Ten tips for winning tenders Stavanger, 2 February 2010

Jon Williams PPF.APMP

Managing Director

Strategic Proposals

© Strategic Proposals 2010

From common proposal challenges…

How can we improve our win rates?

I hate writing

proposals!

Late nights, cold pizza!

Did we really say that in our

tender?

Is our bid always the

best...?

… to strategic proposal excellence

Creative

Compelling

First-class Persuasive

WINNING!

Professional

Customer- centric

Effective

Our expertise

Benchmarking

Live proposal

support &

interim staff

Training and

accreditation

Pre-written

content

Process &

organisation

development

Getting connected

Working internationally, across all sectors

“I'd like to thank Strategic Proposals for

helping us to develop so rapidly and

successfully.

Their strategic guidance has been

invaluable, allowing us to embed best

practice from the outset and avoid many a

pitfall on the way.“

David Skinn

Head of Bids & Proposals

Aviva

Scene setting

Buyers’ views of proposals

Research survey presented 20 January 2010

“The primary means primary means primary means primary means by which information is communicated between the buying and selling organisations” Director of procurement, Director of procurement, Director of procurement, Director of procurement,

construction sectorconstruction sectorconstruction sectorconstruction sector

(One) critical component of the sales process

“Critical”

“Critically important”

“Very important”

“Increasingly”

“Extremely important”

“Very important”

“Very important”

“V important”

“Very”

“Crucially important”

Are proposals important?

“We evaluate

tenders solely on

the written

response”

Head of procurement, public sector

Proposals: crucial in some markets…

“A way to cut

down the number

of potential

suppliers to a few

that can then be

assessed in

detail” Director, purchasing

consultancy

Narrowing down the field

“A good written

proposal might

not, in itself, win

you the business

but a badly

conceived and

badly writtenbadly writtenbadly writtenbadly written one

may put you out of out of out of out of

the racethe racethe racethe race”

Director of procurement,

construction sector

Contribute to the win… ensure that you lose?

“Huge variation… some are articulate, really have got under my skin, are really convincing – whereas others look mechanical, dull, pre-written and could have

been meant for anyone.”

Procurement director, financial services

How good are proposals?

are so bad they have just copied their sales blurb

Head of IT Procurement, retail sector

5%

do not actually answer the questions posed, and try and shoehorn a ready made answer to almost any question

have answered the questions without the hard sell, but have woven into the bid reasons why you want to do business with that organisation

At least

15%

The best

The ugly, the bad – and the (few) very good

“They vary from

excellent (rare) to

awful (quite common).

But most of them are

mediocre.” Chief purchasing officer,

telecoms sector

Excellence is rare: an opportunity?

Development & benchmarking framework

Centre of Excellence –

professional staff leading

proposal & presentation effort

Focus: superbly articulate a

compelling story

End-to-end, strategic process

High quality output

No proposal support

Focus: “Get them a

document”

Inconsistent output

Salespeople tied to

office

Back-office ‘factory’

Reactive to RFP

Focus: a complete,

compliant document

Chase everything

Low quality output

AD-HOC TACTICAL STRATEGIC

Maximise win rates

Optimise costs

Reduce risk

Tip 1 Chase the right deals

Qualify!

Is it real?

Do we want it?

Can we win

it?

Can we do

it?

Tip 2 Prepare for success

A robust pre-proposal planning

process, or…?

Tip 3 Tell a story

A great proposal

superbly articulates

a compelling story.

‘Why us, why not them?’

Competition Capability

Customer

Strategy

Tip 4 Write professionally & persuasively

Tip 5 Make life easy for evaluators

Structure

Layout

Graphics

Packaging

Formats

Tip 6 Review proposals professionally

“

”

The scariest moment of our bid? When the customer told us we’d won!

Tip 7 Hire & empower proposal professionals

Tenders?

Too important to be left to the salesperson!

Tip 8 Train all of those involved

“All of those

involved in

proposal

development must

have the

necessary skills”

BJ Lownie

Tip 9 Equip the team with the right tools

Tip 10 Learn and improve

Client debriefs

Internal learning

Client audits

Benchmarking

Where could you improve?

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

Qualification Pre-proposal

planning Strategy Writing

Design & submission

Reviews Proposal

team Training Tools Learning

Delivering tangible benefits “Win more, win more easily”

Initial customer win rate Win rate after Strategic Proposals intervention

As the great philosophers once said…

“The greater danger is not that our goals are too high and we miss them, but that we aim too low and reach them.”

Michelangelo

“If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.”

Bill Shankly

“Common sense isn’t all that common”

Voltaire

Questions now? And we’d love to talk further after the event!

Jon Williams

+44 (0)781 333 2294

jw@strategicproposals.com