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.

The problem with Unique Selling Propositions

For a long time, the world of marketing was very taken with the idea of unique selling propositions. The idea was to find the thing that's unique about you, compared to other people in your market, and position yourself on that.

The term unique selling proposition (USP) was first proposed in the 1940s as a theory to explain why certain advertising campaigns were successful in convincing consumers to switch brands.

An example is M&M’s classic 1954 slogan “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand".

Like a lot of consumer marketing concepts, the Unique Selling Proposition doesn’t translate well into a business-to-business environment. There are four primary reasons for this:

1. Unique Selling Propositions encourage us to look externally for validation, by comparing ourselves with competitors as the main yardstick of our own value. This is isn’t very helpful, and it also has negative psychological effects.
2. A Unique Selling Proposition is often very superficial; really just an attention-grabbing slogan, like “melts in your mouth, not in your hand”. This is fine if you’re selling a $2 packet of chocolates, but doesn’t work so well when you’re selling a $2m IT system or $200m construction program.
3. Business development in business-to-business markets is way more complex than simply “selling”. The purpose of business development is to create value that customers can buy, and selling is just the transactional bit that follows on from that. 
4. Finally, just because something is unique, doesn’t make it valuable. The world is full of unique things that no one bought, like Jell-O for salads, toaster bacon, and blue French fries. (All real products that tested well with consumers, but tanked horribly when they made it into retail stores.)

Last week, I looked at how the sales environment is changing due to the effects of market disruption.

In this new sales environment, you can forget about unique selling propositions. What you need to find is your commercial value proposition; the connection between what you know and can do, and what makes commercial sense for your customers to buy.

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.

Why the way we sell is changing – then, now and next

The way we sell is shaped by the way people buy, which is aligned to the prevailing economic and social environment of the time. We’ve already moved on from a time where the most experienced supplier would always win, to a time when the most cost-effective was generally the winner. Now that buyers are grappling with the effects of disruption on their operating environment, the game has changed again – and it’s the supplier who can make the greatest value contribution that will achieve the most success.

The following chart describes this evolution, showing that the way we sell eventually adapts to keep up with changes in the buying environment.

Chart: The evolution of sales organisations

In the past, when the buying environment was simply competitive, the most experienced supplier would usually win. We mostly sold on our credentials, and our biggest sales problem was convincing the buyer that we had what it took to do the job. This was the “no one ever got fired for buying IBM” era.

You know you’re in a competitive environment when:

1. Customers demand a lot – they have a very high list of hurdle requirements that you need to meet, which helps them to weed out “less qualified” suppliers.
2. You often lose to larger or better-resourced competitors.
3. The most successful people in your industry are those with an impressive track record of similar work.

Then, the buying environment became commoditised. Challenging economic times fuelled demand for buying practices that would bring costs down, like category management and competitive tendering. As a result, the most cost-effective supplier would usually win.

You know you’re in a commoditised environment when:

1. Customers buy through competitive tenders and online reverse auctions; constantly ask for discounts and ‘best and final’ offers; and the price goes down every time a contract goes back to market.
2. You often lose on price – and often by a wide margin.
3. The most successful people in your industry are those with a very low cost business model, or who are prepared to sacrifice margins to get the business.

Now, the buying environment is changing again, but in the most significant way of all – business and government are being disrupted. In 2015, consulting firm PwC undertook a study of thousands of CEOs to find out what kept them up at night. 52% said their greatest fear was “being Uber-ised” – disrupted by someone from outside their industry that they simply didn’t see coming. Disrupted environments bring a lot of problems that buyers need your help with.

You know you’re in a disrupted environment when:

1. Customers ask for reform, innovation, or new ideas.
2. You often lose to a competitor who is proposing something dramatically different to what the customer initially asked for.
3. The most successful people in your industry are those who can break the mold of the way things are traditionally done, and deliver dramatically better results.

While each new buying environment keeps some elements of what came before – you’ll always need a strategy for credentials and price – disruption is a major opportunity for suppliers who seize the day early.

So what are you doing to codify (and explain to customers) the inherent value in what you already do and offer? How are you engaging your team in the work of customer value creation? What are your plans to “disrupt yourself” before someone else does?

Think about these questions, but don’t think too long. Start moving. In a disrupted environment, the future will belong to those who act – quickly.

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 to win despite tough competition

Winning business is a case of ready-aim-fire. Most of us spend way too much of our time on the “aim and fire” part – targeting customers, and firing off presentations and proposals. What we don’t do enough of is readiness; making the connection between what we know and can do, and what makes commercial sense for customers to buy. This leaves us woefully underprepared for the mental, emotional and physical challenges that come with tough competition.

Over the last fortnight, the sights, sounds and spectacular performances of the Rio Olympic Games have captivated the world. One of the biggest stories of the Games has been the success of American swimmer Michael Phelps.

At 31, Phelps is the most-decorated Olympian of all time, and the most outstanding swimmer the world has ever seen. This week, he announced his retirement from swimming after a career that spans five Olympic games and 23 gold medals, five of them won in Rio.

This image from the Rio Olympics perfectly captures the essence of success. While Phelps is focused on winning his race, the closest competitor has his eye on Phelps instead. On social media, it was captioned “Winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners.”

In an elite field of almost-equals, it is mental and emotional preparation, as much as physical conditioning, that separates those who win from those who come in second.

At the Olympics, swimmers who compete against a phenomenon like Michael Phelps at least have the consolation of a silver or bronze medal as a reward for their sacrifice and hard work. 

In business, we don’t have this luxury.

Looking over your shoulder at what competitors are doing – even (and perhaps especially) when they are winning – is not helpful. It will throw you off your game and send you into a spiral of comparison where, inevitably, you will come out in second place.

Instead, run your own race. Focus on making the connection between what you know and can do, and what makes commercial sense for your customers to buy.

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.

What Heston Blumenthal can teach us about creating an experience that sells

In any transaction between buyers and sellers, it’s the buyer who holds the purse strings. But this doesn’t give them ultimate power. Yes, buyers can choose, but not always from among alike things that will give them the same result. Because of this, sellers who have something unique and valuable that others need or want have a lot of power too.

We saw an example recently when restaurateur and celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal transplanted his celebrated Fat Duck restaurant to Melbourne during the shutdown and refurbishment of the original in Bray, England.

The $525-a-head tickets for Fat Duck Melbourne were sold by public ballot.

$525 is a lot of money and, given that there were 14,000 tickets on offer, you’d think that meeting this target would be kind of a stretch. But in fact, the opposite was true.

Fat Duck Melbourne received 89,179 entries worldwide in the online ballot. Based on an average booking of three people per table, that equates to a staggering 267,537 people who couldn’t wait to part with at least $525 a head - and with paired wines, nearer to $900 a head - to get a piece of the action.

At the time, the sought-after ballot was likened to the “golden ticket” to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, a fitting comparison for a man who is known for his fantastical food creations, including snail porridge, bacon & egg ice-cream, mock turtle soup and Meat Fruit. 

Dining at The Fat Duck is an experience you can’t get anywhere else – and to a lot of Melbourne locals, the cost compared pretty favourably to the alternative (a trip to England).

Restaurateurs are in the business of theatre, and Blumenthal understands this well. It’s his job to create an experience, not just a plateful of food.

This is useful thinking to apply to your business and what you offer.

For example, what would be considered your ‘signature dish’? How do you go about revealing this offering to customers? What is part of the experience of working with you, that your customers can’t get anywhere else? How do you talk about this to customers? And even more importantly, how do they talk about it to each other?

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.

Sell insight, not information

Back when sellers had a greater influence over what people bought, it was often because we controlled the information that was made available about our products and services. This meant that anybody who wanted that information had to come to us, which gave us a lot of power.

But buyers, understandably, didn’t like this so much. They thought it made us lazy and greedy.

So they invented procurement and professional buying, including the discipline of competitive tendering. Since the 1980s competitive tendering has been growing quickly. In the 2014-15 financial year, one of Australia’s largest buyers – the Australian government — spent $59.447 billion on buying goods and services through its online competitive tendering system, Austender, and issued 69,236 supplier contracts.

At the same time, the internet - and social media in particular - changed the way buyers could access information. Now, it’s very easy for buyers to find their own information, and to seek information from other buyers (or customers).         

What does that mean for sellers and suppliers?

We've gone from a time where we had a lot of power, to one where we it doesn’t feel like we have much power at all.

As sellers, when we held all the information, we had more power. Now we don’t, and most of us don’t know how to reassert our value. Within your team, this shows up as frustration and disappointment:

• Why don't customers understand how important this is?
• Why don't they ‘get’ us?
• Why do they insist on buying from that guy, who we know is not as good as us?
• Why do they insist on doing something that isn’t going to get them the great result we know we could get?
• Why won’t they listen?
• Don’t they care?

Actually, customers do care - but they don't care about us. Or our technical solution. Or our years of experience and impressive qualifications. At least, not specifically.

They care about one thing - themselves - and getting the results that they need to get.

Information is no longer a valuable currency in business-to-business sales. We need to turn our information into insight – making the connection between what we know and can do, and what makes commercial sense for customers to buy.

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.

Risky business: the mindset mismatch that is costing you work

When I talk to people about a contract that is up for tender, a project they’d like to do, or a piece of new business they would love to win, there are several things that they usually tell me.

The first is that this venture has their name written all over it; that they are the ideal people for the job. They’ve got the credentials, the methodology, the people, and the skills to get the job done.

Something else I hear a lot is that the opportunity is an “ideal fit” for their vision, mission or strategic plan – or it just fits their image of where they’d like to be in future.

Another thing that people often say is that they would love to have the chance to do this kind of project, or to work with that customer; that it would look great on their CV or would help them attract other, similar business.

Interestingly, the pragmatic arguments – that there is significant money to be made, or a chance to beat competitors – often come well behind, or aren’t mentioned at all.

What this says to me is that, first and foremost, most of us want to do interesting work and to make a difference.  We tend to approach a pitch with an “opportunity” mindset.

On the other hand, when looking at the same contract, project or tender, prospective customers have a completely different set of thoughts going through their mind:

·      This is a really important project. It needs to go well.

·      If it doesn't go well, it's my job or my reputation on the line.

·      There's a whole bunch of things I want done, but I don't know if those things are really possible, and I don't know if I trust you to do them for me or not.

·      I'd love to make an impact with this project and have it be a huge success, but I'm more worried that it won't be.

·      I need this, but I don't want to pay too much for it.

·      I don't want to get ripped off by someone who knows more about how this works than I do.

The contrast is a stark one. While we pitch for new business with an opportunity mindset, the customer is almost always thinking about what could go wrong.

When you first begin a pursuit or a proposal, think about risk and its implications for the customer.

The real opportunity is to ask “why not”, instead of just “why”.

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.

Clarity: the key to selling professional and technical services

Professional and technical services are, by definition, complex and time-consuming to execute. That’s why the customer needs us.

Unfortunately, this also makes them complex and time-consuming to explain, which means we feel under constant pressure to get straight into unpacking our methodology and implementation plan – what and how. This often comes at the expense of explaining the problem we’re solving (why), which from the customer’s perspective is the only reason why they would even consider buying from us.

According to Daniel Pink, author of To Sell is Human, the qualities of Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity (A-B-C) are what’s needed to be effective in today’s world of sales, where buyers and sellers are evenly matched on information. This makes pretty good sense.

In terms of how we put these principles in practice, though, we actually want to think in terms of C-A-B:

1.     Clarity means knowing what you are really selling, understanding the value it creates for a customer, and being able to articulate why they should buy it. Clarity comes from focusing squarely on value (why) rather than methodology (what and how). Clarity needs comes first, because without clarity nothing else really matters.

2.     Attunement means being able to understand what buyers want. Most popular sales and marketing books are about attunement, because figuring out what buyers want is what most people associate with success. However, “wants” are only part of the value puzzle. As an expert selling a complex service, and who wants to deliver great work as a result, attunement needs to go both ways – not only to what buyers want, but also to what they really need.

3.     Buoyancy means being able to overcome rejection, so you can keep going until you get a result. Many selling skills methodologies focus on buoyancy (resilience) because it is what veteran salespeople understand is the key to longevity. By selling value, though, we will experience less rejection, and thankfully also need to rely less on being able to rebound like a human punching bag.

A good reason to start with Clarity is that it’s the only one of these three attributes where we can exert total control.

Attunement and Buoyancy both require that we develop strategies to respond to factors external to ourselves, which is much more challenging, and pretty much impossible when we don’t have Clarity.

Clarity starts with examining what you really do, the results that you’re creating, and what is truly remarkable about your work.

That understanding - that clarity - is the key to winning the business you want, at the margins you want, and making the difference you alone can make.

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.

Three reasons why incumbents are more at risk than they think

I have a confession to make – I’m tragically addicted to politics. Elections are my kind of competition. Some people live for the AFL Grand Final. Others obsess over Eurovision or MasterChef. Me, I’m an election groupie.

Every three years, when the Federal election rolls around, I stalk proudly through the gaggle of political party volunteers at the local polling booth – accepting one or two how-to-vote leaflets and loudly refusing others – to place my very important vote.

As soon as the vote count starts, I settle in with snacks for a nice long stretch of channel surfing, shouting at the commentators and throwing things at the TV when the count doesn’t go my way. I love the process, but what I’m really hanging out for is the end result, and the leaders’ concession and victory speeches. 

This year, I stayed up for a very long time. Maybe you did too. And wasn’t it frustrating? We didn’t get a victory speech that night, or even the next morning. We were left hanging for a week before we knew the likely outcome of the election – the government returned to office by the narrowest of margins.

We were told the election would be close, but not so close that it would eventually come down to week’s worth of postal votes.

What happened?

Incumbents are more vulnerable than they think. This is true whether you’re a political party or a contractor selling commercial goods and services.

Here are three things that every incumbent can learn from the very close result of the Australian Federal election – a result that could easily have gone another way.

1. Incumbents are always vulnerable to a protest vote. The customer, in this case the electorate, had already seen what this government could do and many of them weren’t happy about it. With only a single term under their belts, we also still remember the alternative, and it seems we weren't happy with them either, resulting in a large rise in votes for Independents and for the Greens. By Monday, with 80% of the vote counted, nearly a quarter of Australians had given their votes to an independent or minor party, with the Coalition registering a primary vote of only 42.1 percent - its fourth lowest result for the past 60 years.
2.  An incumbent’s team listens only to the good news, and blocks out everything else. In this election, it has been suggested that the Coalition was so enamoured of its own internal polling – which optimistically predicted that the party would be returned to government by a large margin - that it even convinced the majority of the media this was a foregone conclusion. The result was much closer than the Coalition’s polling anticipated, and the fallout and recriminations have been difficult for its leadership to handle.

1. An incumbent's program of work and track record are visible and open to scrutiny. Like it or not, this makes it very easy for an opponent to find the patterns, holes and gaps and to mount an effective attack, as Labor did with the Medicare, or “Mediscare”, campaign.

What can we learn from these results?

• The time to start campaigning again to win an election is the day you form a government.
• The time to start campaigning to retain a customer is the day you sign the contract.

Incumbents ignore this, and believe their own hype, at their peril.

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.