Shipley Asia Pacific

Article – 6 ideas for keeping your proposals punchy

Do you ever look at the proposal you are going to submit and wonder what happened to the energy and ideas that originally fuelled your solution? At the beginning of the proposal period, the team has so much good input, expertise and enthusiasm, but the final proposal somehow doesn’t convey those things to the reader.

Tip 129 – Keeping your solution options open may be damaging your positioning

After targeting an opportunity and analysing their position, many sellers delay selecting what they are going to offer. They may continue to modify their solution, or carry too many solutions, alternates, or options through the sales cycle. While you may believe that this demonstrates flexibility, it can impact your ability to position with the customer

Article – 5 ways to save your sanity (and everyone else’s) when you’re leading a proposal

Late nights and weekends working on proposals that are still incomplete as deadlines loom, we’ve all been there. There’s an adrenaline high – then a deep exhaustion at the thought of doing it all again. When I wrote my first proposal for Shipley, that was my expectation. But I soon learned that a few principles,

Tip 128 – Don’t leave evaluators to their own interpretations

A good general rule for proposals is: “Don’t make evaluators do their own thinking”. Tell them clearly what you want them to know, and make sure they read it by highlighting those key messages. Graphics are an important tool when you are trying to foreground a particular piece of information. A picture may be worth

Tip 127 – Do you regularly use statements similar to these in your bids and proposals?

We are a leader in our field The thing that makes us different is our people We are uniquely placed to fulfil your needs We believe we are the best people to help you The problem with this approach is: It’s all about the seller, when the focus should be on the buyer Competitors are

Tip 126 – In the era of deep fakes, seeing’s still believing

The power of photographs to convince people is still strong, even though most of us realise that they can easily be manipulated to distort the truth. Many organisations underuse photographs In proposals, simply because they have not planned ahead to collect photographic evidence. Plan to gather relevant photos throughout the sales process that you can

Tip 125 – Question: How do I get my strategy into a Question/Response proposal format?

Response: Plan to concentrate your proposal efforts on answering the most important questions. If you can submit an Executive Summary, put extra work into developing a strong narrative that pulls together all the threads from the different questions and themes in the request. In addition, spend time identifying, on an 80-20 basis, which are the most

Tip 124b – Who are your LinkedIn posts directed to and what is their purpose?

How much do you consider this before posting? I regularly see posts from people and businesses patting themselves on the back for securing a new contract. Think about whether this self-congratulatory content is helping to improve your current or prospective client’s perception of you. Is this content better suited to internal communications to improve team

Tip124a – Fewer words mean clearer communication

Have you spent a day writing a response to a word- or page-limited question in a proposal? And then spent two days eliminating the unnecessary words to bring it back within the limit? And then realised how much better the short version is? Customers limit word and page counts for exactly this reason. They want

Article – BD Best Practice in Uncharted Waters

In these unprecedented times of uncertainty and stress on businesses and their supply chains, there are new and complex challenges arising for service providers. In the few short weeks that the Coronavirus crisis has been impacting the Australian economy, we have heard from many of our clients who are experiencing opportunities and issues they have

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