Sometimes The Best Bid Is No Bid At All

In the world of bidding, many professionals bid more than they should. This can be for a number of reasons: poor qualification process, inexperience, or sales coercing the bid team into bidding for unwinnable opportunities to flesh out their pipeline. However, sometimes the best strategy is not to bid at all.  

• A strategic no-bid can save resources, protect win rates, and sharpen your focus on the deals that truly matter.
• Saying “no” isn’t giving up, it’s choosing to compete where you can win.
• Bid professionals should feel empowered to challenge the default “yes” and ask: Is this the right fit?

The best teams don’t bid more, they bid smarter. Our very first edition of Bidding Quarterly tackled this subject in ‘Hope is Not a Strategy’: https://bidsolutions.com/bidding-quarterly/issue-1/

When you stop bidding on low-probability opportunities, you unlock time for high-impact work:

• Consider writing a proactive proposal to the customer for the opportunity you’ve no-bid, explaining why you’ve come to your decision and what you can offer. This will at least put you in the customer’s mind for future opportunities and allow for earlier engagement from you sales / accounts teams.
• Deepen relationships with clients and internal stakeholders
• Strengthen your win strategy for the bids that you can / want to win
• Invest in team development, process improvement, and innovation
• Analyse past performance to refine future decisions

Sometimes the best bid really is no bid at all. How have you navigated this often tricky balancing act? Please join the conversation here.

Written by Ben Hannon