to tackle it with open arms.

During the pitch, the curtains rustle. From behind the drapes a lower-level staffer emerges, binoculars dangling. Wordlessly he leaves the room.

The client was not impressed.

A large Midwest agency flies two teams cross country to make a pitch to a client who owns a great deal of land in a remote location. So remote that the company has its own two-lane road leading in and out.

Due to the number of people making the pitch Ñ eight Ñ and the quantity of storyboards and other materials, the agency rents two Lincoln Continentals. On to the two-lane headed to the client's headquarters they start passing each other, since they pretty much have the road to themselves.

Soon it becomes a spirited competition, and when they park a challenge is issued from one car to the other: Whichever team gets back to the airport last pays the winners a hundred bucks per man.

It should be mentioned that winning the account would easily mean more than just $400.00 to the agency, but that fact seems to have slipped everyone's mind.

The two teams are each presenting a portion of the pitch. In a perfect world, Team B would have sat attentively while Team A presented, and then the two would have smoothly changed places and wrapped things up. Instead, while Team A begins, Team B is noisily getting its materials ready. Sensing B is seeking an edge, Team A starts rushing its pitch and packing as soon as each item is finished. As A wraps its half, the team starts throwing things back into their bags like a frat boy trying to beat it out of town after finals. In the meantime B begins a hurried recitation.

During the Q&A, B lets the other team field the questions so they can pack.

After a cursory good-bye, both teams practically sprint through the halls and out to the parking lot like they were part of a prison break. Things are thrown into cars and tires squeal on the way out of the parking lot.

The last memory one member of the agency party had was looking out the car's back window and seeing the client peering from his third-floor window, with a look of bewilderment on his face. This was the hot agency? These guys were the next big thing?

Their pitch was declined with extreme prejudice.

Federal government accounts can be a pain in the neck to deal with, but once an agency is in they often have the security of a civil servant. And because these accounts are required by law to review every four to six years, they make a lot of new-business hit lists.

The down side to these pitches is the fact that everything has to be documented, the documents have to be documented, and so on. It's the term paper from hell. Final written responses resemble, and weigh as much as, a set of encyclopedias. New business is already costly enough for most reviews as hundreds of man-hours and tens of thousands of dollars are burned through getting ready.

So one year when the mandated review takes place, The Upstart Agency decides it can unseat the incumbent. They do the work, spend the money and document the documents. They have their own weighty set to hand in to the client. The incumbent does likewise.

There's one other little thing that's really key to pitching these government things: deadlines. By law they must be observed.

The incumbent makes three sets of responses. One is overnighted to the client's office. Another is put on a train with an agency employee, just in case. And a third set is flown commercially. Not surprisingly, they make it on time.

Upstart puts its responses in the trunk of an employee's car, who sets off for what should be a 45-minute drive. Except for the mother of all traffic jams Ñ and the 45-minute drive is now three hours. They arrive two minutes late to find the door locked and no one there to plead with.

The drive back to Upstart with a very expensive agency proposal takes 45 minutes.