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Winning Proposals
Proposals that create value and profit, add to a client's business and offer differentiation are those that will win business. Proposals must always be mutually beneficial to all parties and must stand out as offering value in their own right.
If you would like to contribute to the Ideas Bank on this or any other topic please email bev@onestepfurther.co.uk Suggestions for other topics are always welcome. The Ideas Bank is for you.
ARTICLES
How To Increase Your Proposal Bid To Win Rate by Colin Potter www.document-genie.com/
"Want to increase your chances of winning business in customer sales situations from maybe 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 to something substantially better, like 1 in 2? Then when did you last look at your sales proposal and evaluate it against what makes customers inclined to buy... Read More
The “Seven Deadly Sins” of Proposal Writing by Michael McLaughlin www.guerillaconsulting.com
The proposal is one of the most powerful, but misused tool, in a consultant's marketing arsenal. Look at your last proposal and see if you spot any of these seven deadly sins.
1. Lack of focus on the client's business problem and industry dynamics.
2. The "we, us, and our" syndrome. Does your proposal talk more about your firm than about the client's business?
3. No basis of differentiation. Focus is on weak differentiators such as quality service, price, responsiveness, and your firm's pedigree.
4. The expected value of the project isn't quantified so you can't use it as a baseline for justifying the proposed fee.
5. The proposal is laced with jargon, difficult to read, and doesn't include an issue-focused executive summary.
6. Reliance on a boilerplate resume.
7. Errors: misspellings, poor grammar, wrong client name, or inconsistent formats.
TIPS AND PEARLS OF WISDOM
Most of us are smaller/ medium sized enterprises are we not? So what is unique about us and why would a larger client want that?
I often focus on the one factor larger consultant companies have not managed to break the, “what you see is who will turn up” pitch. I tell the potential business that they will get a delivery team made up of the senior personnel with the experience base to undertake the job and that one of the pitch personnel will be onsite and available to them, rather than turning up for the close of programme lunch and slap on the back.
I have no management training programme where I place inexperienced staff into clients to train them. This may be unfair but is a major delivery worry for many larger companies using main name consultancies and enables me to focus on customised delivery and specific fit of solution to the potential client business rather than a ‘programme’ solution. Rupert Chislett www.Actioneering.co.uk
With regard to proposals, my offering would be that price can sometimes be a concern about what level to "pitch at". My recommendation is to be confident in the service/product that you are offering and set the price according to the value of it. As long as you can justify the return on investment within the rest of the proposal, your value proposition should enhance your chance of success. (It also prevents you under pricing and subsequently feeling under valued if you have won purely on price - this can have an impact on how you feel about doing the work after you have won the contract). Paul Green www.tvba.co.uk
I think the first thing that I expect when people call me or email me is that they have taken the time to understand just a little about the company. If they are public then they will have web sites with recent PR. Better still if you can comment on some PR suitable to the department or business you are trying to engage with.
In my case I had a recent call from a branding company wanting to sell its services. They didn’t know that we have been through a rough time financially. What are the chances that we want to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and pay money for it? What they should have done is emphasize the need to rebuild the company's reputation in the market and keep the confidence of its customers. That I might pay for.
The second thing is to tell me what you want to achieve. This is your elevator pitch. Do it right and you get my attention. Don't bother trying to engage in conversation or ask questions until I understand the context of what you are trying to do. Remember most people you talk to hear pitches from outside companies frequently. Their bull****t detectors are up instantly someone tries to achieve rapport without a context.
Once I have shown some interest, you are away. You may or may not sell something the first time, but done properly I will take your calls in future.
One person who calls me every three months or so resells market information from a variety of sources. The reason I talk to him is that he always knows the quality of new reports on the market. I haven't bought from him yet, but he is the first person I will call when I do have a purchase to make, especially if there are a number of competing reports.
When you submit a proposal, inevitably it will contain a lot that you are regurgitating back to clarify and frame the help you propose. At the same time, you have to make it YOUR proposal. You need to make it clear what value you will add, what timeframes you expect, how you expect to go about it. I want to see deliverables that will stretch you and me, but are achievable. Peter Davies www.ttpcom.com
1.Impact. It may seem shallow to start with this, but the proposal needs to make an impact when it lands on the desk or in the inbox. If emailing, I always do a PDF, because it looks more professional and "complete". If printing I always use quality paper, colour print and bind it nicely.
2. Layout. Which is linked to the above, but having written it I go back over it and ruthlessly eliminate unnecessary content, cut paragraphs back to bullet points and replace text with diagrams or graphs where I can. Wherever possible I also use colour in my diagrams and relevant colour photographs. I also layout with 1.5 line spacing, with big gaps between paragraphs and each major new point starting on a new page. Think how much easier it is to absorb something which is not 12 pages of closely typed script. Always have a good title page.
3. Using Word. I have all my headings and body text set up on short-cut keys, so that I can auto generate the index at the end. This one tip alone has saved me hours of work over the past few years.
4. Executive Summary. This is critical. People often say to me "but I want them to read the whole document". To which I say "exactly". The point is that if you can't sell them idea of reading the whole thing in one page, they won't. Here is a white paper on executive summaries.
5. Content. I use a mind map to plan and structure what I am going to say first because it is critical that the document hangs together in a logical sequence and on the software I use (Mind Manager) you can move everything around and then export it as a set of headings in word.
6. Outside in. Instead of thinking about what I want to tell the customer, I think about what does the customer want to know. Simple, but effective. Too often proposals are telling you stuff you don't really care much about (such as the organisation's history), but leaving out the things you do want to know (such as how much is it going to cost, what are you actually proposing to do for me).
7. Asking the right questions. Where it makes sense, I am straight and concise about further information we need to know - it shows you are genuinely thinking about the client and their business and not just rolling out a whole load of cut and paste stuff. It's OK not to know everything.
8. What makes you different to and better than everyone else. This is my one exception regarding what I want to tell the customer. As one of the appendices, I usually include a single page summary about the organisation that explains simply and effectively what its differentiators are. I then include a one sentence version in the summary and refer to the appendix.
9. Appendices. Wherever things appear to be getting involved or detailed, I stop myself and move it to the appendices. In a proposal, I think a pyramid of detail is best where you can start with a big picture (exec summary) and gradually drill down. Real detail is not appropriate in a proposal, if you do need supporting evidence such as a case study to demonstrate similar work elsewhere, then stick it in the appendix.
10. Length. More than 20 pages would be too much - except in special circumstances.
Jeremy Hamilton www.croftcentre.co.uk
Researchers laid a stack of proposals on a table to observe how people would behave when given the task of reviewing proposals. The stack included proposals of different page lengths, from very short to encyclopedic.
The individuals in the study reached for the smallest proposals first, in almost every case.
Clients resent proposals stuffed with unnecessary information, so stick to what's essential. If you feel you've just got to include extra information about your practice, create a separate appendix and include it with your proposal. That will help keep your proposal concise and reader-friendly.
Obviously, your proposals must provide all the facts clients need. But keep your proposals as short as possible, and you'll have better odds of having them read by prospective clients. Michael McLauglin www.guerillaconsulting.com
All ideas and advice come from the named authors and does not necessarily mean One Step Further endorses the views expressed. |
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