If You Can’t Serve a POV, Don’t Pitch One

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You walk into a restaurant, order a steak, and the chef returns with: “Amazing choice. I prepared three steaks for you. One is bold, one is safe, and one is what your aunt would approve of at a family dinner.” 

You’d call the manager, but in pitches, you clap.

A client opens with, “We want a bold agency with a strong point of view.”

The agency replies, “Amazing. Here are three options.”

Translation: “We heard you want courage. We brought variations on caution.”

Let’s call it what it is. The three-option pitch is not a creative tradition. It’s a fear ritual. It’s the industry’s favorite way to avoid taking responsibility for a single opinion. When you give the client Options A, B, and C, you’re not leading. You’re outsourcing judgment and calling it partnership.

And that’s the problem. Clients don’t lack options. They lack the ability to choose without a room full of people polishing the same sentence until it dies. Everyone wants bold work, as long as it comes with a safety helmet. Marketing wants brave, sales wants immediate, legal wants invisible, procurement wants cheap, and someone who opened Photoshop in 2009 wants the logo bigger. So the client doesn’t come to a pitch looking for a tasting menu. They come looking for a chef.

Instead, agencies serve three plates and pretend it’s generosity. It’s not. It’s cover. It’s “We can do anything you want” disguised as “We’re strategic.” And if an agency can’t commit to what it believes in the one moment it’s supposed to demonstrate leadership, why should anyone trust it when the real pressure starts?

That’s why the industry has quietly changed its character. Agencies used to sell a point of view. Now many sell adaptability. We walk into a room, read the politics, and reshape our “POV” until it becomes a polished echo of whatever the room already believes.

We stop being chefs who say, “This is the cut. This is how it should be served. Trust me.”

And we become waiters who say, “Tell me what you like, and I’ll make it sound expensive.”

Yes, agencies have shifted from having a POV to reshaping it to fit. The pitch deck proves it. If your three options are just the same idea at three courage levels, that’s not choice. That’s fear, plated.

Here’s what should happen in reality, and it’s not complicated. Agencies should stop defaulting to options and start defaulting to conviction. Walk in with one recommended direction. One belief you can defend. If there are genuinely two strategic worlds, show two, but make them truly different. Then recommend one as if your reputation depends on it, because it does.

And clients, let’s not pretend “choice” is the same as “bravery.” Choice is fear wearing a safe suit. If you want bold results, stop rewarding hedging. Hire clarity. Reward commitment. Back the agency that can look you in the eye and say, “This is what we believe will win,” and be willing to lose the pitch for it.

Because the most inspiring thing in marketing isn’t a fresh idea. It’s a decision with a spine.

So next time you ask for a steak, don’t applaud three plates. Hire the chef who picks the cut, serves one, and means it. The rest are just serving fear, well done.