What you need to know to win depends on what you offer
What you offer determines what you have to find out in order to win
Summary
- You need information to determine how to properly position your offering.
- The information you need depends on the nature of your offering. To discover what it will take to win, your process should target the correct information to position your offering.
- What you need to know to offer a unique solution and win against all competitors is different from what you need to know to offer a commodity and win against all competitors.
- Which matters more, price or value? This largely depends on what the customer is buying.
- The items in the middle can lean toward the corners and be positioned very differently. For example, how you should differentiate a product is different from how to differentiate your services. Both are different when your offering leans towards being a commodity vs being a unique solution.
- Since winning depends on anticipating what matters to the customer, your process should be designed to discover that.
- How you discover what it will take to win depends on what you offer
The information you need to discover in order to win depends on what you offer
If you sell products, your offering consists largely of matching your products to customer needs and dealing with any gaps. But if you sell services, your offering consists of tailoring your approaches to match the customer's needs, while making you have the staffing resources to cover the level of effort required. Both of these require very different information, not only to know what to offer, but also to know how to position it in order to win. The information you need will also be different if you are selling your products or services as a commodity or as a unique solution.
How the customer will make their decision depends on what they are buying
Will the customer buy on price or value? Should you offer quality or quantity? Is capability more important than experience? You will need to anticipate and answer questions like these in order to write a winning proposal. But what questions should you ask? What information should you attempt to gather?
Your process should guide people to collect the right information. But how do you know what guidance to build into your process? A good place to start is by assessing the nature of what you offer. You will need to know:
- What information will the customer need to make their decision?
- What matters to the customer that might impact their decision?
- What information will you need in order to calculate the estimates for what you intend to offer?
- What topics and details are you going to need to address in your proposal?
You can use this model to help anticipate what you will need to know and gather it in a way that supports addressing what matters to the customer.
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