Does the proposal you submitted last week sound like the one you pitched six months ago?

Join me for a free 30-minute webinar on Thursday 2 May 1.00pm AEST to find out to how build a great proposal library by harnessing the knowledge - and building the skills - of your subject matter experts. Pretty much every organisation has a ‘library’ of past proposals that they draw from when writing new ones. In theory, content libraries should help you answer the questions that come up - in one form or another - in all RFTs. These are core issues that every prospect wants to know about, including your past experience in similar contracts; customer references; capacity and resources; approaches to quality; approaches to Health, Safety and Environment; innovation; and risk management.

Proposal content libraries are important for knowledge management and to make the production process faster. However, the way that they are built and used tends to hinder – rather than help – the proposal effort.

Firstly, just the fact that the library exists tends to make people lazy. I see far too much cutting and pasting and not nearly enough thinking about what the RFT is asking and what the proposal really needs to say.

Secondly - let's face it - writing proposals isn't most people's favourite job to begin with, coming as it does on top of a mountain of other work. Because of this, I've seen many organisations employ writers to produce content for proposal libraries. But this is a bit like asking the cabin crew to fly the plane.

Good proposal content comes from experts who know what they are talking about. Passing the content development task off to ‘writers’ means that material is often superficial, because experts are busy and it’s difficult to get their time for interviews and reviews. The process gets drawn out and expensive, and leads to a one-shot outcome that is quickly out of date. Content is written descriptively, rather than persuasively, meaning that it lacks any expression of customer value. All of this leads to lacklustre proposals that lack insight and depth.

Writing persuasively is about taking what you know and putting it into context that the customer will understand, and that convinces them to see things your way. This is a skill that anyone can learn, and the process for doing so is actually very simple. If you missed the webinar, contact me to find out more.

Spitball April podcast: The Changing Face of Consumption

How much have consumers and their patterns of consumption changed, really? In the April Spitball podcast - hosted by Bri Williams – Bri, Hamish and I talk about what has and hasn’t changed in the context of today’s battle to win the sale. Here’s a summary of our major topics:

• Information backwash - Unfettered access to information about products and services has shifted the relationship between consumers and businesses. But has the availability of information lead to a better informed market, or one that is more confused than ever? Is it now more difficult to make and live with purchase decisions, and how can businesses help?
• Relationship with money - Cold hard cash is on the outer as mobile banking and digital wallets continue to rise. How has this impacted the concept of money and how consumers spend?
• Authentically fake - At one end of the spectrum, we live in a disposable world of cheap cars, ready-made meals and here-today gone-tomorrow apps. At the other, there’s a counter culture move towards ‘authenticity’, artisanship, product re-use and permanence. Do businesses have to pick one camp or the other, or is there magic to be made somewhere in between?

Listen to the conversation at:

http://spitballbiz.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/the-changing-face-of-consumption/

Is complexity killing your sales model? New study by Bain & Co

Bain & Co. recently looked at nine years of income statements from 200 large companies and found that more than half have increasing sales and marketing expenses, and aren't getting scale benefits from their growing size. According to the study, customers increasingly demand a tailored solution anchored in expertise about their industry or a specific function; expect providers to solve their business problems; measure value based on outcomes, not the lowest price; and have more competitive, disciplined bid processes that trump ‘relationships’.

This is consistent with what I see in my practice and the detailed report makes interesting reading.

Proposal positioning tips for challengers and incumbents

A proposal is just a means to an end. You aren't writing a proposal - you are convincing someone to buy from you. The role your proposal will need to play to achieve this goal will be very different, depending on whether you are pitching to a prospect or a customer.

If you're pitching to a prospect — someone you've never done business with before — you're a “challenger”. In this role, you may need to win the business away from someone else or to convince the prospect to buy something that they're not currently in the habit of buying.

If you're pitching to a customer – someone you're currently doing business with, or for whom you have done similar projects before — you're an “incumbent”. In this role, you already have the business and want to retain it, or you want the customer to continue giving you repeat business in preference to competitors.

So which role are you playing today – challenger or incumbent?

As a challenger (you want to win the business), your proposal needs to convince the prospect of your relevance. First, you must get them to notice you, then get them interested enough to listen to you. This is particularly true when you are responding to a formal tender request. Once you’ve done those things, you also have the task of getting the prospect motivated enough to go through the perceived pain and hassle of signing up - or changing suppliers - in order to work with you. Change is a risk and the prospect will be looking for reasons not to give you the business. Don’t make this easy for them.

If you're an incumbent (you already have the business and want to retain it), your proposal needs to convince the customer that you remain relevant to them. Be aware that while change is a risk, they are also taking a risk by staying with you. First, you must show them that you are not just resting on your (hopefully excellent) service record. Next, you need to present your vision of their future. Finally, you need to show them that you are continuing to innovate and build best practice in your business from which they stand to benefit.

This is the first of 10 tips in my new e-book - 10 Easy Ways to Write a Better Proposal Today. See sidebar to download your free copy.

Proposal writing tip: beware the too-brief answer

Tender documents are tricky beasts. Sometimes, the questions seem long and impenetrable. Other times, they look deceptively easy.

It is never okay to give a yes/no answer, even when it looks like this is what the tender is asking for. You still need to explain your answer, so that the buyer has a good understanding of your position on the issue.

Spitball, NEW business radio podcast series: The Changing Face of the Workforce

I've teamed up with Hamish Riddell from Kumbayah Consulting  and Bri Williams from People Patterns  to deliver a monthly business radio show, Spitball: http://spitballbiz.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/the-changing-face-of-the-workforce/

In each broadcast we'll be spitting out some ideas about what's happening in business and seeing what sticks. We do this when we get together anyway, so we figured we would let you eavesdrop.

This month Spitball focuses on the changing face of the workforce, specifically the rise of free agency; the decline of hierarchy; and the rise of informal learning.  Coming in April and June are programs about the changing face of consumption and competition. Tune in and tell us what you think about these issues.

Two reliable ways to improve your proposal success rates

How do you go about continually improving your proposals? You may be missing out on valuable insights that could really make a difference to your win rates. Most people I talk to only pay attention to losses. That's understandable, but it is rarely helpful.

Yes, it hurts to lose. Your boss is probably breathing down your neck for answers. Maybe you want to argue with the prospect in the hope they'll change their mind.

Unfortunately, in most cases there is little value in seeking feedback on a lost opportunity.

If you're not the winner, the prospect has no interest in giving you rational feedback that you can actually use. You aren't the supplier they chose. They just want you out of their office and out of their hair. In a government tender debriefing, you will get the least possible information designed to protect the department’s probity position.

If you think that sounds a bit disheartening, it is. There's no way to sugar-coat it.

The truth is that there are only two reliable ways to build your proposal success rates.

1. Get feedback when you win. Every win contains a lesson and your mission is to figure out what that lesson is. We often tend to skip this step due to a little habit called "confirmation bias" which - according to Bri Williams, a specialist in buying behaviour -  is our tendency to seek information that confirms our existing beliefs. In other words, to assume that the reasons why we won the business are the reasons why we thought we should win it. Never assume; always ask. You may well be surprised at the things that the client liked most about your offer.

2. Get feedback from a friendly, long-standing client, even if they passed this time. They probably still like you and feel they owe you an explanation. For example, one of my most successful clients recently lost a bid that they were fully expecting to win. Yes, it hurt, but they were able to pull themselves out of the post-loss quagmire and really listen when the customer told them where our bid had missed the mark. These insights were the benchmark against which the bid team assessed everything we put into the next bid. The customer was impressed, and three months later my client was rewarded with a huge contract that was widely considered a long shot before we got the wake-up call.

Welcome to The Winning Pitch - now a blog!

Hi, I'm Robyn Haydon. Welcome to my blog, The Winning Pitch. While the blog is new, I've actually been publishing The Winning Pitch as a monthly newsletter since 2004. It is sent out to almost a thousand people throughout Australia and around the world - people that I've worked with directly as a consultant, speaker and trainer, people who have read my book, The Shredder Test, and people who just have an interest in the topic of bids, proposals and tender responses. If you'd like to get regular monthly updates, you can join my mailing list by downloading my free e-book 10 Easy Ways to Write a Better Proposal Today (see sidebar).  Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

The Seven Cardinal Sins of Proposal Writing

Robyn Haydon interviewed by CBS Interactive Business Network: BNet Australia Talk time: 16 minutes 07