Illuminating Insights: Do you know why you really lost that bid?

YOU, the experienced sales/business development (BD) professionals know what it takes to win but we may still find that we occasionally lose our seat at our client’s table. Now, think about a recent competitive bid that you lost that you REALLY wanted or needed to win. Think about the proposal you submitted and answer these questions:

• What criteria did your client use to select the ‘winning’ bid? 
• Of all the proposals that were submitted for that bid, why didn’t your proposal convince them that YOU offered the right/best solution to address their problem/opportunity given their selection criteria? 

If we don’t persuade the client that we offer the right/best solution and don’t differentiate the value we bring and offer to our clients, they did not make a bad decision by not selecting our proposed solution. It was our responsibility to help them see our superior value (persuade them to select us) and we did not do that. 

Your clients want the highest “value” solution

Remember that our potential clients invite us to bid on opportunities to help them find the highest “value” solutions to their problems or opportunities. We often think that it is all about us and what we can do for the client and what we think the client should do and what we think is best for the client, etc. In fact, we often ‘disagree’ with the client’s ultimate selection or solution approach and can’t understand why they selected another vendor/partner. Their selection criteria is just that, theirs! Theirs to define and theirs to use to select. It is our job to learn it, understand it, and make sure that our proposal speaks to it in a persuasive, compelling way...from the client’s point of view, not our own.

Time-Out!

Does this sound like you are being put in a time-out? 😄 Well, it is intended to, to a certain extent. We want to encourage you to take a time-out to be objective and reflect on your losses. Be honest with yourself and identify what you didn’t know or didn’t verify then do something about it for all new opportunities.

In our experience coaching sales and business development professionals to ‘win’ multimillion dollar competitive bids, we have observed that the reasons they lose can be found in the answers to the two questions presented above. After a loss, the sales/BD professionals can sometimes answer the questions partially, but rarely completely. And their loss can always be objectively attributed to what they did not know. To win more often and increase the value of your wins, you need to learn how and where to find the truthful, fact-based answers to those questions. 

But did YOU convince them that you offer the highest “value” solution?

The only way we can persuade our clients that we are providing the best, most client-relevant, highest value solution is to know how they define each of those! Best…most client-relevant…highest value. Where do we find the client’s definitions? In their selection criteria. Are there ways to determine the client’s selection criteria beyond simply asking them (which, by the way, is where we should start!)? Yes. Does it take skill and patience? Yes. Can P31 coach you and your teams how? Yes! We’ve helped corporations across the globe win larger engagements, win more often and through it all, bring solutions and partnerships that are highly valued by their clients. 

Answer this...

For each proposal/RFP response you submit, answer: What is my ‘win strategy’? We are curious - What gets in the way of you answering this question before you write your proposal? Let us know via LinkedIn, Twitter or email!

Tish Baldez (tish@p31-consulting.com) & Wendy Ellis Green (wendy@p31-consulting.com)

P31 Consulting is a group of internationally-based professional facilitators who are masters at helping people think better and guiding groups to excel through people development and business coaching. We design and facilitate training, professional development programs and working sessions that include onboarding, management/leadership strategic planning working sessions and global/ national/ POA meeting workshops for management consultancies and life sciences companies. Contact us to learn how we can help you.

©P31 Consulting, LLC