Shipley Asia Pacific

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

Article – Deepen customer focus by examining the worlds they inhabit

Customer focus is central to effective Capture Planning and execution, and subsequent proposal or bid planning and execution. Across the Shipley BD-Lifecycle – adopted by many leading businesses as their Business Development (BD) process framework – many Shipley clients work with us to assess the changing context in which they take key BD steps. For

Tip 114 – Allow time for proposal quality control

Allow time for proposal quality control – schedule backwards from the drop-dead date Late proposals are usually eliminated, but last minute proposals usually contain errors that the team has not had time to fix. Avoid squeezing essential proposal quality checking tasks by developing your proposal schedule backwards from the submission date. Allow time for layout

Article – To get your team to embrace change, emphasise what will remain the same

Is your team: *Trying to bridge the sales to winning bids gap? *Having good sales conversations that are not translating into winning business? It is most likely because of a Business Development process gap between the two. New research recently published in the Academy of Management Journal adds a logical nuance to bringing teams along

Tip 113 – Don’t tell the customer how you feel. Tell them how you can make them feel.

Sales or sales support professionals use clichés to open or close sales documents out of habit and convenience. Many of these clichés are seller-focused – hence the writer thinks they can be applied in any proposal. “Global Corporation is pleased to have the opportunity to present this proposal.” “We recognise the importance to you of

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