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Companies have different issues that impact what is the best approach for achieving proposal quality. For example, if you only have a few people capable of performing quality reviews and you use them on every proposal, the best approach will be different from an organization where the participants on the reviews are different for every proposal. Here are some other considerations: The level of training and expertise in available reviewers. Untrained reviewers, even if experienced, may n

Circumstance What are you going to offer to beat your competition? Sometimes the RFP forces you to bid the exact same thing as everyone else. Or so it seems. The customer wants to be able to compare apples to apples when they have to make a selection. However, you need to stand out from the other bidders in order to get selected. Approaches So what should you bid? It seems that you only have two choices: Offer the same thing as your competitors or offer something different. But is t

Most companies consider a proposal review to be reading a draft document. This is the least effective of proposal reviews and makes the smallest contribution to proposal quality and winning. Yet people cling to it. I blame the obsolete color team model for getting in the way of proposals using the same quality assurance methodologies that have improved so many other things people do. This is especially true when the color team model degrades down to a single “red team” review.   Most compan

Uncertainty works against creating a winning culture because it breeds trust issues. But the solution is counter-intuitive. To fix the trust issues related to uncertainty, you should build a proposal process that does not trust anyone ever. You need to eliminate the need for trust. When your process functions without trust, then trust will flourish. I told you it's counter-intuitive.   It's not that your people aren't trustworthy. Or that they are fallible. But they have multiple competing p

It can be difficult to find the right person to talk to at big Government Agencies and companies. That’s a major reason why people don’t do pre-RFP pursuit. It’s also why many companies are in perpetual sales mode, with no real inbound marketing.  Before you can influence the RFP or gain pre-RFP customer insight, you have to make contact with the right people at the customer. Here are some ways to do that: Past contracts. Sometimes the best source of data about future purchases starts

Strategic plans are vital. But they can’t be the kind of strategic plans that sit on a shelf. Instead, your strategic plan should help your staff by telling them what they need to know to successfully identify leads, pursue them, and grow your business. Your strategic plan should be a tool that explains: What kind of capabilities and offerings to develop Who their target customers are Where to target marketing and build relationships When, where, and how teaming rel

Improving your win rate has the potential to double your revenue from the exact same number of leads. But improving your win rate is easier said than done. Most of the things that will have the greatest impact occur before you even start the proposal. Here are 14 ways to get into position to win so that you can increase your win rate: Gain an information advantage. Everyone has the same RFP. The more you know about what matters to the customer and about the opportunity and competitive en

In our continuing series on how to do proposals The Wrong Way, we’ve seen the power that comes from doing the opposite of what the best practices say you should do. In the webinar we did last week on the topic, we showed 20 different techniques for doing proposals The Wrong Way. These techniques are for dealing with adverse circumstances where the best practices don’t apply. Use them inappropriately and they can cause you to lose. But if you have no choice and may otherwise be unable to submit a

Circumstance If your goal is to provide reasons for the customer to select you (what themes are supposed to provide), then maybe you should think less about your strengths and what you offer,  and think more about what matters to the customer... Approaches What is the nature of your offering? Is a commodity (whether a product or a service? Or is it a unique or specialty offering, like a customized product, professional service, or solution/integration? What will the type

How do you know when it's time to take on the sacred cows, break old habits, and go through the effort required to change how everyone at your company reviews proposals? 10 signs that it’s time to reengineer your approach to reviewing proposals Ask yourself if you see your company in any of the following, because you can't maximize your win rate if: You don’t have a written definition of what proposal quality is Your proposal process consists of writi

The habits that companies need to develop are different from the personal habits that people develop. Companies focus on things like policies and procedures, but habits usually don’t make the list. As a result, the habits they develop are usually the bad kind — the ones you fall into in the absence of having good habits. So we thought we’d take a look at what the good habits should be. The habits that a company needs relate to the things they need to do and achieve, but are different from t

Does your proposal even have a point? Is it a meandering response to what was in the RFP, shifting from requirement to requirement, with the only point being that you'll do whatever they want? Is the point how great your company is? Does it scream “Pick me! Pick me!” If it does have a point, is it the same point other companies bidding will make? For example, is the point that your company has experience or that you can do the work? If your proposal doesn’t have a point, then what exactly

If your company matters to the customer receiving your proposal, it’s because the results of what you offer matter to them. To win the proposal, what you propose must matter more than any other alternative available to them, and this can include doing nothing. None of the things you say in your proposal will make a difference if the customer doesn’t think what you’ve said matters to them. We’ve all experienced this... When a salesperson approaches you and says “I know all about you and

Ordinary proposal writing is about the steps in the nearly mechanical process of responding to an RFP. Ordinary proposal writing is about trying to win more points in evaluation and have the lowest price while competing against others who are doing the same thing. Ordinary proposal writing comes down to competing on price while telling yourself that you’re competing on points. Ordinary proposal writing results in companies whose strategies are based on what they happened to win in the past.

I’m sitting here working on a proposal and I just realized that the way I was first taught how to write an Executive Summary is backwards. When I first started writing proposals it was considered innovative to have a box or section titled “Why Us” at the end of your Executive Summary. It was intended to itemize and spell out the reasons why the customer should accept your proposal. But as I’m writing today I realize that it shouldn’t go at the end. It should go at the beginning. The ve

Companies misdiagnose their problems all the time. They often see a problem, they try to fix it, and end up struggling because they don't realize they are treating a symptom and not the underlying cause. Sometimes the real cause goes all the way back to their approach, or lack thereof, to strategic planning. It's easy to get caught up in the daily routine of doing what seems to make sense in the moment, following along with what you think should be done and what you see other people doing.

Are most of your interactions with potential customers these days in writing? Relationship marketing is about providing support and building trust. This is still true when your relationship is conducted by writing. When communicating with potential customers in writing, are you giving them value or just asking for things? What can you give in writing that helps a potential customer? They don’t even have to cost a thing to give, but can still have value to the customer. How about:

Developing customer relationships and growing customer intimacy is time consuming, and that makes it expensive. Many companies fall into the trap of believing they can’t afford to develop relationships with all their potential future customers. They trick themselves into thinking that if they can land a contract with a new customer, then they can develop a relationship with them. What they don’t realize is that by doing this they doom themselves to low win rates, low margins, and shallow custome

As companies grow, they go from figuring out how to close their sales as they go along to putting it in writing, to putting in writing in a more reliable way. They reach a point where their proposals are getting more and more complicated, the volume is increasing, and the value of the proposals is not only larger but more critical to the company. However, because they remain entrepreneurial they don't feel ready to slow down and focus on structure. Consider the following company as an examp

If you write a bad proposal introduction, you’ll probably also have a poorly written proposal. Unfortunately most of the proposal introductions I review are in bad shape. They don’t reflect the customer’s perspective or say anything that matters to the customer. Proposals often make common mistakes like saying the company is “pleased to submit” the proposal, stating universal truths, or making (often grandiose) unsubstantiated claims. Or they introduce the company submitting the proposal an