The tale of two bids

(Yes, this is a real photo of me at 22)

I remember a long, long time ago, when I was a sprightly twenty-two year old, I had a lot on my plate.

It was my first time in a business-to-business role, and I was working on a bid for a very important client.

The bid was for a customer who was building a new hotel and in the market for television screens. They had purchased their cabinets, which were large and bulky for the old box TVs. At the time we were selling the brand new and highly innovative plasma flat screens.

Working with a bid manager who walked me through writing down the requirements, wants, needs and desires of both the customer and their decision makers. We dug deeper into the why. Then studied their competitors.

In other words, we developed the strategy.

Our strategy brought to light the fact that we needed to create a visual of how they could optimise their leftover space on their TV cabinet. Showing them that our screens would fit in the gap provided and leave room for other shiny objects.

This was a tailored bid, directly to the people we had written it for.

In comparison, the second bid sat on my desk for a week before even being opened. In those days, we had email, but not for something as important as a bid.

When I opened it, I just sat there for a while and wept inside. It was to be my debut performance in the classic tale of two bids.

I admit, I did a hospital pass to our bid management team. A lovely lady responded to the second bid on my behalf.

No input from me. No customer insights, no kernels of wisdom when it came to what the customer was actually asking for.

The problem with this approach is that the bid did not speak to the customer.

The only way to have a bid speak to that customer is to know them, their wants, and needs. Then to deliver it throughout the presales, sales and in life.

I knew them. The poor lady who I saddled with this bid did not.

Lucky for us we did not handle our initial bid this way for that very important client.

It is courageous of proposal teams to take on bids without knowing the customer. But without getting real information from the people who know it our chances of winning the deal are close to zero.

I had been to the demo site of my very important customer. I had seen the cabinets, registered that they would be a problem. Together we did something about it, and together we celebrated winning the bid.

If it had been the second bid that came through the door rather than the first, I doubt it would have received the same type of treatment.

Take it from someone who remembers business being run on snail mail. Personal knowledge is something that can never be overlooked and is indispensable to a winning proposal. Without a coherent, customer-focused strategy, your chances of writing a winning proposal are substantially reduced.

In developing a strategy, there is no substitute for gathering information about the customer and your competition including the following:

• who the key decision makers and influencers at the client are, those who will be involved in evaluating this tender
• the issues that affect and influence these individuals
• any preconceptions that the customer has about your company, and about your major competitors.

The Customer Relationship Value Planner is a tool can help you to produce a really compelling, customer focused bid response by asking these questions in a structured way.

This planner forces you to know your customer inside and out.  Focusing not only on the client themselves, but also your client's: 

• Customer base
• Competition
• Industry environment

Deals are won and lost in the capture phase of the bid, so don't underestimate the power of your client interactions. Take the time to learn their needs, wants, desires and fears. If you can successfully apply your customer knowledge to your proposal it'll not only make it that much better than your competition's, but also bring you one step closer to securing the win.