To paraphrase a famous speech: “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
So you’re in the hot seat – the CEO’s chair. Everything crossing your desk is a “top priority”: after all, you set the company’s strategic direction and tone.
Perhaps number one on your list: delivering profitable growth.
And there, hidden away in a dark corner of some remote office, sit a team who can deliver precisely that. Yet you’ve probably never met them. You may not even have heard of them. If they wandered into your office for a chat, you’d probably press the panic button to call security.
You’re missing a huge trick.
I’ve long argued that the bid and proposal function is an organisation’s job protection and creation engine. Today’s bid is tomorrow’s contract – tomorrow’s revenue, profit, market share, share price rise.
And it’s not just about new business (which your sales team always seem to celebrate more than retaining clients). You know that team working for that big client? If you lose the renewal in a few months’ time, they’ll all be out of jobs. And you’ll be missing a swathe of revenue.
So stop leaving this to chance. Seek out these work winning magicians. Listen: what can you do to help them to be more successful? Sure, they’ll whinge about the late nights, moan about folks sending them content late, gripe that they couldn’t get funding for a conference or certification. All trivia, from where you sit – but hear them out: their wellbeing’s important to how successfully they perform.
Move the conversation on to what you can to do make winning more systemic:
- The right engagement model, processes and resourcing to support the business’s growth needs
- Sponsorship from your senior team for the most important deals
- A culture of excellence, where everyone touching bids is trained, skilled and excited
- The right tech platform – the AI you’re wrestling with elsewhere in the business can have benefits here
- The funding to do all of that without question
Ask them what their must-win and must-renew opportunities are for the year ahead. How confident are they? How prepared? What can you do to help turn the dial in their – your – favour on each of those?
And then talk to them again. And again. Nurture them and celebrate them. These folks can make you a hero.
Jon Williams
Jon and his team work with clients worldwide to help them establish winning proposal capabilities and to capture major deals. He has built and led numerous bid and proposal centres; managed, reviewed and benchmarked countless proposals; worked in over 35 countries; and trained many thousands of course participants.
