bid dynamics 2012


Improving your bidding activity

You want...

everyone involved in your bids to understand what’s needed for successful proposal delivery

everyone involved in your bids to be effective (and motivated) contributors

everyone involved in your bids to be catalysts for change, improvement and best practice.

Essence of Bidding services and training workshops from Bid Dynamics....

set the ground rules for quality proposal development and bid management

explain the tasks and activities required to put together compelling proposals and client presentations.

position the importance of bidding in your sales and market strategy

help you develop the highest quality proposal responses.

Improving quality

Your role in

delivering change

Improving skill and

knowledge levels


The different aspects of your bidding strategy

Bidding Excellence

Effective qualification for the bid/no-bid decision:

before and throughout; why you do it, how you do it;

Your bidding context: internal/external, company

expectations, services and facilities available

The RFP/ITT: how to analyse it, what to look for

The client: what is THIS client looking for in THIS bid

at THIS stage of the procurement?

The buying centre – understanding your client

evaluators and what they are looking for

Risk assessment and management: what types of

risk affect your delivery projects; how you track and

mitigate risk;

Commercial implications: terms and conditions,

guarantees, legal and regulatory issues

Analysing your competitors and how they are likely to

bid each time

Leading and managing your bid team: skills, tactics,

behaviours, strategies

Review, fix, learn, improve: what happened with this

proposal and why?

Proposal ExcellenceDefining the standards: what makes a winning proposal for your company? What does good look like?

Changes in the nature of bidding, including e-procurement and “bidding by portal”: implications for delivery and presentation of content Planning and storyboarding the responseUnderstanding and articulating your value proposition

Defining and articulating business solutionsCompiling the ONLY output the client sees: presenting your solution and sales story in compelling proposals and presentations Structuring your response: making your proposals and presentations easy to evaluate (and approve) through enhanced readability, sign-posting, way-finding

Writing for your audience: style, language, jargon; targeting your materialto the different evaluators


Where we help: the Bid Dynamics training and support menu

Deal or no deal

Qualifying the opportunity

Your bidding strategy

Storyboarding the bid

Planning content

Selling the deal in writing Documents/

presentations

The aftermath Review, learn,

retain, build for the future


Qualification Respond to the right bids, the winnable bids, the tactical bids, the positioning bids, the strategic bids – how to decide which one is which and what it means for you to bid or no-bid it.

Reading the ITT How to assess and understand tender documents – what is really being asked for, what is really important, the clues your client/prospect is giving in the RFP/ITT

Risk How to assess commercial risk – from the wider landscape/corporate risk through to bid risk/project risk

Commercial How to assess terms and conditions and legal/ regulatory implications – what to look for, what to seek advice on to make sure you and your business are covered

Competition Techniques for identifying and assessing the competition including SWOT – what will they bid, can you meet/better it, how will you do that?

Win themes and key messages

Value proposition vs. sales proposition – what are the themes and messages that will succeed in this bid?

The bid/no-bid decision

The bid/no-bid decision based on all the above; understanding implications and next steps.

Deal or no deal – qualifying your sales opportunities


Your bidding strategy and bid contributors

Bid management in your company

How is bidding delivered and managed? Who leads it? Who contributes? What are the roles and responsibilities? What does ‘good’ look like for bid management and delivery in your bidding context? Company, client, team expectations

Bid team formation and roles

Depending on the size of each company, we explore the stages in bid team formation and the skills, knowledge and experience needed to progress through to high-performing bid teams

Managing the bid team dynamic

Dealing with conflicting requirements – people, technical, business, sales, deliverability; understanding conflict in your bid team/contributors and making it work constructively for you.

Proposal production in your company

Every deadline a panic? How’s that working for you?! We go ‘beyond the pizza run’ and find a better way....


Storyboarding the bid – planning your response

Planning and storyboarding

Developing the response: how to identify what the client really needs, how to structure, develop and write a compelling and influential proposal using the most appropriate media (documents, presentations, portals).

The win themes Taking your win themes and key messages identified at the qualification stage, identify how to weave these through your response.What’s going to win in each section?Targeting the client’s primary concernsCompetitor advantages/disadvantagesWhere you will put the emphasis throughout your response

The media Outlining the structure and approach for each required delivery type – written proposal document, client presentations, online portals

The look Style and layout to reflect your company branding; document and presentation layouts/templates

Supporting evidence

Case studies, reference sites, testimonials – what can help you sell in this deal?


Sell the deal in writing – outputs for your client

Compiling brilliant content

Including the EFFECTIVE use of good-quality previous content – “here’s one I prepared earlier” – the dangers and the benefits

Writing styles Appropriate style and language for this particular deal; Talking your client’s language; Engaging with the client through your writing; clear articulation of win themes

Words to watch Traps for the unwary – “ensure/guarantee” – the implications of certain words and phrases in bid situations

The management summary

Devising the management summary that will sell best for you, telling the story of your value proposition in a compelling style, leading your client to the only conclusion you want them to come to!

Effective proof-reading and editing

Who, how, when – and how to use the feedback for longer-term improvement

Make your response easy for your client to approve

Techniques including signposting, way-finding, highlighting the client’s problem areas and why they should buy from you for this deal


The aftermath – review and learn

What happened and why?

What went well? What didn’t? Why?How do you track and monitor your bidding outcomes and the overall experience?

What can we learn?

How do you create best practice from your best bids?What do you “keep/stop/start”? Identifying development, process and service needs using client feedbackWhat can you learn from your competitors’ web sites and marketing collateral to improve your bids?

What can we build on and how do we do it?

How do you retain and store the best information for future bids: repositories, intranet portals,


Helping you derive best value from our services

Enhance – improve – coach – mentor

Improving your bidding capability and client proposal outputs for the long term means more than a tick-in-the-box “Training and support delivered – back to business as usual”.

To derive best value from our service, select and combine any of the following:

Direct support to bid managers and bid teams – this can include mentoring, coaching, shadowing bid managers and sales managers and preparing/rehearsing presentation teams as they plan, lead, contribute to or write their next bid, with individual progress reviews at the end of the bid.

Direct support to bids and presentations: direct support on site or remotely for proposal and presentation planning, development and delivery covering ITT assessment, bid strategy, writing/editing proposals and presentations, storyboarding, proof-reading and reviews.

Identifying and developing best practice proposal materials. This will include helping you develop on-line information repositories and associated update and maintenance procedures to make sure you retain and optimise best practice materials.

Regular progress reviews to assess impact of improvement activities, assess win rates, client feedback and all aspects of your bidding.

Ad-hoc and pre-booked support on-site and remotely

Specialist Hotline and out-of-hours service for 24x7 support

ReviewSupportMentor

Apply improvement actions, training and

coaching to live bids, with mentoring

and support as needed

Review application of new and enhanced skills and services

Assess in context of subsequent bids: development and

output quality

Deliver/implement

Design and customise

improvements

Identify skills/process

gaps

Assess proposal quality and

impact

Service positioning


Benefits of working with us

Our workshops, training and services... help all bid contributors to understand and address your internal and client-

facing requirements, responsibilities and opportunities

examine the sales team contribution, impact and influence on bidding and bid teams

help everyone to remember the client throughout

help everyone to understand their individual role in influencing the success of the bid and the wider sales/client relationship

identify the best practice activities and materials from across your business

deliver high-quality proposal content from all the bids we work on

All in the context of industry acknowledged best practiceand a focus on continuous improvement.


Benefits of working with us

Our people... have worked in, contributed to, managed, led, trained, coached, mentored

and improved every type of bid and sales team in private sector and public sector organisations

have designed and delivered proposal centres, bid processes, bid knowledge-bases and portals and the highest-quality proposal support and enhancement services in companies of all sizes for over 20 years

understand every aspect and requirement of the bidding environment

emphasise skills transfer, making sure best practice knowledge and expertise are embedded into your processes, your services and throughout your business.

All in the context of industry acknowledged best practiceand a focus on continuous improvement.


Improving

your

proposals:

What’s

holding

you

back?

bid dynamics 2012

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