C-Level, Relationship Selling Blog

C-Level Selling: Proposals and Presentations Tip 12 - Eliminate Red Flags

What red flags do you have with each line item?  How will you handle them so they don’t diminish your chances of success?  For example, you may have messed-up on a previous project in a particular area.  This is a big red flag.  So maybe you’ll have to meet with those impacted and see what they want you to do so that you can qualify legitimately to compete again.  Many times fixing the problem willingly to the client’s satisfaction is all it takes - even if it’s late.

What are the strengths you have with each line item?  How will you use them?  Maybe you have a strong relationship with someone senior.  Ask that person to help you find a solution to the mess-up you had as mentioned above. 

A strong strategy is to use your strengths to overcome your red flags.  So make a list of each and pick which strengths will help you with your red flags.  You can use the same strength for multiple red flags and vice versa.

C-Level Selling: Proposals and Presentations Tip 11 - Line Item Purpose

What’s the reason for a line item and who’s it most important to?  This is what you have to think about and brainstorm with your team before you put pen to paper.  Going back to one of my other tips, consider how you’ll show you understand its impact and meaning.  How will you explain your expertise in handling it, and how will you show the people most interested that you can give each what s/he wants personally by working with you. 

Now this may sound tedious, but you don’t have to address everything this way.  However, the major elements need to be addressed this way and the best way to determine what’s major is to ask each decision maker. The specs are just the spec writer’s interpretation.  Knowing what’s important and what’s not will allow you to structure your bid for more value at a lower price.

Sales Manager Training, Proposals: Strategies for Writing Proposals

The proposal document is an expensive, time-consuming, yet necessary document.  Therefore it better hit the right buttons with the client so it takes you to the shortlist or gets you invited to do a presentation.   So some thought should go into what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it, and the format of your written document.  Here’s what to consider.

 

The Line Items

 

Every line item in the spec must consider three factors. (1) You must show you understand why that line item is in there and what it means to project success.  (2) You must show you can handle/deliver it. (3) You must know who this line item is important to or who is worried about it. 

 

Competitors

 

Everything above is about the voters and getting their desires met.  Many sales people and companies are focused on what the competition will say in their proposals. This is a major mistake, yet competition cannot be ignored. Winning a proposal is not like a sporting event where you have to beat the competition.  It is an election where you have to win the votes of the powerful. 

 

Numbers, Names and Details.

 

Numbers are believable. They are also easy to visualize and understand.  “13” is more powerful than “many times”.  21 years of experience is more understandable than very experienced. Details of how you accomplished a line item for another project are important to the people concerned about that spec item.  Names validate you.  They provide concurrence and favorable associations. 

 

Red Flags and Strengths,

 

For each line item or section of the specification, you must consider your red flags (areas of weaknesses) and your strengths. Now just because your competitor is “better” than you in certain areas doesn’t mean it’s a weakness for you.  That certain area has to be important to one of the powerful voters for it to be a red flag.  Many people get hung-up on some capability of the competition that is meaningless to the voters.  Remember it’s all about the voters.  The same applies to your strengths.  They have got to be of significance to a voter.  Being global is not a strength to someone looking for local service.

 

The No Contact Clause

 

Since most people are off limits after the spec has been issued, the best after-the-fact way to learn about an individual voter’s desires is to use your network of people that know the voters. If you open your mind and do some asking, you’ll realize you know people that know these voters and they will help you if you ask.  However, you’ve got make the mental effort and then make the calls.  Most people dislike asking for help and come up with every reason not to.  You’ve got to get over it.  People will help if asked.

With this level of knowledge you’ll now be able to put pen to paper.  But wait.  How your words get’s interpreted will make or break your proposal.  So next section we’ll discuss the written words that build the feeling of trust and confidence in the belly of each reader.

 

For the full article Sales Manager Training,  Strategies for Writing Proposals click this link.

Proposals And Presentations: Choosing the Right RFP’s and Avoiding the Wrong RFP’s

In this part we will focus on selecting the types of clients and the types of projects where you have the best chances of winning.  Keep in mind all RFP’s, clients and projects are not good for you.

 

Knowing what RFP’s you can win before you bid is critical to your success ratio.  Keep in mind winning a bad contract is not good for you or your company.  Certain clients are amenable to your way of doing business and these will be the easiest for you to capture and do well with. Sounds obvious, but you must be conscious of the characteristics of those clients so that you can gage new clients /RFP’s against this criteria.  There are also certain types of projects where you excel and the characteristics of these also need to be very clear. These characteristics are your ideal client and your ideal opportunity.

 

These characteristics are based on past performances. Not desires. In other words, who are the customers that you’ve had good experiences with and what is it about them that made the experience good.  For example, they were value shoppers, rather than price shoppers. They respected your input, rather than knew it all. They were easy to work with.  You had access to their key decision-makers, etc.

 

Conversely, there were customers who were a nightmare to work with.  What made them difficult to work with?  Your task is to identify these characteristics so you can avoid new ones with those same traits and select those with the opposite traits. The same applies for projects.  What were the characteristics of RFP’s you lost and what where the circumstances of projects you won, but ended badly?

 

Read on about the easiest way to do this in the full article Choosing the Right RFP’s and Avoiding the Wrong RFP’s

C-Level Selling: 40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 10, Show It To Win

10. What You Must Show You Have to Win

The 3 key factors you must show to win a proposal are that you (1) understand the project and all auxiliary elements, (2) you have expertise and knowledge as it relates to this type of work, and (3) you can give all the voters and their bosses their personal results, and social expectations. 

The real trick is to know all that will be involved from each decision makers perspective.  The only way to learn it is to get to those people and ask about project expectations, personal results and social fears.  Once you do that, you’ll be able to show them you have the expertise and knowledge and you can deliver exactly what each wants.

Always keep asking yourself, “What will it take to win the buyers and bosses individual vote?”  If you don’t know, figure out how you can find out.  Keep in mind it is not just one thing.  It is a bunch of deliverables that are different for each person.  Use a chart to track voters and their desires and check them off as you feel you’ve satisfied each.

Bonus Tip:   To get to the leaders you’ll have to deal with the obstacles so here is a FREE E-Book “Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers”.  Just click this C-Level Relationship Selling Link http://www.sammanfer.com/GatekeeperEbook.htm . Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales person to be effective and feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.

C-Level Selling: 40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 9, Creating Your Ideal Profiles

9. Creating Your Ideal Profiles

Analytical criteria are mandatory to gage pursuits before you commit to chase them.  There are certain customers that work well for you and gravitate to your type of company and services.  These are the ones and similar ones you want to pursue.  There are those that don’t and these you want to avoid.

There are also certain types of projects, situations, contracts that you perform better at than others.  These are also the ones you want to pursue with prospects mentioned above.  So, you must develop operational characteristics, base on past successes and failures, in order to accurately gage your chances of success.

The way you determine these operational characteristics is to look at a few successful projects you’ve worked.  Take them one by one and ask, “What made that bid and project successful?” List the elements.  Maybe you had access to senior managers and decision makers.  Maybe they were open-minded and valued your inputs and suggestions.  Maybe you have an expertise that makes this type of work profitable.  Do it for the few you selected and compile the results.

Then do the same for deals you lost or deals you got but turned out badly for you.  Compile the characteristics and take the opposites.  For example, they just wanted low price and kept wanting more for free.  Well, the opposite would be they were valued oriented and were willing to pay for extras.  Do it for the few you selected and add these converted negative characteristics to the positives above and you’ll see a trend.  Pick the 5 most frequent characteristics for the clients and the 5 most frequent for the opportunities.  These will be your 1st attemp gages.

When the next project comes along, rank it against each gage on a scale of +5 for a perfect fit to -5 for a terrible fit.  Add up for client and opportunity and plot on an X-axis, Client; Y-axis Opportunity scale (-25 to +25).  Those in both positive quadrants are great pursuits and ones you’ll have a good chance of winning.  Those with a positive and negative are questionable.  Those in both negatives you need to avoid.

Now gage and plot all the proposals you’ve bid over the past year, 6 months, etc. on a chart as described and you’ll be amazed at how accurate this is.  Then after every bid - win or lose- ask the same question and see what characteristics were in play.  There may be new ones.  This will help you refine your criteria going forward.

Another benefit to this analysis is that each criteria will indicate a strength (+3, +4, +5) you have or a red flag (any negative) you have.  This information will help you plan your strategies and actions for this pursuit.  It’s great information all around.  Do this and your forecasts will improve greatly.  You’ll be able to select the ones you can win and avoid the losers. 

For more on this process see Part II of My Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations .

C- Level Selling: Increasing Your Chances of Winning Competitive Bids

The key to any good proposal or presentation is the pre-work. Any company can close 33% of what’s in their pipeline.  Better companies closing ratios are greater than 60%.  That’s 60% of what they forecast or what’s in their pipeline. If you’re not winning at this ratio, then either you are going after the wrong projects or you’re proposal and presentation skills need a tune-up. 

 

Many salespeople and companies get Request for Proposals (RFP’s).  If they pursue them without any due diligence on the front end, they are very vulnerable to competition that has either helped prepare the request and/or  competition that has built relationships within that account.

 

Without front end work your best chance of success is one divided by the number of competitors bidding. For example, if five companies are bidding, the best chance of success is 1/5 or 20%. It’s best because someone has probably done pre-work giving them a better chance which reduces your probability further.  Since 33% is average and greater than 60% is desirable, this is not the type of project you should prepare a proposal for, nor put in your pipeline until you’ve done the pre-work.  Therefore, do not answer RFP’s unless you’re prepared.

 

To learn how to prepare see the full article Increase Your Chances of Winning Competitive Bids

C-Level Selling: 40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 8, Take Drastic Actions

8. Take Drastic Measures Before Necessary

You hear you’re not favored and will probably lose the project contract.  What would you do? 

It amazes me that during the bidding process everyone claims they can’t talk to certain people and the rules/specs are what they are.  However, when they hear they might lose, all sorts of creative ideas abound.  So before the bid hits the street, and or during your preparation of the proposal, assume you’re going to lose.  What can you do to win it back?  Then do those things before the 11th hour.

Bonus Tip:   To get to the leaders you’ll have to deal with the obstacles so here is a FREE E-Book “Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers”.  Just click this C-Level Relationship Selling Link http://www.sammanfer.com/GatekeeperEbook.htm . Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales person to be effective and feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.

C-Level Selling: 40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 7, Chance of Winning

7.      Calculate You Probability of Winning

Your chances for winning a proposal are 1/ Number of Bidders if you have not done the pre-work to develop relationships with key decision makers for this project.  So if there are 5 bidding, your best chance of success is 20%.  The one with the relationships has a better chance of success.  Therefore, the chances for the ones without the relationships dip below 20%. 

These are terrible odds.  Successful sales teams run with 70% success rates or they don’t even bid.  Matter of fact, on average, anyone, just pounding the pavement,  can close 33% of the time.  So 20% is something to avoid.  Chances of success rise quickly with (a) relationships, (b) match to ideal profiles, and (c) quality of the sales person/team, (d) pre-work with decision makers and their bosses.

Bonus Tip:   To get to the leaders you’ll have to deal with the obstacles so here is a FREE E-Book “Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers”.  Just click this C-Level Relationship Selling Link http://www.sammanfer.com/GatekeeperEbook.htm . Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales person to be effective and feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 6, Your Position

Who are all the buyers – the directs, the indirects, the outsiders, the bosses, etc. and what’s your position with each?  If you’ve never met someone or had an indepth conversation with that person about the upcoming decision, your position is not good.  The vendor that establishes positive positions with the key decision makers and auxiliary people has the strongest chances of winning.  Waiting to make these connections with your presentation is very risky.  Those that do it before hand, then to be received better and their information seems to be accepted more readily.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus Tip:   To get to the leaders and others you’ll have to deal with the obstacles so here is a FREE E-Book “Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers”.   Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales person to be effective and feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 5, Outside Groups

5.      Outside Agencies, Departments and Groups

Outside groups have big impacts on decisions.  Agencies have to be notified and give approvals.  Consultants are hired and/or sought for advice.  Other divisions of major companies and sister agencies of institutional work get involved for political reasons if none other.  Be sure to investigate who could get involved and who’s been involved in the past.  The more you’re aware of the outside influences, the more you’ll see their involvement, and the less surprised you’ll be.  Again, those that have attempted to get to know the issues of these people will have an advantage when it comes to putting the package together.

 

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 4, Up & Out

4.      Move Up and Out

Moving up the chain of command in order to improve your chances of selling success should be in an up and out fashion.  Many are impacted by buying decisions and they all have bosses.  Besides, decisions are discussed at staff meetings where all the department heads are present and can get involved.  So if you’ve touched bases with auxiliary managers and C’s, your chances of success improve tremendously.  Additionally, the auxiliary tend to offer freely very relevant information that the direct chain tends to keep close to the vest.

For more on networking through and organization see my free Networking articles at

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 3 Key Elements

3.      3 Key Elements to Win

The 3 Key Elements to Win Someone’s Vote are project success, personal results, social fears and expectations.  Project success is all about their organization.  They want the project to work well so the company can grow and prosper or whatever the project is suppose to accomplish for the company / institution.

Personal results are what this person wants for him/herself.  Sales managers will want something that helps in that role, i.e. more sales, better handle on sales people.  Operations people will want you to deliver results that help them in their production, i.e. better quality, easier work flow.  The environmental person wants compliance, ease of submissions, etc.

Social fears and expectations are what people think their boss or superiors want.  These thoughts may or may not be correct, but you’ll have to deal with them.  For example, the engineering manager may think the commissioner wants the best price.  Where in reality, the commissioner wants assurance there will be no neighbors’ or citizens’ complaints.  However, to win the vote of the engineering manager, you’ll have to show low price - at least until he hears from his boss the real expectation.

So all three are at play when it comes to winning someone over to your side.  Learning how to find out what they are is explained in my Interviewing and Presenting CDs.

 

To learn more about winning people over to make them buy see Buying Triggers

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 2 Bosses

2.      Bosses  Make the Decisions

Never overlook or underestimate the bosses.  These people participate in the decision process and their opinions carry a lot of weight – even if they are not in the direct chain of command.  Yes, the committee is powerful and makes a recommendation and there-in lies the proof.  They make a recommendation to whom and why?  They make it to a boss who confers with his or her boss and/or associates for concurrence.  The reason the committee recommends is because it don’t have the power to choose.  So no matter what’s said or done, remember the bosses participate and the vendor that has relationships with the bosses usually win.

To get to the bosses see my Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers CD Seminar

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations - Strategy 1 Relationships

1.     Relationships

Relationships are the key to winning proposals.  That’s why incumbents have an edge.  But you can catch up quickly if you make an effort to connect with the people that will be involved with the decision and their bosses.

Most incumbents spend time with their main contacts and overlook regular meetings with senior managers.  These are the people make the final decisions. Not keeping close relationships with the top people opens the door for non-incumbents to compete.  However, the non-incumbents will have to get to the leaders to displace the incumbents.  And if you’re an incumbent someplace, it would be wise to keep top level relationships fresh.

For more on C-Level and Executive Relationships see TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER$

40 Winning Strategies for Proposals and Presentations

-Win the Projects and Contracts You Pursue-

 

Over the next few weeks I will be presenting 40 tips on Winning Strategies for Proposals and presentations.

Yes, the powerful strategies offered here helped me;

• Win an $800 million dollar highway and bridge project in

  Southern California, this year - 2009, for my client.
  

• Close a $46 Million Contract with the

  USgovernment for tooling and assembly of Hummer vehicles, and
  

• Earn millions of dollars in commissions by winning 84% of the large industry and government jobs I pursued.

I won these contracts by building exciting proposals and staging convincing presentations.  And these 40 strategies will work for you also.

 

Just look at the posting below and you’ll see all 40 appear in reverse order.

 

Free Videos of the 40 Strategies - for those that would like to watch and listen also.  Click here and you will receive them by email.