I've done a lot of pitches since then. Some we win. Some we lose.

But I always do the first five minutes the same way.

No slides. No screen. Just me, a whiteboard marker, and a packet of Hartley's Digestives open in the middle of the table.

Clients think it's a gimmick. Some of them laugh.

Then I start talking, and they stop laughing.

People sometimes ask me what I learned from the Hartley's pitch. They expect me to say something about backing up your files.

That's not what I learned.

What I learned is this.

Someone can delete your work. They can take your slides, your files, your fifty-two perfect pages. They can stand in front of everyone and tell them you're careless. That you got lucky. That you're just the girl from reception.

But they can't delete what you know.

They can't delete the smell of warm biscuits on your dad's work jacket. Or thirty-one years on a factory line. Or Mavis's hands. Or the ten years you spent working your way up from the front desk, one phone call at a time.

Olivia deleted my file in one minute.

It took me ten years to learn what was in it.

And that's the part nobody can ever throw away.