Posts filed under 'Proposals & Presentations'
Service sales are odd, facility service sales even more so.
Sales investments are often made on the beginning stages of the sales cycle, i.e. awareness, lead generation, relationships, etc.
Most contractors budget for entertainment, tradeshows, marketing collateral, some even budget for sales training. All worthy and necessary, but…………
New business only starts with a sales proposal. It’s the only stage in the sales cycle a customer can sign. It’s the only time revenue and profit can start to flow.
Lose the bid and it’s “Thank you very much, see you next time.” Efforts on losing bids have some value, just not this year.
But the revenue monkey needs to be fed. Therefore, a clear-eyed assessment says “lose the bid” and forfeit that year’s investment in that prospect. Applied to all your lost bids, that’s a great deal of money and time invested in the early stages now gone, vanished.
The Dark Side is your Loss Ratio
Here’s the dark, dirty truth – you lose more than you win.
That’s your Loss Ratio. It’s calculated as:
(total # bids – # bids secured) / total # bids
Or, put another way:
(# of lost bids + # of no-decision bids) / total # bids
Yes, no-decisions are part of your Loss Ratio. You had the chance to win but didn’t. Any bid not won = a loss. Harsh but true.
Don’t feel bad. The typical contractor Loss Ratio is anywhere from 65% up to 80%. That represents possibly hundreds of bids going south during the year.
And that means millions in lost bid revenue – year after year after year.
Here’s a 1-year example:
–> 75% loss ratio on 120 bids per year =
–> 90 LOST bids @ avg of $120k/yr per bid =
–> $10.8 million LOST revenue, or even more painfully
–> $648k LOST net profit @ 6%
But I Cant’ Win ‘em All
Of course not, that’s not the point.
The point is to shave your loss ratio by a fraction and add to your top and bottom line – almost instantly.
In the example above, improving your loss ratio from 75% to 65% hands you:
–> $1,440,000 additional revenue
–> $86,400 more profit
–> from the bids you already participate in!
Is that kind of reduction doable?
If a customer gave you such a large number to improve you’d find a way. Why not take that approach with your loss ratio?
Big Bucks in your Backyard
You already have access to the fastest way to your largest revenue increase.
Counter intuitively, it’s available to you at the end of the sales cycle, not at the beginning.
Secure more of the bids you already have.
A slight decrease in your loss ratio and you:
- Fire up revenues with faster growth
- Realize greater sales ROI
- Retain more of your flagship accounts
Take a look at your sales budget and consider focusing on the moment of truth – the sales proposal. After all, it’s the key to decreasing your Loss Ratio and with a leaner Loss Ratio comes millions.
When you’re ready to lower your Loss Ratio, we can help, it’s what we do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen, 206-780-2963
President, Revenue IQ
June 9th, 2010
Business is simple. It can be hard, but it’s simple…to understand.
Take selling service contracts.
Or, managing those who sell them.
Or, increasing sales.
It all comes down to dots.
These are your secured sales contracts.
If last year’s, they were revenue.
If this year’s, they’re sales goals.
These are bids submitted to secure contracts.
This is your win ratio by number of contracts bid.
Work harder? Smarter?
Your secured contracts really look like this.
One large, several medium, and many smaller.
More whales, tuna or sardines?
These are bids submitted to secure contracts.
This is your win ratio by dollar volume of contracts.
Productive pipeline producing persuasive winners?
Just sales dots.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue IQ
April 20th, 2010
Moving up the business food chain requires understanding nuances, whether as an employee inside or salesperson from the outside.
Yet there are business practices that occur 1,000s of times and we botch them as if we have our head in a bucket.
Simple little things, but with huge impacts.
Like this one: What’s the difference between a meeting and a presentation?
The question is rarely asked and virtually never answered.
You’re probably thinking “why does it matter?” Stick with me here because at the bottom of this post there are 6 Tips for Persuasive Presentations. But before that, let’s explore this idea a little further.
The hair splitting between meeting and presentation becomes more important the more sophisticated your world becomes.
Those who don’t understand the difference between a meeting and a presentation inevitably:
1) Treat a presentation like a meeting and end up making awful presentations that fail miserably (sayonara sale)
-or-
2) Treat a meeting like a presentation and end up irritating participants and wasting their time (adiós funding)
Each meeting or presentation is a time-based opportunity.
You have the chance of working with others who can impact your business. Who knows when these individuals may be around, or in their current capacity, or frame of mind?
But if you’re holding a meeting when you should be making a presentation – or presenting when you should be holding a meeting – you’ve just wasted an opportunity.
What’s the Difference?
Although you can present information in a meeting, and meet for a presentation, as business practices they exist for different reasons and have different strategies for successful outcomes.
Unfortunately, the words meeting and presentation are not well defined in dictionaries for business. Most of us can’t make a clear distinction in practice either.
As a starting point of departure, here’s a couple of dictionary definitions:
Meeting: an assembly for a common purpose
Presentation: Something presented as a descriptive or persuasive account (as by a salesman of a product)
While these definitions don’t help much, they do provide a step towards defining meetings and presentations in a way that enables us to be more successful.
Meeting: Defined as a Business Practice
Business meetings are held for many reasons, i.e. to inform, delegate, gain consensus, train, etc. Their purpose differs.
Because meetings are held for many different reasons, they’re best defined as a business practice, rather than by their purpose.
Therefore, meetings are something that’s done, without always having the same purpose. And that’s what makes a meeting different from a presentation.
Presentation: Defined by its Business Purpose
A presentation has only one purpose; to make a sale.
Literally, to get your customer (audience) to take the action you want, such as:
- Selecting your firm in a bid process
- Funding your proposed project
- Adding headcount or responsibilities
So, a presentation’s purpose is to make a sale. It’s single purpose is what makes a presentation qualitatively different from a meeting.
In a sale, you have to persuade the audience to select your offering – a much larger proposition that attending a meeting.
Persuasion requires making an emotional connection with the audience and supporting their choice with logic.
All sales decisions are based on emotion and justified with facts. The heart and head connection must be made for the sale to occur.
And that’s what a presentation does, it’s where we connect the audience’s head and heart to our desired outcome.
6 Tips for Persuasive Presentations
As a presentation’s purpose is to make a sale – and a sale requires persuading the audience – it’s obvious that a persuasive presentation is required. Towards that end, here are 6 tips to help:
#1 Design for an emotional appeal
Design your presentations intentionally for an emotional appeal. This means adding a little excitement, a little warm and fuzzy, a scary thought to some old school thinking.
#2 Tell stories & show pictures
Stories and imagery are far more effective than volumes of text and numbers for connecting emotionally with your audience. This doesn’t mean littering your presentation with kittens and bunnies because they’re cute.
#3 Don’t wimp out on passion during the presentation
Make an emotional connection with your audience during the presentation. This means speaking with passion about the important stuff, which can’t be everything because you’ll wear out your audience and yourself. Please, no crocodile tears, ever.
#4 Engage your audience in a conversation
Get your audience asking you questions, which means you’ll have to prep them for that, and then be open to go where they want to. This is a far better way of connecting with them than guessing what they want. Remember, when they’re talking, they’re interested.
#5 Create presentations that can be navigated non-lineally
Design your presentations to enable your audience to direct you to the info they want. They’ll be far more engaged when they get their questions answered when they want to hear/see it.
#6 Help your audience envision your solution
Specifically, in your descriptions, stories and images create a mental picture of your offering solving the audience’s problems and making their life easier. Isn’t this what they’re buying?
Good luck and do the right thing at the right time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue IQ
April 1st, 2010
60,000 = a rough ballpark* for the number of words a customer will read when reviewing four to six contractors’ sales proposals.
1 = the number of contractors a customer will select as their final choice in a bid process.
Of course other factors go into customers’ selections. However, the bulk of the details they’ll receive are in proposal documents.
Are 60,000 words a lot for customers?
Like everyone else, customers are busy. Selecting a contractor, while important, is time consuming and requires a ton of extra reading. Consider this, there are:
- 4,543 words in The U.S. Constitution
- 7,500 words, or less in a typical short story
- 60,000 to 80,000 in a typical mystery novel
- 418,053 words in “Gone with the Wind”
- 770,000+ words in The King James Bible
There are a lot of words swimming around in customers’ heads when trying to select a contractor. Excel, though great for comparing numbers on pricing and staffing, doesn’t capture text nuances well.
What’s it mean for selling service contracts?
Contractors’ sales proposals must do the heavy lifting. It’s the place to communicate their unique service value.
Winning a bid isn’t based on using the fewest words or the most. Inundating customers with 1,000s of wasted words, bludgeoning them with data, sends readers skipping to the pricing page in an attempt to stay awake.
The answer is balance
There are two parts to this kind of balance in sales proposal development.
First, there is balance needed in providing RFP answers in as concise and reader-friendly manner as possible – respecting customers’ 60,000 word reading load.
Second, there is balance needed in presenting your solution consistently in answers to customers’ RFP questions.
#1 Concise & reader-friendly sales proposals
The oft-quoted “less is more” wisdom is rarely followed. It takes confidence in your sales people to believe you truly understand customers’ service pains and business issues.
When sales people are in doubt, in goes the kitchen sink.
Relevant, schmelevant. Any and all proposal content is jammed into the Word document, resulting in proposals running needlessly to 20,000 words, or more.
Even when you’re confident you understand the customer’s situation, your proposal needs to be reader friendly.
This means breaking up long text paragraphs into smaller, digestible bites, by using headings, bullets and tables. Simple flowcharts and process maps quickly and more effectively communicate information than pages of dense text.
#2 Answering various RFP questions with a unified solution
This is a sophisticated balancing act, but one that pays hugely when done. There’s an opportunity for contractors to consistently present their service solution when answering RFP questions.
While contractors must always answer the question, it can be done in a way that repeatedly presents a unified, though-out solution, one that gains traction in customers’ memories.
Not all RFP questions are the same, there are two types: Qualification and Application.
Qualification Questions
These questions ask for generic data about the contractor bidder, such as:
- How long have you been in business?
- How many employees to you have?
- What was your last 3 years’ revenue? etc.
Contractor answers are simple and straightforward. The answers are what they are, and the info should be readily at hand.
As you can imagine, qualification questions are rarely the determining factor in contractor selection. If a contractor is being allowed to bid, it’s hoped they’ve been pre-qualified, which isn’t always the case.
Application Questions
Customers ask these questions to learn how a contractor will work for them, specifically how that contractor will be structured, their processes, measurements, tools and delivery.
In short, customers are asking “tell me how you plan to do what you do, but for me, here at my sites!”
To persuasively answer application questions, contractors must have designed their solution for that particular customer situation.
This means, contractors must:
- Lastly, answer the application RFP questions by referencing their unique service solution for that customer, but before that, contractors must…
- Design their unique service solution for that customer (like a blueprint), but before that, contractors must…
- Analyze that customer’s service pains & business situation, but before that, contractors must…
You can see that your sales people must be gathering the real information before the RFP comes out and Procurement drops the cone-of-silence over customer contacts.
Inherent obstacle presenting a complex solution
The last obstacle, and perhaps the largest, is to present a relatively complex solution in the proposal document. There are many moving parts in a service solution, and those customer-asked for details can quickly lose customers – remember their 60,000 word reading load.
Overcoming this obstacle is the final key to successful proposal development, and we’ll take a look at it in our next blog.
______________________________
* Based on a quick, informal survey I made of the word count in a number of contractors’ proposals to RFPs. On average these proposals contained between 10,000 to 15,000 words.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue IQ
March 26th, 2010
As a consultant, I’ve seen an unintentional decision playing out among large service contractors (those with dedicated sales resources) and smaller firms as well. Most of these firms are committed to improving sales, but they’re focused almost exclusively on improving efficiency, not effectiveness.
Sales effectiveness and efficiency can sound like vague generalities, but deciding which to improve first greatly affects the size of results and when they’ll be seen.
Yet most service contractors say they’re working on both at the same time – they’re multitasking to improve sales effectiveness and efficiency.
Multitasking is a myth
Multitasking, whether in computers (single core processors) or humans, is in reality a swapping of attention/activity. It’s one thing, then another, then back to the first, giving the appearance of two things being done simultaneously.
Unfortunately, human multitasking doesn’t produce the expected results. The brain shows severe interference when even very simple tasks are performed at the same time.
And that’s the case with service contractors. The efforts to improve sales are not really getting done as successfully as they could if addressed one at a time, in order.
Definitions first
Before making a case for placing either sales effectiveness or efficiency first, let’s define them.
Effectiveness is the capability of producing the desired sales result, i.e. winning the bid, getting an appointment or a return call, etc.
Efficiency is making good use of sales resources, not wasting them, which translates to producing lots of sales activities, i.e. lots of bids, cold calls, direct mailings, etc.
Simply put, effectiveness is about winning each attempt regardless of what it takes, and efficiency is about producing a lot of attempts with minimal effort or waste.
The point is…
The purpose of both sales effectiveness and efficiency is to raise revenue – more is better, and earlier is better than later.
But because resources are always limited, a choice has to be made of which aspect to work on first: effectiveness or efficiency.
Effectiveness first
Logic wins out.
By improving effectiveness first, more of the early opportunities that present themselves will be won. Efficiency should be improved too, but only after effectiveness has been raised to optimal levels.
By making the intentional choice to first improve effectiveness, contractors will:
- See larger revenue faster
- Fund later improvements for the efficiency of sales activities
- Increase results (revenue) exponentially as a higher win ratio is more efficiently generated (when efficiency is optimized after effectiveness)
How to improve Effectiveness
- Uncover the voice of your customer via qualitative research (this is what your ideal customer is seeking & values)
- Acquire feedback from lost bids, closed customer accounts, departing employees
- Upgrade proposal content, templates & appearance (from informational to persuasive proposals)
- Invest in sales training
How to improve Efficiency
- Automate proposal production, such as with SalesProposals.com (this is an affiliate partner)
- Manage prospect / customer data in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions via online services or company applications
- Automate tracking & reporting of sales activities
- Measure throughput, activity & effectiveness
Early, fast wins through intentional decisions
Get intentional about which aspect of your sales efforts you improve first. You’ll be positioned for the larger, earlier, and easier wins. That equates to record revenue increases.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ
* Acquire feedback from lost bids, closed customer accounts, departing employees
March 19th, 2010
I asked a contractor-friend of mine what his biggest pain in contract sales was.
His answer was “not getting the opportunity to make a presentation after submitting a proposal in response to an RFP.” After all, he’d spend 20+ hours preparing a proposal and then not get the chance to present.
Wasn’t there an implied reciprocity with customers that he’d at least get the chance to present it in person? He felt he should be showcasing his firm’s differentiation, he had the better service and knew he was cost competitive.
He knew how important making the presentation was because he measured it. When his firm was able to make a presentation they won 88% of the time (and that’s very impressive).
However, when his firm didn’t get to present, they only won 15% of the bids (less than half the industry average*).
So, it’s obvious. Get more presentation opportunities.
But customers didn’t always see it his way – they saw it their way.
How to Get More Presentations
The number of presentation opportunities you get is determined by two factors:
1) Your customer wasn’t planning to allow a presentation – no matter how many hoops contractors had to jump through
-or-
2) You, as the contractor, didn’t make the cut. The customer judged, and they judged you lacking.
Overly simplistic, yes, but this is reality. Let’s look at each of these and see what can be done.
1) Your customer didn’t allow presentations
This happens because:
1.1) Inexperienced customer – they’re too green and didn’t know they should have held a presentation (doesn’t happen often, but it does happen)
-or-
1.2) Customer intentionally chose not to hold presentations, because:
* They decided to make a decision solely on the submitted proposal
-or-
* They were not really going to make a change, but had to fulfill a rebid compliance issue. In other words, they were going through the motions and it was a Hollow RFP.
What to do if a customer wasn’t going to allow presentations?
Even a small increase in the number of presentations can reap huge rewards. And you know there are no sure things, but consider trying the following. These tactics are in 2 scenarios, depending on your situation:
Scenario A) They’re not likely to change their minds and allow presentations:
* Get out before you spend the time and effort writing up a proposal. This means qualifying the heck out of them up front, which really means:
* Asking tough questions during your first contact and getting firm, unambiguous answers to how they work their bid processes
* Asserting yourself to get their commitment to hearing your presentation if you provide a proposal
* Doing both the above without upsetting the customer contact and making an enemy for life
-or-
Scenario B) You believe you can change their minds:
* Get them to see the value in holding presentations. Of course, if you persuade them to take your presentation you’re also probably getting your competition the opportunity too. But why not? Your persuasive aren’t you?
2) What to do if you didn’t make the cut?
Unfortunately, this probably happens more often than our egos care to believe.
The good news is that it means the customer was at least going to hold presentations. And it’s also good news in that contractors can work to improve this area.
If you don’t make the customer’s short list for presentations:
* Get outside yourself. Have new eyes to look at your proposal responses and get their help.
* You can do the above with a team of trusted colleagues from your firm. Task them with reviewing, rating and critiquing your latest proposals. Heads up: this path can be political and time consuming although it won’t cost you anything.
* Get an outside consultant to do an assessment (a bit of self-serving promotion here) to find areas of improvement. Heads up: this will mean investing money, but it can happen faster and with a greater insight into the industry than your in-house colleagues may have.
* The bottom line in this situation is to improve the persuasiveness of your proposal document. As importantly, to improve your sales intelligence gathering skills to acquire the essential customer info needed for a persuasive proposal.
RFPs always lead somewhere
It’s true, but you just may not want to go where they lead. So to the best of your ability, figure that out at the start. Then if you do decide to take up the challenge, make sure you’re doing it with the best chance of success.
Good Luck
* This is a very rough industry average based on an informal survey we did several years ago. If you think it’s a good idea to recheck that number and would like to participate in a new survey, let me know. If there’s enough interest we’ll try it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ
February 9th, 2010
Staying the same never is. We exist in a constant state of decision making. Not making a decision, is making a decision. Not taking action is making a decision.
Healthcare reform is a good example. Not making a decision in 2009 will cost.
In 2008 the U.S. is expected to have spent $2.4 trillion on healthcare, that’s 16.6% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
By not making a decision for reform (i.e., the system works now and doesn’t need fixing) healthcare costs are expected to reach $4.4 trillion annually, or $20.3% of U.S. GDP by 2018.
That’s a Lost Opportunity Cost (LOC) of $2,000,000,000,000 over 10 years.
In the service contract world, as in healthcare reform, there are no guarantees the selected solution will avoid all of those costs.
It is certain there is a cost for keeping the status quo.
The Largest Invisible Elephant
LOC is the largest unspoken element in sales conversations with customers.
Salespeople rarely get to the LOC because they’re too busy spouting about their competitive advantages (see “Crossing the Line“)
Intelligent salespeople get distracted in their search for ROI from services as operating expenses. That’s a dog chasing its tail (see “ROI: Facility Services’ Holy Grail“) .
LOC is Everywhere, All the Time
LOCs are incurred when the current situation continues without change, a result of no decision.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and when a challenge or threat is seen, not deciding doesn’t prevent nature from continuing on its merry way. Non decisions get flattened by the momentum of the steamroller anyway.
Using LOC to Sell Services
LOC is a persuasive tool for sales proposals and presentations.
One that needs some sensitivity as you’re presenting a painful reality (lost money) to customers.
Additionally, you have to make some best guesses. At best LOC is a ballpark number. As you’re guesstimating about future costs, you’ll need to shape your language that way, e.g.
“…based on our understanding, your current situation can be estimated to lose more than $$$,$$$ over the next year…”
Always include your formula and cost assumptions used. They don’t need to be placed next to the LOC estimate, but can be referenced in a footnote, or endnote.
Calculating LOC
To calculate LOC, deep dive into customers’ issues during your sales due diligence.
Identify how NOT fixing those issues costs customers money. For example, seek LOC estimates in:
- Work that could have been avoided
[the current state] – [your solution] = LOC, or
[(labor $/hr + payroll burden) x (# of wasted hours)] – [your way] = LOC
- Vendor management time that could have been avoided (same formula as above)
- Product, supply, or equipment purchases that could have been avoided
[current purchases] – [your solution] = LOC
How are you presenting Lost Opportunity Costs?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ
November 19th, 2009
When internal sales talk crosses the line to become outside customer conversation, your perspective and word-choice can leave you fully exposed and vulnerable.
The words used in customer conversations are a dead give away for how you see the world, and how customers will see you.
Customers intuitively pick up on your approach to solving their problems and serving their needs. They’re deciding if you should be their supplier based on your communications, which are driven by your choice of words.
Competitive Advantage vs. Value Proposition
Consider this, if you’re describing your competitive advantage to customers your naked. Why?
Because, competitive advantage is “internal sales talk”. It’s needed when talking sales and marketing within your company. It identifies what you do against the competition and helps you design service offerings.
However, customers aren’t interested in hearing about your competitive advantage (read competitive comparisons).
They’re interested in what you’re going to do for them.
Specifically, how you’re going to:
- Lower their costs
- Improve their performance
- Make them look better
They’re interested in your value proposition.
Speak to customers about what they care about
Ultimately, customers seek what serves them best.
It won’t matter that you’re the world’s best in xyz, if customers don’t care about xyz.
For sales people that means not crossing the line, unless and until you’re communicating appropriately from the customer’s perspective, using words that show it.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ
November 5th, 2009
Woody Allen, the ancient Greek poet Archilochus, and Sir Isaiah Berlin, a 20th century philosopher.
Strange group, but they all have an association with foxes and hedgehogs.
I’ll make that group a little stranger still by adding you to it. That is if you sell service contracts, or, if you buy them.
Sit tight and I’ll try and make sense of this. Starting chronologically:
He wrote a poem, long time ago you bet, saying that people can be divided into two groups: foxes and hedgehogs.
The difference being the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
A historian and philosopher, his essay titled “The Hedgehog and the Fox“, grouped writers and thinkers into either one or the other.
His hedgehogs view the world through the lens of a single defining idea (examples include Plato, Ibsen, and Proust).
His foxes draw on a wide variety of experiences and cannot boil down the world down into a single idea (examples given include Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Joyce).
In his 1992 movie Husbands and Wives Woody had Judy Davis‘ character ponder which of her acquaintances were foxes and which were hedgehogs. She was trying to make sense of individuals’ behavior.
You
If you sell service contracts you’ve probably already identified yourself as one or the other. Doesn’t matter which, you decide for yourself.
Here’s why it matters when trying to sell service contracts.
You have to figure out which one your prospective customer is: fox or hedgehog.
Why?
Because that’s how you have to present your proposed service solution.
If your Prospect is a Hedgehog
Casting no aspersions here, there’s nothing wrong with being a hedgehog.
Remember, hedgehogs know one big thing.
As the sales resource your job is to find out what that one big thing is.
Then bring all your proposed service solution back to that one big thing.
For example, if your prospective customer is in the Petrochemical business the one big thing she knows is the importance of safety. Reasonable considering her firm’s work environment.
In that situation you can’t talk about safety only for hours at a time.
You can however present a comprehensive safety program first…
…then present the other aspects of your service solution…
…and at the end of each description, show how they tie back to your comprehensive safety program.
You can, and should, do this in your written responses in the customers’ Request for Proposal (RFP).
Even more importantly, you must do this when you make the short-list for presentations. This is where customers need to hear you “walk the talk” they read in your proposal responses.
If your Prospect is a Fox
Foxes, in this case, know many things, not necessarily that they’re carnivores.
As the sales resource your job is to find out what are all, or most, of those things they know.
Why?
Foxes will be looking at a wide range of areas that you, as a prospective supplier, must address.
Therefore, in your written RFP responses you must be more inclusive than narrowly focused.
When answering a question, make sure to list the multiple components of your service solution that solve that underlying issue.
Same with the short-list presentation. Make sure your preparation and performance addresses the range of components you offer, the multi-faceted solution you’ve designed.
Summary
There you have it. Foxes and hedgehogs in the service contract world.
Are these definitive guides from which to build a marketing campaign? Or base a sales plan around?
No and no.
They’re just a couple of sophisticated sales ideas that are easy to remember as animals.
What are you, fox or hedgehog?
~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ
October 29th, 2009
You receive the following email:
Congratulations. You’ve been selected as one of the three supplier finalists in our RFP process for our (fill in the blank) service contract.
We’re requesting your firm make a presentation to our selection committee to help us make the final supplier selection.
You’ll have 45 minutes to present and another 15 minutes for Q&A. We’re requesting you address the following agenda:
- Tell us about your company
- Tell us how you’d approach serving our sites
- Your experience serving similar facilities as ours
- Describe the quality processes, safety programs & technology you use to support the delivery of your services
The Supplier’s Strategy Questions
So now you have to decide how you’re going to prepare for this presentation. And as importantly, how you’ll lead your presentation and your team. If I were you, I’d be asking myself the following questions. And since I am myself, I’ve answered them IMHO.
Q: How do we present all our firm has to offer in 45 minutes plus another 15 of answering questions?
A: You can’t.
Knowing you can’t do it all provides the freedom to be creative and do what’s needed in the presentation.
Q: If we can’t present everything to the selection committee, what do we present?
A: Whatever is important to the decision makers.
Whatever they need to hear to help them make their decision in your favor.
Q: How do I know what that is?
A: Ask them.
Right there, right then, in the presentation, ask what information they’re specifically looking for. Each decision maker will have a slightly different interest, they bring their own agendas.
You’re job is to serve their data gathering needs in those few minutes you’ve been given. They’re looking for info about what you’ll bring to them.
If you’re highly capable in an area they’re interested in, but don’t get to bring it up because of poor presentation skills….well, too bad.
Those decision makers won’t think you cut the mustard. You’ve failed in the presentation, even though your firm is stellar in that area.
Ideally you’re due diligence had dug that info up pre-RFP, and you’d included it in your written proposal.
Q: How can I present the info they’re interested in when I don’t know what it is until I start the presentation?
A: Two requirements.
#1. You’re presentation slideshow needs to be interactive and client-driven. Think hyperlinks and navigation.
#2. You’re presentation team needs to engage decision makers in a conversation, not talking at them for 63 slides. Think dialog, not monologue. Think length and depth of spoken responses, concise and compelling. Think which of your team speaks on each topic.
Presentation Strategy Pitfalls
You don’t want to do these:
Follow the agenda without deviation
Good children do this and get a few points for following directions…while bad children win the contract by taking the agenda as a guideline from which to selectively deviate for their own good.
Try to cover too much
Honestly, what will decision makers remember when you’ve dumped 52 programs and processes on them?
Have your most senior team member speak a lot
Decision makers know that person won’t be doing the day to day work. It’s more likely to sound like the top dog is arrogantly stating their own self-importance.
What presentation strategy do you use when short-listed?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Arlen
President, Revenue-IQ
October 17th, 2009
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