S S

1

Ten Slides in Ten Minutes: From Parking Lot to Proposal Win [Capturing the Hearts and Minds of Prospects & Clients]

Presented by:

Bill Graham APM.APMP

December, 2013

bill.graham@sales-synthesis.co.za

2

The Parking Lot

• Seeing the organisation from the outside. What does the building ‘say’

• Organisational culture based on parking allocation and company vehicles

• Ease of accessibility and ‘want to enter’

• Security without the administrative burden/bureaucracy

• What ideas are you bringing into the organisation?

• What aspects of an opportunity have you considered before embarking on the

formal business acquisition journey?

• Standing in the parking lot: Is the motivation to rather get back into the car and

leave?

Focus should be to address any impediments

3

The Living Landscape

• The marketplace is ever-changing

• Competition stronger

• Prospect’s attention span shorter

• Prospects becoming more knowledgeable and sophisticated

• Commodity sales organisations pushing for a purchasing decision based on price

only

• Requirement to understand the local conditions and regulatory requirements

• Prospect requirement of a Single Point of Contact (SPOC).

Focus should be to address any impediments

4

Opportunity Support Structures

• Sales Services/Support:

o Bid Centre:

Bid Managers Proposal Co-ordinators Functionality [e.g. secure war rooms, printing, binding, scanning, hot-

desks]

o Sales Operations:

Forecasting, education/training, custodians of sales methodologies, processes, forum/s, reviews, opportunity management systems etc.

• Account Management: Market Management, Relationship building &

Opportunity Scouting

• Sales leadership: Supportive, innovative, dynamic, youthful, involved…

5

The Bid Strategy

• Based on a robust Account Development Plan [produced by the Account Management team]

• A formidable ‘Bid Team’:

o Bid: Bid Manager, Proposal Co-ordinator, Quality Assurance o Sales: Account Management, Leadership o Technical: Solution Architecture, Service Management (Execution), Project

Management (Delivery), Peer Reviews o Commercial: Legal (incl. regulatory) & Financial (pricing)

• Relevant action plan – resourced appropriately (skills, experience, team

player/s…)

• Based on support of client’s business imperatives

• Input from Strategic Market Development: How to make the competitors irrelevant.

6

When developing strategies, analysis of the organisation and its environment - as it is at

the moment and how it may develop in the future - is important.

The analysis has to be executed at an internal level as well as an external level to

identify all opportunities and threats of the new strategy.

There are several factors to assess in the external situation analysis:

• Industries

• Markets (customers)

• Competition

• Technology

• Supplier markets

• Labour markets

• The economy

• The regulatory environment.

Rigorous Situational Analysis needs to be undertaken

Focus should be to address any impediments

7

What a Bid Team should NOT be – nor Allow

• Dominated by any individual’s views

• The shoehorning of solutions

• Non-team players

• ‘9 to 5’ employees [willing to work office hours only]

• Managers who use positional power

• Non-reviewed submission content

• Members that do not follow the defined processes

• Members that do not respect other bid team members

• Members that have unrecorded ‘formal’ side-conversations

• Members that go ‘rogue’.

8

The Congealed Corporation

• Leadership drowning at C-Level [recycled C-level employees, from failed corporations]

• Finance: Head in the Books – not in the Business o Have we reached the level of reducing internal costs to the level of stupidity? o Viewing the business from spreadsheets

• Human Resources: Lacking the human element

o Parity with business operations on various boards/committees o Decisions overriding business operations

• Marketing: Too busy organising events and parties

o Focus should be on Strategic Market Development o Need to be supportive of Account Management.

9

Account Plan

1. Introduction 2. Design approaches 3. Third Parties & Partnerships 4. Implementation Roadmap 5. Billing & Invoicing 6. Single Service Provider, Single Point of

Accountability 7. Conclusion

1. Pre-Amble 2. Client Requirements 3. Introducing the Respondent/s 4. Solution Design Criteria 5. Support of Business Requirements 6. Summary of the Proposed Solution 7. Benefits of the proposed solution and services 8. Expectation of Client in relation to Proposed

Solution 9. Future Directions 10. Service Provider Differentiators

Response to a RFX:

Response to a Best and Final Offer (BAFO)

Shortlisted/Down Selection

Access to the client for

specific issues, concerns etc

Crafted from a Client’s Business

Perspective

Brief & Focused

What you can do for them!

Resulting from Client interactions

Executive Summaries should result from a clearly defined process

10

Proposal Win – should be a ‘Win-Win’

Value Proposition Value Definition Value Derivation

Customer

X

Validate Solution Functionality

Realise the Benefits

Vendor

Understand the Problem & Propose a

Business Solution

Architect the Technical Solution

X

Moment of Truth

With robust Account Management: Clients’ assist in

building the barriers to entry for your Competitors

Symbiotic relationship with clients

The Ultimate

Goal