Shipley Asia Pacific

Tip 120 – Match your cover letter to its reader

Cover letters are not officially part of a submission, but they represent another opportunity to reinforce your messages. If the cover letter is likely only to be read by the person who accepts delivery, use it to list the contents of the submission and to confirm compliance. If the cover letter is likely to be

Article – So, it’s a Peppermint Teabag?

Be clear, concise and correct when writing your bids. Don’t make readers think about what you are trying to say. Get to the point and use the simplest words possible. Proposal contributors often make several fundamental errors when writing. All these errors lead to the same outcome; a document that is harder to read, which

Tip 119 – Specific = believable for discriminators

You cannot assert a discriminator unless you understand your customer, your competitors and yourselves. A common problem is lack of accurate competitor data when you claim that an aspect of your solution is a discriminator. When you do not know specifically what your competitor offers, discriminate your features against other criteria, like national averages, independent

Tip 118 – Justify your selected solution using cost comparisons

Evaluators have to compare different bidders’ approaches and want to know that a bidder considered all feasible alternatives. By including relative cost comparisons in your technical proposal you can justify your approach even when you are not permitted to include pricing information in this section. In a relative cost comparison, you can demonstrate how you

Tip 117 – If the customer asks you to turn in your proposal while standing on your head…

…practice standing on your head. Non-compliance is the easiest way for the customer to eliminate an unwanted bidder. To ensure your proposal is compliant, prepare compliance checklists for all formal bid requests. Compliance checklists are lists of bid request requirements and customer questions that you must answer in your proposal. For a large request, this

Article – Disruption starts with unhappy customers, not technology

Customer focus is the key to growth. When we audit our clients failed bids or proposals, a lack of customer focus is generally the first thing we observe. Yet most say they know their customers well. Unifying Business Development – by bridging the gap between sales conversations and proposal win strategy – requires senior leadership

Tip 116 – Help the evaluators – explain any deviations from the bid request

In addition to including a compliance or response matrix in every proposal, explain any deviation from the structure provided in the bid request. A good way to do this is to add an explanation at the beginning of a major section, on the compliance matrix, or any other place where your organisation might be unclear.

Article – Upgrade you BD Capability with added Customer Focus for your non-sales staff

This article is for anyone responsible for or in BD and working with: *Technical people with pre-sales and sales duties, but who do not consider themselves salespeople. *Operations staff who help retain customers, and cross-sell and up-sell to them. So what’s the problem? You have a significant opportunity or an existing contract coming up for

Article -Time: a significant factor in the world of the winners and losers in Business Development

What sort of Business Development (BD) organisation are you involved with? Particularly concerning time? The extraordinarily successful US investor Warren Buffet explained: “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” In other words, a sound understanding of time as a factor in human behaviour and decision making is

Tip 115 – Does your customer say “Every answer was where we expected to find it”?

The physical design of your proposal emphasizes or de-emphasizes your messages much like body language, word dynamics, and facial expressions in conversation. A well-organised, visually appealing design helps evaluators find what they need to know rapidly and easily, while reflecting your organisation’s professionalism. Visual elements entice readers, the organisation is easy to follow, answers are

Shipley Insights