What makes customers say “yes” to a proposal?

A proposal is a commercial document with only one purpose – to compel a customer to buy from you. Your proposal is not just your offer, which is what they are buying; this comes from a combination of your product/service, credentials, delivery methodology and price. A proposal also needs a strategy that explains why they should buy; what they will value about your offer, and not just what they get.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines strategy as “a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal.” 

All too often, we forget that the goal of a proposal is to win the work – and not to do the work.

This is understandable, because your proposal usually comes in response to a customer briefing, like a competitive tender, that make it look like all you need to do is build an offer that fits the brief. But this is a trap – don’t fall for it.

Without a strategy that is based on customer value, it’s too easy for the customer to say no if they object to any part of your offer, no matter how small.

It’s also impossible to stand out against competitors who may have a slightly different offer.

With the right proposal strategy, however, all roads lead to “yes”. This strategy must be able to be distilled into three core messages that encapsulate your value, are easy to remember, and represent:

• What the customer most wants,
• What you can best deliver, and
• What positions you most favourably against competitors.

At the intersection of what the customer most wants, and what you can best deliver, is preferences – yours and theirs. What do they value the most from a supplier in your line of business? How do you want them to work with you to deliver the best outcome, in the most efficient way?

At the intersection of what you can best deliver, and what positions you best against competitors, is what you need to promote. What is most valuable about your offer, compared to what the customer is looking for? Where can you offer value that others can't?

Finally, at the intersection of what the customer most wants, and what positions you best against competitors, is what you need to combat. Is there something the customer wants, but you can’t do? Can competitors tell a better story than you in some areas? How can you minimise competitors’ strengths and maximise their weaknesses?

The core messages of a proposal strategy are sometimes called “win themes”, but I very deliberately refer to them instead as Purchaser Value Topics.

It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. When we think about what the purchaser will value, our ideas tends to be more creative and generous, and more likely to help us win. Ironically, when we use the language of “win themes”, we encourage insular and self-serving thinking that is based on loss and scarcity.

Creating Purchaser Value Topics for a proposal is like measuring the customer for a custom-fitted suit.

The finished product fits perfectly – making you seem like a Savile Row tailor, while they look like James Bond.

Like any important message, Purchaser Value Topics need to be carefully crafted. They’ll have the most impact if you think in terms of knocking out competitors first, appealing to the customer second, and talking about yourself last:

1. COMPETITORS – What’s the biggest bang, our knockout punch, the thing they can’t get anywhere else other than from you? This could be an actual product or service, or an insight. Here you’re looking for breakthrough value that changes the conversation, and breaks the boundaries of what they’ll buy so that you emerge as the only winner.
2. CUSTOMER – What do they value most from a supplier of your type? What are they prepared to spend money on? This could be tangible or intangible and needs to appeal to their known goals or problems.
3. YOU/YOUR BUSINESS – What are your strongest and best credentials? How does your methodology, approach or experience lower risk or deliver certainty?

One way to win a competitive piece of business at proposal stage is to understand that buyers always want a bit more.

In their head, they’ve already bought what the brief is asking for.

I once worked with a team of architects that won the contract to redesign a significant library building. We were tendering against 35 competitors - six had significant library experience, while our team had never built a library before. What we did have, however, was a huge amount of experience in retail design, including how retail businesses act as social spaces to attract more customers.

The library in question was in the centre of a major town. While the other bidders pitched mostly on their library credentials, our team was the only one talking about how the library’s role as a social space within the community could be re-imagined. This gave us the leverage to have the conversation no one else was having – and ultimately, to win the work.

As I mentioned recently, many of us spend far too little time developing a proposal strategy.

Often this is because we just don’t know how.

In my training workshops, I teach two ways to develop proposal strategy: a Minimum Viable Pitch process, for when you’re working alone and have limited time, and a team-based strategy process, for when you’re working with a group or consortium and need to canvass multiple inputs and more detailed customer and market intelligence.

If you’d like to know more about these processes for developing proposal strategy, drop me a line (robyn@robynhaydon.com) or give me a call (61 3 957 4585).

Keeping your submission in line, and on time

From the time the tender is released, to the time you lodge your submission, you need to be continually working on your proposal.

As I’ve mentioned before, depending on how complex the procurement is, you might get anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 weeks to respond to a tender (the most common response period is 3-4 weeks).  This sounds like a generous amount of time, but it isn’t.

Buyers work out the validity period based on how long they think it will take you to put together a tender response. The longer you’re given, the more complex the requirement, and the more time-consuming your bid will be to prepare - and all this needs to happen on top of your day job.

Unfortunately, it’s common to see people “sit” on tender requests for days, or weeks, while they are deciding whether or not it’s worth going for, waiting for feedback from others, or just working on other things.

This is such a common story that if I had ten bucks for every time I heard it, I could be sitting on a beach in the Bahamas right now; in fact I got a call just yesterday from a client whose business had been sitting on a four-week tender for three weeks already, and had only just sent it to her to work on!

As I said last week, your offer is by far the most important element in your pitch – what will the customer actually be buying from you, and why is it the best option for them?

Any time you lose at the start of the bid schedule will have a compounding, negative effect on your offer, and therefore your chances of winning. Lose a week, and your strategy will suffer. Lose two weeks, and you will also miss key pieces of evidence to support your claims and maximise your evaluation score.

Let’s be generous and say that you have four weeks to submit your tender. Here’s how to spend each day in those four weeks to give yourself the best chance of success:

Week 1 – Circulate the briefing to your team as soon as it is released. Give them a day to read it. Then run your strategy session. Once you have your bid strategy and Purchaser Value Topics ready, write a draft of your Executive Summary. Get agreement in principle to the strategy and key messages.

Week 2 – with your bid strategy and Purchaser Value Topics agreed, now you can get stuck into planning your response. Analyse the tender questions; really pull them apart. Figure out what they are really asking for. What is the buyer’s motivation for asking? Is there a question behind the question? What do they want to expect to hear? Plan evidence to substantiate all your claims. Circulate your content plan with instructions to any other writers.

Week 3 – gather all your content and start shaping it into a proposal. Circulate the first draft for comment and review.

Week 4 – Make final changes, format the proposal and get internal sign-off.  Submit it at least one day before the customer’s deadline.

Tender deadlines aren’t within your control, and it’s rare to see a tender period extended. Those weeks will go by faster than you think.

This schedule will give you the time you need to think, and to plan your proposal, even when you are stretched with other priorities.

Where should I invest my time to win a tender?

In a competitive tender, submission or proposal, the difference between winning and losing often comes down to where you spend your energy and your time.

Your offer is by far the most important element in your pitch – what will the customer actually be buying from you, and why is it the best option for them?

As this model shows, successful bidders tend to spend more time and energy working on their offer. (The numbers represent a percentage of total time).

Winners invest time and energy in developing their strategy and key messages (by exploring what the customer most wants, what they can best deliver, and what positions them most favourably against competitors) and in content and evidence planning (thinking deeply about the customer’s questions, structuring their offer, and finding evidence to substantiate their claims).

In contrast, losers tend to jump straight into writing and content creation (answering the tender questions) and end up with a lot of narrative that just isn’t very convincing. As a result, they also spend too much time on pre-submission polishing; effectively, re-writing the parts of the submission that just don’t work, in the hope that they will somehow create a cohesive whole.

Let’s say you wanted to write a book. You wouldn’t start by staring at a blank page; you’d start by getting a clear idea of your story, your characters, and where they are going. If you jumped straight into writing, you’d risk wasting time writing pages and pages that you might never use.

Writing a submission that doesn’t win you any business is like writing a book that never gets published. (Also known as a “complete bummer”).

If you struggle to write successful submissions, your proposal process could be the root cause of the problem.

Use this approach instead, and invest your time where it’s going to help you win.

Should I go for a competitive tender?

Competitive tenders can be a lucrative source of revenue, but they are time-consuming, resource-hungry and challenging to win. Because of this, it’s important to realistically rate your chances of success before you commit to responding to a tender.

Tenders are time-consuming and deadline-driven.

Depending on how complex the procurement is, you might get anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 weeks to respond to a tender (the most common response period is 3-4 weeks).  This sounds like a generous amount of time, but it isn’t.

Buyers work out the validity period based on how long they think it will take you to put together a tender response. The longer you’re given, the more complex the requirement, and the more time-consuming your bid will be to prepare - and all this needs to happen on top of your day job.

Which brings me to the second problem – tenders are a drain on your resources.

To win, you’ll need contributions from your technical experts; your salespeople who know the customer; your commercial and pricing people; writers; graphics support; and possibly a bid project manager. Can you spare these people, or convince them to sacrifice time from their day job?

Finally, tenders are challenging to win.

We talk about “tenders”, but we forget that the full title is actually “competitive tenders”.

Buyers call for competitive tenders because they want a range of options to choose from. You won’t ever be the only one who is bidding. If you’re lucky you will only be up against a handful of competitors – but it may be hundreds.

On top of this, every competitive tender creates an opportunity cost of things you could be doing elsewhere that might be a better use of your time and effort.  Tenders also drain your team’s energy, enthusiasm and effort; and despite what they may tell you, there’s only so much of this to go around.

So how do you make the right choices, and target your energy, enthusiasm and effort where it will give you the best chance of achieving a win?

There are three perspectives to consider when you’re deciding whether to go for a competitive tender: your own, internal perspective; the market perspective; and from the perspective of the opportunity itself.

1.     The internal perspective – how well does the opportunity fit you and your business?

Is this a good strategic fit for you? Do you want it? And then there’s bid execution. Can you bid confidently in the timeframe without risking your other customers or business?

2.     The external perspective – how well do you fit the opportunity?

Do you know the client? How well positioned are you with them? If you don’t know them, is this a client you want?  And then there’s competitors to consider. Can you put up a strong offer against the others who are likely to be bidding?

3.     The opportunity perspective

Finally, there’s the opportunity itself. Do you have the capability to deliver what the customer is asking for? Are you experienced in similar work?  And then there’s capacity fit. Are you ready? Can you field a strong team, or the right resources, to deliver against expectations?

From chance to choice - making better decisions to bid

If you don’t have one already, it’s a good idea to set up an opportunity assessment checklist in your business that helps you to address all these questions. This will help you decide which opportunities to go for, and which ones you really should take a pass on.

You’ll find just such an Opportunity Assessment checklist in my online program From Chance To Choice, which contains just over an hour’s worth of videos, examples and tools to help you make better decisions to bid. For a limited time, you can access this course for free.

Happy bidding!

Competitive tendering 101

It is peak competitive tendering season in Australia from January until the end of May, particularly for government and private sector contracts that roll over on July 1.

So what is competitive tendering, and how can your business take advantage of the opportunities on offer?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some of my best tips for responding to – and winning – competitive tenders.

Let’s start with the basics first.

What is a competitive tender?

A competitive tender is a type of procurement practice – a device that corporate and government buyers use to purchase what they need.

Competitive tenders are commonplace for large, high-value purchases. They are also used for goods and services that have become commoditised, where buyers believe that a larger pool of competitors will drive down the price.

Tenders usually take the form of a written briefing, to which you, as the prospective supplier, must respond. The briefing document is usually called something like a Request for Tender (RFT), Request for Proposal (RFP), or Request for Quote (RFQ).

Alternatively, if there is no specific buying requirement at the time, the tender briefing could invite you to apply to join a preferred supplier panel and earn the right to pitch for future work.

Why do buyers issue tenders?

Fundamentally, because they want to create competition, and get the best value for money for something they have decided they want to buy.

For high-value purchases, competitive tenders also offer an audit trail that supports the buyer’s decision to go with a particular vendor or supplier. This type of governance is also known as “probity”, and is particularly important for government and large organisations that are ultimately responsible to the public or to a corporate board.

Why would I want to bid for a tender?

Competitive tenders can be a lucrative source of new business for your business. Last year, one of Australia’s largest buyers – the Federal government – spent $59.447 billion buying goods and services through Austender, and issued 69,236 supplier contracts.

If you're already a large business, you probably have no choice but to compete through bids and tenders because the size and scale of the contracts or projects you deal with.

If you want to grow your business, competitive tenders can be a good way of increasing the value of the work you do. For example, the Victorian government is required to put contracts over $150,000 out to market via competitive tender.

Where can I find opportunities to bid for?

Tenders are often publicly advertised.

You can find government tenders here. Or, sign up for a tender aggregation service like TenderLink, which finds tenders at all levels of government (federal, state, and local) and also advertises corporate and private tenders.

Are there any traps to watch out for?

Competitive tenders aren’t a simple way to win business. For starters, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the number of opportunities in your inbox, and not all are worth pursuing. So, here are three traps to be wary of:

1.     Do your homework and understand the competitive landscape. Some tenders aren’t a real opportunity, but a tick-the-box exercise where the contract has come to an end and the buyer is obliged to put it back out to market again. This doesn't mean they have any intention of changing suppliers, but they could use your tender to beat their current supplier down on price or delivery factors.

2.     Tender responses will never substitute for good old-fashioned face-to-face relationship building. A competitive tender is the last step in the procurement process, and at this point it’s difficult to convince a buyer to change their minds about what they want to buy. Preferred supplier panels are no guarantee of business, and you'll still need to get in front of buyers to let them know who you are and why they should brief you for future work.

3.     Make sure your business is up to scratch, and meets all of the mandatory or minimum requirements. For example, if buyers are asking for ISO quality accreditation, and you don't have it, then you will never win against competitors who do.

When you’re smart about it, though, there is lucrative business to be won when you play your cards right.

Next week, we'll look at how to decide which opportunities to bid for.

Five ways to beat less-qualified competitors

Have you ever lost a tender that you felt sure you would win? Seen a contract go to a competitor that you believe isn’t up to the job? Been frustrated when the customer made a poor decision that you know will cost them time, money and headaches in the long run?

Unfortunately, competitive tenders are not a foolproof way of selecting the most qualified supplier.

Despite the many layers of personnel, protocol and probity that sit around the competitive tendering process, mistakes can be made that cost good suppliers work – and end up costing buyers even more than they bargained for.

Last week, Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) tabled a report into Victoria’s failed education portal, Ultranet. The Ultranet project was scrapped in 2013 and is estimated to have cost taxpayers up to $240 million.

IBAC found that the tender process seeking a company to create the Ultranet technology was improperly influenced by Darrell Fraser, a former principal at Glen Waverley Secondary College who rose to become deputy secretary of the education department. IBAC’s report alleges that Fraser manipulated procurement processes to ensure the Ultranet contract was awarded to the CSG/Oracle consortium, companies with whom he had a long-standing relationship.

According to The Age, experts close to the Ultranet project had warned that CSG – then a little-known Darwin company – was a “dud” with no experience in delivering a project of this magnitude. The Ultranet crashed on the day it was launched, and was still plagued with problems two years later, by which time only 10% of Victorian students were using the technology.

Most customers aren’t corrupt, but they aren’t immune to making poor decisions either.

So how can you, as a supplier who wants to do the right thing, help customers to make the best choice – and avoid being caught in a similar situation?

Start by thinking of yourself as an equal; as an advisor to the customer.

In this role, your pitch isn’t just about you. It is also designed to help the customer combat the risks that they might face if they go with a less than ideal option.

Here are five ways to do it:

1. Know who your competitors are: not just your “peer competitors” (the firms you know, and who have a similar background to you) but other, more left-field options that the customer might be considering.
2. Understand what these competitors will be proposing, and why.
3. Analyse their “trump cards” – the issues they’ll be playing to their own advantage – for weaknesses, and come up with arguments to rebut them.
4. Without naming names, explain the risks in alternative approaches, and give practical examples when these approaches have not been successful in the past.
5. Don’t descend into muck-raking. Remember, you’re doing this with the customer’s best interests (and your own reputation) in mind.

Above all, help your customer to understand the risks of alternative choices, and give them the ammunition to ask the right questions of other suppliers who may not be right for them.

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant specialising in business that is won through competitive bids and tenders. Her clients have won and retained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business with many of Australia’s largest corporate and government buyers. Is it time to pimp your proposals? Stop wasting time and money on proposals that go nowhere. The Pimp My Proposals program will give you the feedback, content and structure you need to build compelling proposals that win business. Learn what you’re doing wrong, and how to fix it. Email info@robynhaydon.com or call 03 9557 4585 to find out more.

How value-add destroys value in sales

Are you convinced that what you do is a lot more important, a lot more complex and interesting, and a heck of a lot more valuable than your customers think it is?

Despite this, do you feel compelled to offer customers a huge amount of extra stuff you think they might want, just to get a sale over the line?

If so, you’re definitely not alone.

Commoditisation – where customers drive down a purchase to its lowest common denominator, its price – is a huge problem for service-based businesses when it comes to sales.

When you’ve become commoditised, it means that customers perceive an almost total lack of meaningful differentiation between you and everyone else you are competing with.

Ten years ago, Uday Karmarkar, writing in the Harvard Business Review, predicted the “huge wave of change” bearing down on the services industry, one result of which has been commoditisation.

And the sales impact of commoditisation on service-based businesses has been profound.

Essentially, the objective of a sale is to get customers to value what you do and pay a fair price for it.

If value is the inherent worth of everything that your core offering delivers, “value-add” is all the extra stuff; the bells and whistles that you throw in to get a customer over the line. Value is the cake, and value-add is the icing.

Over the last several years, I’ve noticed that more and more businesses are focusing their sales pitch on value-add, instead of value.

What's driving this trend is a lack of confidence that stems from years and years of being commoditised by buyers; being asked to give them a price before we talk about anything else, being forced to fill in tenders like we’re applying for a job, and competing on attributes that we know do not define the value of what we do.

Unfortunately, piling on “value-add” does you no favours, because it distracts buyers from the true value of what you do.

So it’s time to get back to the cake, and stop getting a headache from all that icing.

Knowing the true value of what you do and offer will help you to:

• Stop losing work to less qualified competitors
• Speed up your sales cycle so you can spend more time doing the work, and less time selling the work
• Improve your margins
• Avoid pressure to discount or drop your prices, and
• Stop being frustrated about sales

Come along to my public workshop in Melbourne on Friday 10 February and learn how to build a killer pitch. Friday 27th Jan is the last chance to book, so get in fast.

Or, if you’re after some more targeted help, download the white paper for my Value Labs program and drop me a line or give me a call. 

Five ways to spot an energy vampire

We've all got one: that person you dread spending time with, who seems to suck the life out of you. Some people call them energy vampires.

Your energy vampire could be a client, a friend, co-worker, an acquaintance, or a family member. You'll know an energy vampire, because you feel drained after being with them.

Energy vampires have several things in common. They're constantly complaining, everything's a drama, and they talk incessantly about themselves.

Dr Judith Orloff, author of Positive Energy, identifies five types of energy vampires:

1. The Sob Sister – The most common type of energy stealer. Every time you talk to this person, they’re whining. Sob sisters love a captive audience, and are more interested in complaining than solutions.
2. The Drama Queen – Male or female, the Drama Queen has a knack for exaggerating small incidents into off-the-chart dramas.
3. The Constant Talker – They’ve mastered the art of circular breathing, and could talk under wet cement. The Constant Talker has no interested in other people’s feelings or opinions, so good luck getting a word in.
4. The Blamer – This is the kind of person who has a sneaky way of making you feel guilty for not getting things absolutely perfect.
5. Go For The Jugular Fiend – They’re spiteful and vindictive, and cut you down with no consideration for your feelings. Somehow they make this seem like a virtue, because they’re “just being honest”.

Do you recognise someone you know in this list?

Especially at this time of the year, when we're counting down to Christmas, and when our own tolerance and patience is starting to wear thin, energy vampires are even more taxing than usual.

In a proposals environment, energy is hard to come by, and we can’t afford to waste it.

It's not like a presentation, where you’re on your feet and you can rely on adrenaline, nervous energy and the buzz of the room to keep you going.

December is a busy time for pitches and proposals, so be kind to yourself, and to each other.

It’s tough enough to create the energy and excitement that will help you win, without stealing it from others.

Confidence is catching

Have you ever lost a piece of business you really deserved to win? Seen a contract go to a less qualified competitor? Felt less than confident when making a verbal pitch, only to find out later that the client had reservations about your ability to do the job? You may have been a victim of a lack of confidence, not lack of ability.

What we believe is true really matters. If we believe in what we’re doing, others will believe it too.

Recently, Psychology Today related a study where research psychologists asked groups of men and women to perform a series of mental rotation tests and then quizzed them on their level of confidence taking the tests. In these tests, participants were presented with one standard figure and four alternative figures. Two of the alternative figures are rotated versions of the standard figure, whereas the other two are mirror images of the standard figure – and test subjects were asked to determine which is which. Here’s an example of the sort of thing they were faced with:

At first, the researchers found a big difference between the results of men and women on these tests (men consistently scored better). However, when the participant’s level of confidence was taken into account, the gender differences evaporated. The researchers decided to test the robustness of the “confidence” finding by asking participants to complete the tests under two different scenarios – the control group (A) was allowed to skip a test if they felt they lacked confidence in their answers, and the test group (B) was not allowed to skip any tests.

While they did find gender differences in the control group A, there were no such differences in the test group B. These findings support the idea that the differences in results were due to confidence, and not ability.

When I review proposals and tender responses for organisations that aren’t winning as much business as they deserve to, it’s obvious where they lack confidence in their pitch and their offer. The writer’s doubt and fear have soaked into every page, and they leave a stain that’s hard to ignore.

Re-read your proposals from the customer’s perspective. Do they answer questions, or create them? Do they inspire confidence or in fact, do the opposite?

The first sale is always to yourself. When you are sold, the customer will be too.

Are your proposals on life support?

In organisations that aren’t winning enough proposals, I find any number of processes and procedures that are propping up the proposal effort. This calls to mind the life support given to critical care patients to keep their vital organs going. Life support may help to sustain life, but it doesn’t deliver any kind of quality.

What would happen if you unplugged your status meetings? Tollgate checks? Draft reviews? Content library? What about graphics support? Would your proposals be able to live, breathe and take on a life of their own when they leave your door, and find their way in front of the customer?

Unfortunately, in many cases, the answer is “no”.

Your proposals live or die on the quality of effort, energy and enthusiasm you get from your people. They are the vital organs that give life to the body of work you want to do.

Does your team know how to build a pitch strategy that represents what the customer most wants, what you can best deliver, and what positions you most favourably against competitors? Can they analyse and answer the question behind the question in a customer briefing or tender request? Do they know how to structure their writing so that it is clear, convincing and compelling? Are they truly committed to making your proposals the best they can possibly be? If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, then you need to make this a priority.

Just like the human body, your organisation’s proposal effort needs all its vital organs working together. And when it comes to proposals, withdrawing life support is not an option.

You simply can’t afford to let your proposal effort pass away – there are millions of dollars riding on its success.

Once you get the life back into your proposals, everything gets better. You’ll start winning again. You’ll get to do the work you deserve to do – work that builds your profile, your bank account and your legacy. Your people will be happier and more enthusiastic about winning work.

And that’s an outcome worth investing in.

Why proposals are never, ever, going away

Raise your hand if you love writing proposals. No hands? That’s not at all surprising. Most people hate writing proposals. We find them a time consuming, mind-numbing, brain draining, frustrating chore. Yet buyers love receiving proposals, and this method of pitching for business is not going to go away anytime soon.

Why not?

Imagine for a moment that you’re got an important social event coming up. (Not really a stretch, with Christmas and the party season right around the corner.)

Maybe shopping isn’t your favourite thing. But looking at your closet, things are pretty dire. You really need to buy something new to wear.

• You could go to a crowded shopping centre and fight it out with dozen of other people for a car park. Then, you’d have to slog your way through dozens of stores in the hope that one of them might carry what you are looking for. It’s a drain on your time and patience.
• Or, you could stay home, and check out the online stores for options. You wouldn’t have to fight the crowds, but there's still a lot of stuff to sift through to try to find something you might want. This takes a huge amount of time.
• Or, here’s another option – you could book a session with a personal shopper. You’d tell them what you want, they would sit you down in a dressing room with a glass of champagne and bring you outfit after outfit to try on. This isn’t a drain on your time or your patience. In fact, it's almost like going to a day spa.

This is exactly the experience that buyers get when they put out a brief or tender and invite a response.

They get a whole bunch of people bending over backwards to craft a proposal that fits their taste and needs. They don't have to go out and foot-slog around the market. They don't have to listen to 20 people pitch in person. They don't even have to talk to you if they don't want to.

Why would they do all that work, when they can get you to do it for them for free?

If you think that proposals are an imperfect way to pitch what you do, you would be right. But they are not going anywhere, because they simply make the buyer's life very easy.

It all comes back to the distribution of labour. Under the old system of buying, where buyers had to take the time to build a relationship before they did business with you, most of the effort was theirs. Under the current system, the position is reversed.

So proposals are never, ever, going away. Even if you hate doing them, you still need to find a way to make them work for you.

If this is a problem you need to solve in your business, talk to me - I can help.

Start fast to finish first

Last week we talked about thinking more, and writing less, to win more proposals. This week, I’m going to show you exactly how to plan your schedule so you will have the time you need to think, and to plan your proposal, even when you are stretched with other priorities.

A typical competitive tender schedule (the time from when the tender is released, to when it’s due) is four weeks. This goes by faster than you'd think.

Parkinson’s law says that “work expands to fill the time available to complete it.” If you think that all you need to do is write the proposal, four weeks probably sounds like a generous amount of time.  Add strategy, content and evidence planning into the mix, though – the things you’ll need to do to be convincing, compelling and emerge as the clear winner – and it suddenly doesn’t sound like such an easy run after all.

It’s pretty common to see people “sit” on tender requests for days, or weeks, while they are deciding whether or not it’s worth going for, waiting for feedback from others, or just working on other things.

Unfortunately, time lost at the start of the bid schedule has a compounding, negative effect on your chances of winning. Lose a week, and your strategy will suffer. Lose two weeks, and you will also miss key pieces of evidence to support your claims and maximise your evaluation score.

When you’re leading a proposal, aim to spend most of your time on strategy and planning. This minimises the time you will need to write, review and polish.

Here’s how to spend each day in those four weeks to give yourself the best chance of success:

Week 1 – Circulate the briefing to your team as soon as it is released. Give them a day to read it. Then run your strategy session. Once you have your bid strategy and Purchaser Value Topics ready, write a draft of your Executive Summary. Get agreement in principle to the strategy and key messages.

Week 2 – with your bid strategy and Purchaser Value Topics agreed, now you can get stuck into planning your response. Analyse the tender questions; really pull them apart. Figure out what they are really asking for. What is the buyer’s motivation for asking? Is there a question behind the question? What do they want to expect to hear? Plan evidence to substantiate all your claims. Circulate your content plan with instructions to any other writers.

Week 3 – gather all your content and start shaping it into a proposal. Circulate the first draft for comment and review.

Week 4 – Make final changes, format the proposal and get internal sign-off.  Submit it at least one day before the customer’s deadline.

Time hacks to win more proposals

Successful proposals show quality thinking, not just quality writing. So where should you be spending your time if you want to win a proposal?

That's a good question, when time is the one thing we have precious little of.

The fourth General Social Survey of Australians, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, found that Australia is below average in work-life balance compared with other OECD countries. An alarming 45% of women and 36% of men reported feeling “always” or “often” rushed, or pressed for time, compared with just over 20% who reported feeling pretty chilled.

If you’re a busy professional, you’re probably among this growing majority.

And unless proposal writing is your full-time job, it is discretionary work you are expected to fit in around other tasks. This is not easy, when many of us spent our official working hours in unproductive meetings. A US study found that most employees spend at least 37% of their time in meetings, and that the more meetings you go to, the more exhausted you’ll feel and the higher you will perceive your workload to be.

Because we are under pressure during the day, proposal writing ends up becoming something we do after hours (a “five-to-nine job”). This isn't good news when we want to win.

Successful proposals need strategic thinking. Unfortunately, because we are pressed for time, most of us spend too little time on thinking, and instead jump straight into writing. As a result, we end up doing a lot of re-writing, when the proposal doesn't match the expectations that the boss had in their head (but often, failed to tell us about).

This model shows how to divide your time if you want your proposal to be successful. Spend more time up-front exploring what the customer most wants, what you can best deliver, and what positions you most favourably against competitors. Take the time to structure your offer, think deeply about the customer’s questions, and find evidence to substantiate your claims. 

Next week, I will show you a day-by-day schedule you can use with your team, to make the most of your time within a typical four-week competitive tendering cycle.

Are you running a proposal sweatshop?

In the two decades I’ve been observing people in selling situations, one thing has always been particularly fascinating to me. It’s the way that we will spend ten times as much effort on a presentation that we know we will have to give in person, when compared to a written proposal or a tender response.

Proposals have become the routine, marginal and painful work that no one really wants to do.

Yet we produce a lot of them. When I speak to people about the volume of proposals they generate, most say that their business, company or division produces anywhere from five to more than 30 proposals a month.

That’s a lot of information going out into the market representing your brand, your work, and your value, and with the potential to open doors for you.

Unfortunately, because proposals are seen as paperwork, rather than as an exciting opportunity to win new business, proposal teams may feel they are working in conditions that have more in common with a sweatshop factory than a modern business. Here are just a few of them:

1.     No choice in what to produce

2.     Inescapable grind; long days turns into long weeks, months and years

3.     Constantly working extra hours to meet deadlines

4.     Disconnected from the rest of the business

5.     Under-appreciated by managers and leaders

6.     Responsibility without authority

7.     Produces output at the lowest possible cost, which is later expected to be sold at a premium price

If there is a disconnection between the conditions in which your proposals are created, and the outcomes you want them to deliver, you have got a problem.

What you get is dull, mass-produced documentation, and not the dazzling, inspirational calls to action that you really need.

A proposal is usually the first piece of work a customer will see from you. It’s the gateway to the opportunity you really want, and the chance to get in front of the customer to do your verbal pitch.

As a business leader, it’s your job to invest in your proposal effort and give it the resources, respect and reward it deserves.

If not, your brand will be damaged, your work will be devalued, and those doors you want to open will remain firmly closed.

Why honesty is the best policy in a proposal

When writing a proposal, it can be tempting to ignore the areas where you know you’re going to come up short. What if you have less experience than competitors, or a less than stellar track record with a customer you are desperate to retain? Unfortunately, glossing over the issue isn't going to work.

A study by John Paul MacDuffie of Pennsylvania University, published in the Journal of International Business Studies in 2011, identified three types of trust in business relationships:

1.     Contractual trust;

2.     Trust in competence, and

3.     Goodwill.

Competitive tendering is built on the idea of “contractual trust”. In other words, as a buyer, I trust you if you meet my minimum standards; are prepared to sign a contract that binds you to these standards; and where I have legal redress if you don’t perform.

The other types of trust – competence and goodwill – are harder to establish, because they are based on how you operate on the job. While presenting past performance data does go some way towards establishing trust in your competence, it’s harder to foster goodwill in a proposal, particularly if you have no prior track record with the customer.

But there is a way to do it.

Recently the business media was all hot and bothered about a 22 year old intern from San Diego called Matthew Ross, who the Wall Street investment banking fraternity were falling all over themselves to hire. What was so special about Ross, who was just as inexperienced as the thousands of other American undergraduates that apply for internships? Here is how he sold himself:

"I won't waste your time inflating my credentials, throwing around exaggerated job titles, or feeding you a line of crap about how my past experiences and skill set align perfectly for an investment banking partnership.

The truth is, I have no unbelievably special skills...but I do have a near perfect GPA (grade point average) and will work hard for you. I have no qualms about fetching coffee, shining shoes or picking up laundry, and will work for next to nothing."

A proposal is a lot like a job application. Any time your proposal is not congruent with who you are and what you can do, it’s like an instant red flag that will send the buyer searching for other holes. There's a good chance you will spook them and never know why they suddenly went cold on you.

I know incumbents who have lost business simply because they haven't owned up to problems that are obvious to everyone.

Likewise, I have seen long shots win by being up-front and honest about their shortcomings, and by demonstrating a willingness to work and learn (just like Matthew Ross did).

Selling is a kind of energy exchange; it is always about people and what they believe about you.

Customers will expect you to have the right skills, products and services, but they place a higher value on attitude than you might think.

That’s because nothing is ever perfect. When things go wrong in the job, or the relationship - as they inevitably will - they want to know you're the kind of person they can work with to find a solution. 

This is tip no. 2 in my most popular e-book, 10 Easy Ways To Write A Better Proposal Today.

The power of service

Service doesn’t have to be selfless. In fact, service gives us the opportunity to validate our own expertise by creating genuine value for others.

Are you in the service business? Turns out that most of us are. A World Bank study showed that in high-income countries, services represent 66% of GDP compared with only 35% in low-income countries. In Australia, services employ more than 8.6 million people, representing 76% of all employment nationally.

Service underpins every interaction we have with another human being. To work in service of others is to build cities, make things happen and change lives. As a purpose statement for the world of work, this is a pretty compelling one.

A recent study by the American Psychological Association, which surveyed more than 1200 full and part-time workers aged 18 or older, found that 51% of workers stayed in their current job because it “gives them the opportunity to make a difference”.

The difference we make to others isn’t always visible, but it can be profound.

For example, this time last year my family and I were in Charleston, South Carolina.

Charleston is built below sea level. Unfortunately, our visit coincided with hurricane season, and on the last day of our stay the downtown area had flooded. It was a Saturday, and we needed to get to the car hire place by lunchtime or we would be stuck for the next two days. Uber had called it quits, and a taxi stalled on its way to get to us. After a fraught couple of hours, we were lucky to be offered a ride by the front desk manager at the hotel who had just finished his shift.

As we gratefully unloaded our bags at the car hire place in the pouring rain, the rental manager gave us a choice of two completely unfamiliar cars we could choose to take. In our frazzled state, we were ill equipped to make any kind of choice.

As our lizard brains tried to switch off ‘fight or flight’ mode to take in what he was saying, my partner asked him: "Which one would you choose?"

The manager didn’t hesitate. "The Kia Soul" he said. "It's newer, higher and will give you more clearance if you hit any flooding on the way to Georgia."

Sold. Emboldened by his confidence, we made it out of South Carolina - and into Savannah, Georgia - successfully navigating several flooded roads.

The real power of service is for the service provider. When customers value your expertise, it validates why you do what you do, and has the potential to turn routine, margin and painful work into aspirational work that serves your purpose on the planet.

It’s not always easy to be in service. But it’s worthwhile when you have a day like this; a day when you get to use your expertise, and this really helps someone.

I hope you have that kind of day today.

Why it’s good to be an underdog

If you want to win, you must be dominant, all-powerful and able to effortlessly crush your opponent, right? Well, not always. It turns out that there's a very special place in our hearts for winners who don't have those qualities, and who struggle valiantly against the odds. 

"The dam is broken.....the 62-year drought is over….". So declared the television commentator two minutes before the siren sounded on the 2016 Grand Final last Saturday, when the Western Bulldogs kicked the final goal that gave them an unbeatable lead over match favourites, the Sydney Swans. 

Dogs by name, and underdogs by nature, the Western Bulldogs hadn't won a premiership since 1954. They had already pulled of a coup just by making it to the Grand Final.

Though widely considered unlikely to win, the Bulldogs fought their way to a 22-point victory.

With it came the cheers and tears of thousands of people – including many, like me, who aren't even football fans. Why were we so affected by their win?

Some of the most famous movies of all time tell the real-life stories of underdogs who triumphed over adversity, including Rocky (inspired by the story of Chuck Wepner), 8 Mile, Erin Brockovich and my personal favourite, Eddie the Eagle. We see our own hopes and dreams reflected in their epic struggles.

Seeing others at a disadvantage also tends to ignite our sense of fairness and justice. This means that supporting the underdog is one way that we can confront and reduce inequality.

In fact, even suggesting that a team or person is the underdog makes us more likely to support them. In study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers asked 71 participants to imagine that two teams — one ranked higher than the other — were going to compete in an Olympic swimming event. In all scenarios, the participants said they would prefer to see the lower-ranked team prevail over the higher-ranked one, even if that higher-ranked team had been the underdog in a previous scenario.

We also relate better to underdogs, seeing them as more “real”, or more authentic. In another study, psychology professor Joseph Vandello from the University of Florida asked students to watch a basketball game in which they were told that one team was the favorite. After watching the footage, the viewers characterised the underdog team as having less “intelligence” and “talent,” but more “hustle” and “heart”. Again, this pattern was consistent even when the scenario was flipped so that the other team was framed as the underdog. The viewers simply liked the people who were losing more than they liked the winners.

What does this mean for you and your team?

If you’re already the underdogs, take heart.

In his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm Gladwell says that bigger is only better up to a point.

Gladwell identifies 7 characteristics of the "winning little guy", including an honourable reputation; doing everything in in person; determination; empathy; teamwork; and being both passionate and likeable.

To me, this also provides an excellent summary of the qualities of every winning bid team I have ever worked with, no matter how large or small.

But if you’re not the underdogs, take this as a warning.  

If your team already feels like they are the sure-fire winners, and they are in any way arrogant or entitled about this, you may have a problem on your hands.

Just like a Grand Final, one thing is for sure in a competitive pitch - it isn't over until it's over.

The culture you want for your pitch team is one where the prevailing conversation is about what we can do for the customer, not what's in it for us.

So how can you get your team to think and behave like underdogs, and harness the extra energy and empathy that comes along with it? Here are five values and behaviours to encourage. 

1. Ask more questions. Underdogs assume less, read the briefing thoroughly, and carefully flag any issues and concerns.
2. Speak with humility. Underdogs don't assume they already know everything, and they treat the opportunity (and the customer) with respect.
3. Work harder. Underdogs are in early, stay late, and put in the hard yards when they need to. They don’t leave the work to someone else. 
4. Work as a team. Underdogs don't blame each other when things get difficult, and adversity will bring them even closer together, rather than pulling them apart.
5. Express thanks and gratitude. Underdogs are excited just to be on the journey, and aren't solely focused on the destination or the win.

Is your customer a promoter or a preventer?

We buy things for two main reasons; either to enhance our lives, or to protect what is already important to us. Psychologists have found that in practice, most of us place greater value on one outcome over the other. When you know whether your customer sees things things primarily through the  “promotion” lens (how they will end up better off) or the “prevention” lens (how they can hang onto what they already have), you can frame what you do so they are more likely to buy it.

Customers who have a promotion bias will find different kinds of arguments and evidence persuasive in a sales pitch, when compared to customers who have a prevention bias. As a result, subtle changes in language can have a profound effect on your ability to get through to them.

Here’s a summary of these two personality-driven perception lenses, as explained by psychologist and author Heidi Grant Halvorson, and to which I’ve added a sales perspective.

In her book No One Understands You And What To Do About It, Halvorson says that neither one of these is better than the other; they’re just different ways of thinking and communicating.

Which of these best describes you? Which best describes your customer?

According to Halvorson, customers with a promotion lens are looking for reasons to say yes, whereas those with a prevention lens are searching for reasons to say no.

Therefore, if you’re working with a customer with a prevention bias, reframe an opportunity for gain as an opportunity for avoiding loss. For example, you might think of the technology upgrade you’re pitching as a chance to get in front of the market, but a prevention-biased customer will respond better if you phrase it as a way to “not fall behind”.

Miscommunication is frustrating, and it’s also a deal-killer. This model of perception bias offers a surprisingly simple fix for this problem, and shows how talking your customer’s internal language will help you to sell more, influence more and get to “yes” more often.

To serve or to deserve?

“We’ve worked hard. We really deserve to win this tender.”

“Competitor A got the last job, and Competitor B got the one before that. It’s our turn now.”

“Our qualifications and experience speak for themselves.”

“Our firm has a good reputation. Business should just come to us.”

“We took a hit on that last project. Customer X really owes us one.”

If you've heard these statements before - or maybe even said one or two yourself – you’re in good company. We all feel these things from time to time.

There’s no doubt that the grind of selling can get exasperating. This in turn can muddy our intention to serve, and also get in the way of learning when things don’t go the way we hoped they would. 

Also, our interpretation of what it means to “deserve” has changed a lot over the years.

Originally, the word “deserve” meant "to serve zealously". Today, it usually means that we think we are entitled to something.

Thinking of “deserving” by its original meaning, to serve zealously, is part of the mindset that helps us to making more successful connections and more sales.

Selling is really just “helping”. That’s why we call it service.

How to win a competitive tender

Competitive tenders are big business. Last year, one of Australia’s largest buyers – the Federal government – spent $59.447 billion buying goods and services through its online tendering service, Austender. While tenders can be a lucrative source of customers for your business, they are not easy to win, for several (and not always obvious) reasons.

Firstly, every tender is a competition. While you are trapped in your office slaving away over a submission, it’s easy to forget that your competitors are doing exactly the same thing. You might be up against a handful, or possibly hundreds. Only one submission will win, and many will be thrown out instantly.

Secondly, much of the advice that works in other forms of selling simply doesn’t translate to competitive tenders. For example, tenders are most definitely not a numbers game. Responding to each and every Request for Tender that comes your way does not increase your chances of winning. In fact, this depletes your most important resource – your team’s energy and enthusiasm.

Finally, tenders are time-consuming, unpredictable and expensive. Your team could spend anywhere from one day to many months on a single submission. Release dates are unpredictable, making tenders difficult to plan for and resource. And they can cost a lot of money– none of which is recoverable if you lose. Or, as one exasperated sales manager said to me, “it’s like buyers have a blank cheque to spend our money on their tenders.”

Competitive tenders are winnable, but let’s get real about this – it’s going to take effort. You wouldn’t compete at the Olympics without investment and preparation, and a tender competition is no different. Here are five things you can start doing immediately to dramatically increase your chances of winning.

1. Bid less to win more. When you’re spreading resources too thinly across too many marginal opportunities, you are depleting team morale and productivity and depriving yourself of the insights you’ll need to win the really big ones. Aim to double your win rate by halving the number of tenders you go for, concentrating your energy and effort where you have the greatest chance of success.
2. Know your value. Successful new business pitches are a case of “ready, aim, fire”. Most of us spend way too much time aiming and firing (targeting customers and firing off presentations and proposals), when we are simply not ready to win them. Build your team’s readiness by exploring how your work creates commercial value for your customers.
3. Engage your team. People win proposals, and it's the smart people in your business who do the work who will also win it for you. Give them training and support to write persuasively about what they know, and make proposals part of their job description.
4. Offer more than they're asking for. In every successful tender I've been part of, the winner offered something truly compelling that exceeded the specifications and gave the buyer value they couldn't get elsewhere. A Request for Tender is a bit like Christmas list to Santa - albeit one that has been written by a pragmatic adult, not a child. Buyers go for what they think they can get, but secretly they’re hoping for more, and are easily swayed by a compelling value proposition.
5. Finally, minimize their risk of choosing you. A recent sales effectiveness study by Qvidian showed that only 63% of salespeople made their targets, and many sales are lost to “no decision”. Similarly, not every tender has a winner – sometimes, the risk of buying simply seems too great. Understand the risk the buyer faces in choosing you, and use your submission to reduce them.

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant specialising in business that is won through competitive bids and tenders. Her clients have won and retained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business with many of Australia’s largest corporate and government buyers. Is it time to pimp your proposals? Stop wasting time and money on proposals that go nowhere. The Pimp My Proposals program will give you the feedback, content and structure you need to build compelling proposals that win business. Learn what you’re doing wrong, and how to fix it. Email info@robynhaydon.com or call 03 9557 4585 to find out more.