Playing the Trump card

I've recently returned from the United States, where presidential candidate debates are in full swing and Donald Trump is a front-runner for the Republican nomination, consistently ahead of his nearest rival. 

And this is not surprising. 

Politics is theatre. While other candidates are talking about the same old “boring” stuff like healthcare and education, the audience is tuning into Trump as he sounds off about women, migrants, trade deals with China, Ebola, Obama and what he thinks about celebrities from Bette Midler to Rosie O’Donnell.

Time magazine recently chronicled a list of Trump-isms titled Here’s Roughly Every Controversial Thing Trump Has Ever Said Out Loud. Yet despite offending a great many people, Trump’s approval ratings continually go up. No candidate has yet been able to surpass him.

Why?

Trump sees business as a game, and his massive wealth simply as a way to keep score.

He is successful, opinionated, with a massive online platform that includes 2 million Twitter followers and the TV show The Apprentice, which is syndicated in 25 countries and spawned the famous line, “You’re Fired!”

While the other Republican candidates are measured, professional and polite – behaving they way they think voters want them to behave - Trump runs rings around them simply by speaking his mind. 

Political debates SHOULD be controversial. As voters, hearing things we don’t necessarily agree with forces us to re-examine our opinions and beliefs and to define new ones.

Likewise, in our business relationships we shouldn’t constantly kow-tow to customers. 

Customers may hold the purse strings, but they also appreciate us – as the experts they hired – standing up for what we believe in, even when they don’t agree.

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant who helps helps service-based businesses that compete through bids and tenders to articulate the value in what they do, command a price premium, and build an offer that buyers can’t refuse. Don’t let others dictate how far and how fast your business can grow – take your power back! Email robyn@robynhaydon.com to request the white paper for the Beyond Ticking Boxes program.

Seven steps to a great Executive Summary

In a proposal, the executive summary is your proxy for a face-to-face conversation with the customer. It sets out your case for the business in a short, confident piece of less than three pages – no matter how long and complex your actual proposal is.

As a Bid Leader, your job is to make sure that the executive summary really rocks. Write it yourself, in a clear, confident tone of voice that sounds exactly like it would if you spoke to the customer in person.

Writing your executive summary early is a great idea.

Your Purchaser Value Topics are the scaffolding on which you will build your offer, and writing your executive summary lets you scale that scaffolding, test how strong it is, and see where there are gaps you need to fill.

Here is a simple method to follow when you’re writing your executive summary.

1.     Thank the client and name the project, contract or opportunity you are responding to. Show that you understand what the client is looking for, presenting at least several insights that go over and above the requirements in the Request for Tender.

2.     Include an offer statement that summarises the commercial benefits of your offer in one paragraph.

3.     Confirm that your proposal conforms to the Request for Tender requirements. If necessary and relevant, explain briefly how they should read the proposal.

4.     Using your Purchaser Value Topics as headings, explain why the customer should choose you. Substantiate claims with your best examples and evidence, and include testimonials. This section represents the bulk of your executive summary.

5.     If you haven’t already, briefly explain why your proposal offers value for money. If relevant, address any concerns the client may have about choosing you.

6.     Ask for the business and summarise why you deserve it.

7.     Sign off using your name, as the most senior person on your bid team.

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant who helps helps service-based businesses that compete through bids and tenders to articulate the value in what they do, command a price premium, and build an offer that buyers can’t refuse. Don’t let others dictate how far and how fast your business can grow – take your power back! Email robyn@robynhaydon.com to request the white paper for the Beyond Ticking Boxes program.

Nine ways to re-think the competition

Most of us tend to think of our competitors as the firms or organisations that are the closest match to ourselves – what I call ‘peer competitors’. This is a dangerous assumption, particularly as an incumbent supplier, because we don’t want to underestimate the field of competition and the other options the customer could be considering. 

In my practice, and in delivering my Persuasive Tender and Proposal Writing Master Class, I’ve read and provided feedback to hundreds of people about their past proposals and tender responses. I look for evidence that the writer has thought about what competitors might be offering, and come up with ways to better promote their own strengths and combat the strengths of competitors.

In fact, very few proposals adequately address the issue of competition.

We are not selling in a vacuum, and in a competitive tender the buyer will consider many proposals along with than yours – maybe a handful, or maybe hundreds.

Getting your head around what others might be offering is also a good way to test the validity of your own offer and ideas.

Aside from peer competitors, here are some ways to think about potential competitors that might pose a threat to your ability to win. Start by making a list of all the competitors you can think of, and consult your team to make sure you have covered them all.

Where could your competition come from?

1.     National organisations, if you are local.

2.     Local organisations, if you are national.

3.     Much larger or much smaller organisations.

4.     Organisations that already work with your customers in another capacity.

5.     Organisations with expertise in an area of current or future interest to the buyer.

6.     Organisations with expansion plans that include your market space.

7.     Potential partnerships among competitors, including joint ventures and consortia.

8.     Offshore and multinational organisations.

9.     The customer – they might do nothing, spend their money on other priorities, or decide to do the work in-house.

It’s essential to analyse competitors regularly, and even more important when you have a contract you don’t want to lose. This work will give you some good insights into where are placed in the market, and where you may need to improve your offer to win again.

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant who helps helps service-based businesses that compete through bids and tenders to articulate the value in what they do, command a price premium, and build an offer that buyers can’t refuse. Don’t let others dictate how far and how fast your business can grow – take your power back! Email robyn@robynhaydon.com to request the white paper for the Beyond Ticking Boxes program.

Five business development behaviours that sabotage long-term success

Do you spend more energy getting new clients than servicing the ones you already have? Praise and heavily reward new business wins? Would you rather start a new job with a new customer than fix a problem with an existing one?

Our prevailing business development culture tends to measure and reward new business success over everything else. 

But this could be costing more than you think.

A study by Bain and Company (cited by Harvard Business School) found that the high cost of acquiring customers means that many customer relationships are initially unprofitable. However, this changes when the cost of serving loyal customers falls and the volume of their purchases rises. 

The same study found that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.

Add to this the Gartner Group’s assertion that 80% of a company’s future profits will come from just 20% of its existing customers, and it’s clear that investing in the business we already have makes logical commercial sense. And yet, in many cases, this investment just doesn’t happen. 

Here are five business development beliefs and behaviours that sabotage our long-term success.

1. Focusing too much on revenue. Most BD metrics focus heavily on the revenue line. New customers push that line up much faster than incremental growth in existing accounts ever could, and what gets measured gets rewarded.
2. Believing customer satisfaction will result in customer loyalty. Most organisations run annual customer satisfaction surveys. Unfortunately, satisfaction measures are not a good predictor of loyalty OR of future behavior. I hold customer interviews as part of my pre-work for the retention programs I facilitate for clients. On more than one occasion, a customer who at one point reported themselves “highly satisfied” has turned out to be angry, disengaged and/or preparing to walk.
3. Performing well, but becoming complacent. When we’re hitting all our KPIs, it’s easy to forget that good work is what we get paid for, and not a selling point.
4. Shying away from the hard work. Let’s face it, some large customers are demanding and hard to deal with, and the relationship can become strained and tense over time. It can be easier to get excited about a new customer than to dig in and turn around a difficult one.
5. Being seduced by bright, shiny objects. It’s fun and exciting to pursue new business, with all its promise and possibility. In contrast, re-competing for customers you already have feels like applying for your own job. It’s hard, and confronting, and there is much, much more at stake.

Customer retention pays enormous dividends when we get it right. While the probability of converting a prospect can be less than 25%, we should be odds-on favourite with an existing customer. 

But incumbency is only an advantage if you choose to use it. Request the white paper and learn more about Getting Ready to Recompete For Your Most Important Contracts and Customers.

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant specialising in competitive bids and tenders. Are you part-way through a contract term with a big customer? Have an important piece of business coming up for renewal or re-tender in the next 12 months? Join Robyn’s one-day workshop “How to Retain Your Most Important Contracts and Customers” and develop a Ready to Re-compete plan for the business you can’t afford to lose - http://www.robynhaydon.com/workshops/

Robyn Haydon is a business development consultant who helps helps service-based businesses that compete through bids and tenders to articulate the value in what they do, command a price premium, and build an offer that buyers can’t refuse. Don’t let others dictate how far and how fast your business can grow – take your power back! Email robyn@robynhaydon.com to request the white paper for the Beyond Ticking Boxes program.