How to win your next big bid

‘If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me, you first need to understand me.’ 
Stephen R Covey -- The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Bidding for big accounts – there’s so much at stake. And often, those that win are no more competent, insightful and specialist than their competitors.
What’s the winning ingredient? In our experience, it comes down to communication.

Slides that list services, skills and stats, are rarely an effective way of communicating. If you’re any good, your deck might well include some intuitive points that resonate. But just as likely, you’ll waste valuable time on irrelevant topics, or not focus enough on the parts most important to your audience. Because, at this stage of a bid, you don’t fully understand your client. So how are you going to influence their decision, any more than the next bidder?

Our approach is to help you get your client talking to you – by distilling your bid into a single picture that tells a powerful story. Keeping in view the visionary journey you’ll take together, you’ll also give your client opportunities to react, and delve into detail: ‘actually, our biggest challenge is X’, ‘that’s interesting, we’re also thinking about Y – how could you help us with that?’

We’ve seen people who use our pictures engage audiences in ways that PowerPoint presentations just can’t. Your would-be client will feel listened to, and you’ll have the opportunity to learn what really matters to them. In fact, meetings like that don’t really feel like pitches at all. They feel like the first step on a fruitful journey together.

In 2014/15 we helped win bids worth over ￡200m. To find out more about communicating your bid strategy, contact Richard at ‘See What You Mean’.