How To Win More Business
By Michel Theriault
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Podcast Description
Listen to tips and techniques from the book "Win More Business ... Write Better Proposals". Learn how to write clear, concise and compelling proposals that differentiate you from your competition and convince your client. Benefit from Michel Theriault's experience writing winning proposals and working for clients to develop RFP and RFQ's as well as training evaluators and evaluating proposal responses. Each podcast will be 5 minutes or less and give you at least one thing you can do to improve your proposals and sell your services, whether you are a service provider, supplier, consultant, contractor or business owner. visit www.howtowinmorebusiness.com.
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CleanWWP#34 : Developing your Proposal Response Strategy – Messages and Questions | This is a continuation of the previous podcasts on developing a strategy. In this podcast, I’m focusing on Messages and Questions you should ask yourself. Messages Your proposal response strategy should include key messages that gain support from reviewers, points in the evaluation, and win the proposal. These messages are not the same as themes, although themes should also be delivering a message. While the theme is something you can reuse throughout the entire proposal response, a message is often a specific, important item that addresses the requirements. Messages are dealt with in specific sections or as answers to specific questions. Messages present or position your company's offerings. They are also different from hot buttons, which are typically high profile items that have a big impact on the client. Messages may include things the client doesn't even realize are important, but most often they’re geared to the evaluation scoring and your competitive advantages. These messages may include the following: The level of skills and experience of your staff. How you bring improvement to clients. The benefits of your product or service. How a transition to your company will be seamless. Your advantages over the competition. Your knowledge and understanding of the client’s requirements. Your success in achieving the performance requirements or service levels the client is expecting. These are only examples, of course. You develop your messages during the planning and strategy session based on the client’s needs and your solution. During this process, you identify things that matter to the client. Develop these into a consistent yet concise message that is crafted to get the attention of the evaluators and get the most evaluation points. Key attributes of your message should be: Impact Relevance Support for your proposal Each of your messages has to be supported with facts and information and cannot just be presented as typical marketing and sales language. Some of the techniques are discussed in in previous podcasts. Asking Yourself Questions Part of a successful strategy, in addition to the items already discussed, is asking yourself questions about the client and the proposal. Yes, asking yourself questions is a common theme in some of my podcasts and here is another application. Why is this important? Because it ensures you have the answers you need and don’t simply assume. Asking questions is always an easy way to gather information, since the questions force you to examine issues and information. The answers will guide you in your strategy and, most importantly, in determining what details and information to include in the proposal response. Don’t just ask one set of questions, however. After the first answer, ask more questions until you have good, quality information you can use in the proposal. At the least, you will know what answers you still don’t have and need to investigate. Some of the questions you should ask include the following: Why are they issuing an RFP now? Who will be reviewing? What is the selection process? What do they need? Who is doing the work now? Do they want change? How are they organized? Who will manage the contract? Who are their clients/customers? What is their core business? Depending on the proposal and your situation, there may be additional questions you should be asking. Once you’ve answered this first set of questions, ask more questions about the answer. For instance, after answering “Who will be reviewing?” you should ask “What are their interests?” Once you answer that, you should ask yourself “How can I incorporate that into the response?” | 11/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#33 : Developing your Proposal Response Strategy – Wants, Themes & Hot Buttons | This is a continuation of the previous podcasts on developing a strategy. In this podcast, I’m focusing on Themes, Hot Buttons and what the Client really wants. Developing a strategy for your response is one of the most important things you'll do. ... | 7/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#32 : Winning Proposals is about more than just the price and the writing – You need a strategy | In my seminars and workshops, I always stress strategy as the most important element of a proposal. While there are many things that matter, a strategy can strengthen everything else. Instead of worrying about the weak link in your proposal, strengthen all the links. Successfully responding to a proposal is about more than just writing material. A common error is to simply start writing based on the response requirements of the RFP. You need a real strategy to be successful, a strategy based on many factors, not just what is written in the RFP or based on informal discussions.Letting your subject matter experts, or even worse, professional writers or marketing staff, simply put words on paper without a strategy to guide them, is a recipe for failure. Before anybody starts writing, you need to establish a strategic approach to the proposal response. This will include the key messages that you want to put forward. The strategy will be developed and the messages identified based on careful analysis and research. Whether you dig deeply or not, this approach to winning proposals will give you the advantage over your competition. A proposal is not a simple piece of writing. It must follow the client’s format and structure, answer specific questions, match evaluation criteria requirements, provide details so the client can understand your value and benefits, convince the client you’re better than your competition, and keep the evaluator’s attention, all at the same time. Your proposal requires thoughtful strategy with respect to the pricing and the written submission. Preparation of the overall proposal often involves a wide variety of contributors, yet the end result must appear cohesive. Writing a winning proposal requires the following elements: A strategy for winning. A plan for developing the proposal. A message that’s backed up with good content and evidence. A way to deliver the message that makes it easy to evaluate. As I say, “Communicating without a strategy is like throwing darts blindfolded, just less likely to hurt your audience.” So, proposal writing is not a tactical activity where you simply package information in response to an RFP. Writing a winning proposal is a strategic activity where the writing is a relatively small part of the successful proposal. The difference between being strategic or tactical is what differentiates a successful proposal from an unsuccessful one. Many organizations respond to proposals with a very mechanical process, which is often designed to minimize effort and work with the available resources, skills and experience. These proposals are a compilation of boilerplate material and cut-and-paste from various sources, and not enough attention is paid to the response. Successful proposals begin with a strategic approach to winning the business, and the proposal itself simply executes that strategy. In future podcasts, I'll discuss some specific elements of strategy that you need to develop before you start writing a proposal. Don't make the mistake of writing backwards - know your strategy first, then write, not the other way around. | 5/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#31 : What Makes A Losing Proposal? Part 2 | In this episode, which is part two of a 2 part series, I’m listing the last three of six key reasons your proposals may be losing. These are things I’ve seen done by companies in proposals I’ve helped evaluate for buyers or common problems I see when I start to help a company improve their bids. Why am I focusing on what loses proposals? It’s sometimes easier to see what you are doing wrong and fix them first before you start implementing other techniques. 4. Failure to respond to client needs Not responding to client requirements as they’re stated in the RFP, or as they appear based on your own research of the underlying requirements, is a sure recipe for failure. The client has asked for proposals specifically to address their needs. If you don't describe how your solution, expertise and experience will address the client’s needs, you have not met the basic requirement for the proposal. Here is an example of why a proposal by an otherwise well qualified company lost: Simply put, The proposal failed to respond to the client’s needs because it was too inward-looking, focusing more on the attributes of the supplier's company. It didn’t relate the supplier’s abilities to the client's needs. Instead, it included a typical boilerplate solution and material that was not customized to the client's specific situation. It was simply too generic. The lesson is that If you don't specifically address and discuss client needs, and how your solution dovetails into their requirements by mirroring back the client’s own language, expectations, terminology and problems you're solving, somebody else will. 5. Hard to understand, evaluate Many people write to impress rather than to communicate. They use long, complex sentences, and words that most of us have to look up in the dictionary. While this may work well in a thesis or scientific paper, it doesn't work in the business world, and it certainly doesn't work in proposals. The only reason to write a proposal is to communicate your ideas and your solutions so the client can tie them back to their own requirements and choose you over somebody else. Unless you make your ideas and solutions easy to see, evaluators will miss them. Evaluators have to review large amounts of text, remember what they read, and link that with a scoring system that helps them choose a supplier. If you make evaluators search for information, or skim over important information because the text is difficult to read, they won't be able to find the information they need to score you properly. 6. Inconsistent response Your proposal response will reflect on your organization. If you’re inconsistent in your answers or in how you represent your company, products, services or solutions, the client is likely to notice. In particular, if your proposal has different sections written by various internal staff or subcontractors, and these sections are inconsistent in terminology, approach, look and feel, then the client will see that you’re not providing a single cohesive service, and question your ability to integrate and manage various resources. In addition, if you provide information that conflicts with information in the proposal itself, or with other published information, such as your website or annual report, you risk having the client recognize the inconsistency and questioning your credibility. The proposal is an opportunity for you to demonstrate how easy it will be to work with you. Even if you have different subcontractors, suppliers and service providers as part of your team, or if various individuals write your proposal, you need to consolidate and edit the material to maintain a consistent, unified look and feel. So there are the second three things that help you lose proposals. Check out the previous podcast for the first three. By understanding what loses proposals, you are more likely to avoid these problems. | 4/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#30 : What Makes A Losing Proposal? Part 1 | In this episode, I'm listing the first three of six key reasons your proposals may be losing. The next episode will cover the second three reasons. These are things I’ve seen companies do in proposals I’ve helped evaluate for buyers or common problems I see when I start to help a company improve their bids. Why am I focusing on what loses proposals? It’s sometimes easier to see what you are doing wrong and fix them first before you start implementing other techniques. Too often, we focus so much on what wins proposals that we seldom try to understand why we lose them. Lessons from losses will always have more impact on future success than lessons from winning, so always spend some time thinking about what didn’t work, and do it differently in the next proposal. Here are the first three things that will help you lose business: 1.Show little understanding of the client's problem When you ignore what the client has told you either verbally or in the formal RFP documents, and you simply put forward a proposal and a solution that doesn't specifically and concretely address their needs and concerns, then you'll be relegated to the bottom of the pile and somebody else will win the proposal. The only reason the client is asking for a proposal is to solve a problem or address a need. You may think you understand the client’s problem and are solving their needs, but it's more important than that. You have to make it clear within your proposal that you understand the client’s needs and how you’re solving their problem. One way to do this is to mirror back the client’s problems and what they've said in the RFP, thereby acknowledging you’ve understood their problem and are addressing it. Don’t overdo this, since the client won’t appreciate whole paragraphs that look like they were lifted from the RFP documents. Keep it short, paraphrase the client, and position to acknowledge the client’s issues and present your solutions. 2. Superficial research It's obvious when a proposal response uses superficial or generic information as part of its solution and technical response. You need to demonstrate a unique solution that's better than your competitor’s, and is designed specifically for the client. This means including details that show you understand the client’s needs, and have done your research and gathered background information. What may appear to be unimportant information can help support your proposal. When the client reads it, your proposal will seem much more personal. This could include incorporating the proper name of the system the client currently uses, and using specific titles, names and other information to show you understand the client. Use key phrases and terminology that the client uses within annual reports, news releases and other documentation. Here’s an example of why good research matters: For a proposal that included a 1-800 number to receive requests for a specific service, research showed that the client already had their own internal process for receiving requests and it would still be used by the client. Knowing this enabled the bidder to integrate this information in the proposal text and in a flowchart, demonstrating that the bidder understood how the client was organized and could design a process to fit within their existing workflow. 3. Insufficient expertise or experience Not demonstrating the expertise and experience the client expects from you is a sure way to lose a proposal. Simply put, the client is looking for a solution to a problem. If you don't have the experience necessary to provide those solutions with little or no risk to the client, they’ll likely consider somebody else. The question is whether you actually lack experience and expertise, or are simply not able to demonstrate it. If you dig deeply within your organization and your company's past experience, you may find expertise within your existing resources, | 3/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#29 : What Skills Do You Need to Write A Winning Proposal? | In this episode, I’m covering some of the key skills required for a successful proposal. These aren’t all the skills needed and you don’t have to have them yourself, but they are the fundamental ones you must included in your team. Subject Matter Ex... | 1/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#28 : Traps to Avoid When Writing Your RFP Proposal Response | In this episode, I’m listing 15 real-life mistakes others have made writing their RFP proposals. This comes from proposals that I’ve personally reviewed, either for a buyer or as part of my proposal support to bidders and are all traps you should avoid. These are the things you should avoid: The proposal still has the term 'NTD' in the final submission. (The NTD means ‘Note to Draft’ and should be eliminated before finalizing the document.) The beginning of many responses takes up the first full line of text with the name of the bidding company and their partners, including acronyms. The following fluff was written in a proposal: "actively engage with Client’s vision to create a central organizational hub that allows Client to draw on its interdisciplinary strengths in order to pursue a client-centered philosophy within an improved and healthy physical setting." This phrase from a proposal is not action-oriented: "technology is the cornerstone of our service delivery". It should be written along the lines of: "We use technology to get results." And then give concrete examples. A bidder didn’t refer to the specification requirements anywhere in the answer. They could have described how they will do what they’re asked. Instead, they talked in general terms that were very generic and boilerplate. The word 'philosophy' was used too much in a proposal. For instance, instead of “Good Customer Service,” they used “Good Customer Service Philosophy.” A philosophy doesn’t automatically translate into results. A bidder used too much qualifying language, such as “… efforts to ensure that the requirements of the specifications are met.” It tells the evaluator that they will try their best, but they aren’t very confident in succeeding. In one proposal a bidder didn't seem to consider what might be important to the client – they simply pounded their chests about what they could do and how good they were. A large proposal described part of the service delivery in a way that didn't match with actual site conditions. It seemed as if they didn’t read the scope and simply used boilerplate material. One company used the name of their computer system in their description of process without first explaining it. They presumed the evaluators were familiar with the specific application. They weren’t, and had a hard time following the document. The full question, which had two parts, was not answered. The bidder did the right thing and repeated the question as a header, but it was only the first part of the question. They missed the second part of the question, possibly because the writer didn't have the full question in front of them. There were too many cross-references to other sections in one bid. Since sections were evaluated independently by different subject matter experts, and the document was actually split up, the cross-references made it much more difficult for the evaluators, even if they had bothered to follow the references. This phrase was used in a proposal: “innovative education and awareness programs proven successful for other clients could be leveraged for your requirements,” but it doesn't say anything. The evaluator would have to take it at face value, except that they don’t have facts and evidence to support the statement. Sometimes bidders say that their approach or solution is 'unique' in the industry, as one recent proposal response did, yet the evaluators knew for a fact that it wasn’t unique and had become common practice. This hurt the bidder’s credibility. Claiming 'unique expertise' when you’re clearly not the only one with that experience or expertise can look like an inflated claim and hurts your overall credibility. | 1/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#27 : Key Questions to Ask Yourself While You Write Your Proposal Response | In this episode, I’m switching from a focus on the client to focusing on you, with critical questions you need to ask yourself while you write your proposal. Very often, proposal writers are often so focused on the mechanics of responding to the proposal, assembling all the information, getting agreements and ensuring they’re compliant with the RFP, that they fail to ask the following key questions:Question # 1 : Does my proposal solve the client’s problem? Clients ask for proposals because they have a problem that needs to be solved. The problems may not be apparent, but at the root of every proposal there’s a problem that needs to be solved. You must think about the proposal in terms of the problem, and respond to it as a solution. You need to know what the problem is, yet the client may not position the RFP as a problem, or even see it in those terms. The proposal response is your opportunity to demonstrate how you can solve the client’s problem anyway. So always frame the RFP in terms of a problem and develop your response so that it describes the problem and provides your solution. If you’re certain about the problem being solved, you can state it up-front in the introduction. If you’re not certain about what the client sees as the problem, or it may be a sensitive issue, leave it silent and deal with the issue discretely within your proposal response. Question # 2: Have I differentiated myself from my competitors? RFPs are essentially a contest between you and your competition. Even if the process generally assesses each proposal separately on its own merits against a defined set of criteria, the comparisons between the separate proposals will always play a part in the evaluation – after all, evaluators are human. While it’s important to focus on the evaluation criteria and demonstrate that you meet or exceed it, you should write the proposal to encourage a favorable comparison with your competition. There are subtle ways to differentiate yourself from your competition. Your analysis about the client will identify issues that need to be addressed, and how to differentiate yourself by addressing those items. When trying to differentiate yourself from your competition, don't make it obvious. Say just enough to enable the client to figure it out, by using language that makes the client think about the differences, and connect the dots between your benefits and strengths relative to your competition. To do this, you can use the Ghosting technique I discussed in Podcast # 26. Question # 3: If I were the client, why would I select my proposal over other proposals? While you're working on your proposal, constantly ask 'why us?' If you continually ask this question, you’ll start to see the material you’ve written or the material contributed by others in a completely new light. Thinking about that question will help you eliminate fluff and generalities and help you focus on details and solid information that the client wants to see. If you can't easily answer this question for each section or each RFP question you answer, rethink your strategy and what you've written. The only way to win is to give the client reasons to choose you. If you haven't built a compelling case, your competition probably has. | 12/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#26 : Write Your Proposal from the Client’s Perspective | In this episode, I’m covering an important topic that is sometimes hard to do – put yourself in your client’s shoes and write your proposal from their perspective. An effective proposal is written from the client's point of view. By doing this, you will develop information and write it so it’s relevant to the client and their interests, not yours. You will be able to get your message across much better this way.First, this approach will force you to understand the client's point of view. This comes from your research and your strategic planning. Second, the client will receive your message much better if you developed it to fit their point of view. Since the message will match the client’s concerns, background and interests, they will understand and absorb it more easily. From a client perspective, this demonstrates that you understand the client, and that your approach to business is client-focused. Writing from the client's point of view is often difficult for subject matter experts and technical people. They have a hard time divorcing their enthusiasm, interests and what they feel is more interesting from what the client is interested in or how the client would look at a given issue. Take some extra time to coach these contributors or closely review their material and adjust it to the client's point of view. This includes reducing technical details and providing information that matters to the client. How you address this will be based on the strategic planning you did before you started writing your proposal. Another way to make sure it meets your client’s perspective, particularly the evaluators, is to use the Mirroring technique. This important technique helps the evaluators see, retain and use information they have read in your proposal during the evaluation phase. In other words, it’s a subtle but effective sales technique. We've discussed the importance of speaking directly to the client and making it easy for them to evaluate your submission. Mirroring uses key phrases, terminology, issues and facts that are readily identifiable and already used by the client. By doing this you help the client focus on the information you're providing by using the same terminology used by them. Be careful to use mirroring moderately. Rather than mirroring back to the client a whole phrase used by them, pick out the key words or re-arrange the phrase slightly to fit the context. This technique works better when the client doesn't see it as a technique, and appears natural. In the book “Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive”, a study revealed that the use of the mirroring technique on restaurant customers significantly increased the tip food servers received. Some of the food servers simply listened to the customer’s orders and wrote them down. Another group of food servers listened to the order, wrote it down and then repeated the order back to the customer word-for-word to confirm the order. The food servers who repeated the customer’s orders back to them increased the size of their tips by almost 70 percent. This demonstrates the power of mirroring that you can use in your proposals. So, as part of the mirroring process, you can take information from background material provided to you by the client, or that you have learned during a site tour, bidders meeting or research. By taking good notes and recording key phrases and concepts used by the client, you can go beyond using the RFP material to successfully mirror the client in your proposal. This can even mean incorporating real issues or examples they identify in your own examples and description of how your services will provide benefits. If you combine these techniques with others you’ve learned, you can write a powerful proposal that gets your client’s attention and helps you win more business. | 10/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWWP#25 : Trash Your Competition Without Naming Names – By Ghosting Them | In this episode, I’m covering Ghosting, a technique you can use to trash your competition without naming names. You write a proposal to demonstrate that you’re better than your competitor, but it's not appropriate to say negative things about your c... | 10/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 10 Episodes |
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