Analyzing and Vetting the initial customer proposal: Chapter 4

Well, here we are. After reading through the first 3 chapters, we have identified our own professional goals and the goals of our organization. We rated them in importance and then evaluated how our plans aligned with those goals. We evaluated our chances against competition. We did all that with a C&E analysis. We also decided we have or can get all the information we need to be successful. We used SIPOC for this. We used a SWOT discussion to determine where we favorably match-up to customer requirements against our competitors. And … we created our “initial proposal”. What else is there … I think we’re done now right?  WRONG! Unfortunately.

Wrong? Are you #$@*!-ing kidding me? 

While you could go forward and present your proposal for internal approval, and then to the customer; are you sure it’s as good as it can be? Are you 100% confident that your solution, the competitive information, and all the other information that went into your strategy and proposal are right? Or that nothing changed over the time you’ve been assembling your proposal?

Why not take just a few extra minutes to vet your proposal by identifying potential risks, and having a quick look back to verify that it aligns with all your goals, plans, etc. If the proposal took you a few hours to put together, that’s one thing; but if it took you weeks (as do many large proposals in many industries); then it’s likely that something has changed. If that’s the case, you want to make sure it doesn’t negatively impact your proposal. Failure to do so could cost you a sale or profits, or at the very least be embarrassing to you (costing you something even more value than a sale or profits; your credibility!).

When we went through the SIPOC, C&E, SWOT, and other considerations; we asked you to document decisions, and we gave you tools to help with the structure and process. Documenting is the key, since it develops a record that you can reference as you go through and finally review/vet your proposal. To ensure all the great work you and your team put in to a proposal, take a few minutes to go back and look at the C&E, SWOT, and the SIPOC you created and documented at the beginning of the project to develop a “successful” proposal.  There’s another thing you can (and should) do … identify all relevant risks to your success. FMEA is a tool that will help you do this.

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

FMEA provides a format for walking through risks, quantifying the risks, and developing preventive or mitigating plans should risks manifest. As with most of the Six-Sigma tools I’ve presented; FMEA can be quite involved and complex, or it can take just a few minutes. Sometimes you can “complete” these analysis in your head. It’s about the thinking, not just the completion of templates or models. It really depends on the situation. And though it might be overkill for some simple proposals; I’d still like you to think about risk in the 3 terms presented in the FMEA. 

Those three key elements:

• Severity – what are the consequences of this risk manifesting?
• Occurrence – how often is this risk likely to manifest?
• Detect-ability – how well can you detect the cause of the risk if it manifests?

FMEA is good for identifying all types of risks and is best done in team settings. But you can also do this as an individual. Is all this really necessary? Well, think about the types of risks you might see as a sales professional. A good place to start, is with your C&E. If you looked at your own professional goals and the actions, you planned in order to accomplish those goals; start with those plans. If you’re looking at a sales proposal, then consider the risks that impact your probability of success.

Let’s use your plan to develop a successful proposal, as our basis for identifying some of the risks, the potential impacts, the severity, the likelihood of occurrence, and your ability to detect a cause in advance of any damage being done.

From the C&E you did; we can see what we thought was important to the customer, and our plans to address those factors. Let’s use the most important customer goal for this example; “Installed within 90 days” and the action that most closely lines up with that goal; “Create Rapid Response Install Team”.

What can go wrong with the plan for creating the Rapid Response Install Team? There could be many; here are 3 we’ll use for our example:

 Now for each of those elements; what is the impact if it were to come true?

If a potential risk did come true, what is the severity if it came true, the likelihood of occurrence, and the ability to see that it happened (detection) for each risk you identified? Use a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest for severity and occurrence, and 10 being the worst case for detect-ability (least detectable). 

We now have the information we need to assess the risk. The next 2 steps help us focus on the risks in prioritization of impact. We do this by multiplying the numbers for Severity, Occurrence, and Detect-ability, and then identifying those with the highest numbers as the ones we should address:

The math tells us the biggest risk by far, is that of the skill set of installers. 

Key Takeaways from this Chapter 4: Analyzing and Vetting your Initial Customer Proposal:

• Review your goals and plans from the C&E you would have done for your own professional goals, the goals of your organization, and the goals of the customer; along with your relative position against competition.
• Review your SWOT to ensure you have identified favorable match-ups and have included them as points of emphasis in your proposal. You should also be aware of unfavorable match-ups and be prepared with a defense and mitigation if asked about it by the customer.
• The FMEA provides you a way to identify and rank all of the relevant risks to your success. With this knowledge, you can pre-plan for reducing or eliminating the impacts of risks should they become true.

Thank you for reading my article. If you would like to work through an example, or an actual case; please reach out to me on LinkedIn Messaging; I am happy to assist.   Stew

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