The Missing Link That’s Sabotaging Your RFPs
And what you can do about it
There is a dirty little secret in the proposal industry.
Ready? Here it is.
A proposal is ultimately a sales document, yet, most salespeople are not involved in the writing of it. It’s often handed off to a proposal team with little to no communication or involvement from the salesperson.
You may be thinking…so what? What’s the big deal?
Here’s why it’s important.
Ideally, the salesperson has spent time and effort pursuing and getting to know the customer, their needs, pain points, etc. They may have developed a relationship (or started to develop a relationship). Yet when they receive a Request for Proposal (RFP), they take one look at its complexity and send it over to the proposal team, thinking it’s just a bunch of technical questions to be answered. They don’t view it as a sales tool.
And the problem is, oftentimes neither does the proposal team.
So the valuable client information the salesperson has gathered is not communicated to the proposal team and falls through the cracks. It’s lost. When this happens, they’ve just wasted their time (and the client’s time) and lowered their chances of winning that bid.
The Gap
Really, it’s a classic case of sales vs. operations. Yin and yang. Both are needed, yet have completely different skill sets and goals.
Salespeople are results-oriented, client-facing, relationship builders. They tend to be good communicators and less detail-oriented. They are big-picture thinkers who want to win the business.
On the other hand, proposal writers/managers tend to be detail-oriented, compliance-driven, task-masters on a deadline. They typically don’t think in terms of strategy, and quite frankly, they just don’t have the time. They want to make sure you can deliver on what is promised by sales.
Expert proposal writing is an art and a science.
However, for some reason, in many organizations, there is a gap between these two, and this is where communication gets lost—which prevents the customers’ needs from being communicated in the proposal.
And, when people are not communicating these important needs in their proposal response, they are significantly decreasing their chances of winning.
The Solution
Find ways to bridge the gap between sales and operations/proposal writers, and you’ll be way ahead of others. Here are a few ways to do it:
Awareness
The first step is to acknowledge the gap and discuss the importance of transferring this information, so everyone is on the same page. Acknowledge that everyone has the same goal - to win the business. Lean on everyone’s strengths, and work toward a communication bridge.
The Middle Person
Designate an "in-between" person/position to bridge this gap between sales & the proposal team, such as a pursuit manager, or “strategic” writer.
Ideally, this person understands sales and gathers the necessary information for the strategic portion of the proposal. This person would also contribute to the executive summary and win themes, and collaborate with the proposal writer(s).
Use a Turnover Checklist
Develop a checklist highlighting the customer's strategic needs for use in bridging this gap. Have the salesperson complete the checklist upon contacting the proposal team, and then review it with them before beginning work on the proposal response—before the kick-off meeting. Discuss these overall strategic needs at the kick-off meeting as well.
Include questions such as:
What are the customer’s problems, or issues?
What are their key pain points?
What are they hoping to achieve? What result are they looking for?
How does our product/service address and solve these issues?
Who are our competitors? How are we different?
What value do we bring?
Based on your conversations with the customer, what else should we know?
By addressing this gap and focusing on writing customer-focused proposals, you’ll automatically set yourself apart from your competitors.
If you’d like a copy of the full turnover checklist that I use, contact me here and I’ll send you a free copy!
Tammy Holzer, MA is an APMP Executive Summary Micro-Certified writer, strategic proposal developer, and business development specialist. To find more articles and tools visit www.tammyholzer.com.
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