Shipley Insights

  An early solution freeze leads to a superior proposal, with an adequate solution. A late solution freeze stresses the proposal team and often results in a poorly written proposal fraught with pricing inconsistencies. No one can clearly describe something that keeps changing. Inter-volume alignment is lost and contributors are repeatedly required to re-work their

  In complex sales, buyers purchase benefits, not features. They want to know whether the benefits generated by specific features of the seller’s solutions will address their issues and deliver the outcomes they seek.

  Value propositions establish the value basis for the business relationship. They describe how your solution will improve the customer’s business and how the improvement will be measured.  

  Most customers begin the buying process with a maximum/minimum price range and a minimum/maximum capability range. As their understanding of price-capability trade-offs matures, their price-capability window narrows. Your objective is to accurately define the boundaries of your version of the customer’s price-capability window – the Winning Price Window – through the pricing-to-win process. Iterative

  Decision gate reviews are about deciding whether to proceed, not on critiquing and refining our technical solution. The technical solution is only one facet of your complete offering. It might also include your management solution, pricing solution, past performance, quality assurance plan and transition plan. Suggest a separate review of the technical solution, and

  Use precise, powerful, descriptive verbs in your proposals Avoid wimpy verbs that obscure meaning, such as allow, allow for, permit, provide, perform and ensure. Many writers turn verbs into nouns, making the sentence more distant from the reader. Replacing adjectives with verbs also makes your statements more powerful.  

Many people have been told the Executive Summary should be a one-page document prepared after the proposal is written. This is unhelpful advice as executive summaries are the most important pages in your proposal. A draft executive summary should be prepared early during the capture planning or pursuit phase, well before the RFT, providing a

  Customers realise that the seller’s senior managers and business development professionals will not be delivering a significant portion of the services after the contract is signed. So it is important to convince the customer that your key program people, starting with the program or contract manager, are both capable and compatible. This is especially

  Decision makers are more likely to worry about risk, what could go wrong, than about relatively minor price or technical differences. Some sellers prefer to avoid any discussion of risk. They correctly see risk as negative but incorrectly avoid discussing risk because it is a negative topic. Identifying and highlighting mitigation of key project

…list the prospect’s requirements from meetings, phone calls, file notes and intelligence resources. Good Capture or Pursuit strategy attempts to position you as the best choice for a prospect or customer. Ideally you can position to win with an unsolicited proposal rather than a formal tender or bid request. Co-developing your prospect’s requirements gives you