Pursuit Teams: Winning is Better

Win more by Learning the Five Components of Effective Business Development Positioning

When it comes right down to it, effective storytelling is the core foundation for winning new business. Your stories demonstrate your value proposition to prospects and help determine which projects are the best fit for your organization.

When you think about your most promising prospects, they are the ones for whom your stories truly resonate. They feel a connection with your company because they understand and appreciate the value you offer. Conversely, if you do not think a prospect is energized by your value proposition, it’s not an opportunity you’re not likely to win. This is a strong indication that you should pass on this pursuit.

Creating meaningful value statements depends on understanding your business development positioning. There are five components to this positioning, and once they are identified, you can turn them into compelling stories.

Let’s dive in:

1. The problem you solve or the opportunity you leverage

Begin by putting yourself into your prospect’s shoes. What are they thinking about? Chances are, they are focused on pressing problems or challenges that are standing in the way of their core objectives. Or perhaps they are concerned about how to keep their shareholders happy, or maybe how they can generate more value from an expensive asset they just purchased.

By identifying a specific problem that your company solves or an opportunity that you can help the prospect leverage, you are generating a pathway for truly strategic business development. This approach is completely client-centric – not firm-centric or credentials-centric – which is the only way to start a relationship in today’s business environment.

The more downside you can attach to the problem, or the more upside you can attach to the opportunity, the more likely a prospect will want to hear what your company has to say. By getting the prospect to say, “Yep, that’s a problem I’d like to solve,” you’ve moved the conversation in the right direction.

2. The insight you have about that problem or opportunity

The insight is your way of demonstrating that you’re capable of solving the problem. Insights are more potent than capabilities when it comes to business development, and this is especially true in the pre-RFP stage. Prospects know that multiple companies have similar capabilities to yours, which is why capabilities on their own do not differentiate you; they do not put you at the head of the pack.

When you share insights that make the prospect smarter and challenge their thinking, they begin to see your firm as a valuable asset and strategic partner, not just another among many. The key point is this: Insights without capabilities make you someone interesting to have a beer with; but insights backed by capabilities to solve the client’s problem are the best possible way to make you a serious contender for a project.

3. Your solution

Essentially, the Solution must have two requirements: First, it has to flow logically from the Problem/Opportunity and Insight. Second, it must be a Solution that you actually want to offer. Nearly all Artemis clients find this concept easy to wrap their minds around.

At this point, you can talk to your prospect about what you do. You know enough to pick from your capabilities and experience those specific areas relevant to solving the Problem by way of the Insight. You’re now in a position to say, “You have this problem. We have an Insight that can solve the problem for you. Here’s the solution we would put in place that will leverage that insight to your benefit.”

Providing a compelling solution to a significant problem shows a prospect that you know what you’re doing. It’s a reason for your prospect to want to talk to you well before they’re considering an RFP for a specific project. You’re now on their radar, poised to move up in their consideration.

4. The measurable outcomes achieved by your solution

Depending on what capability you’re emphasizing and what problem it’s designed to solve, there should be metrics that clearly indicate that your specific capability has, in fact, solved the problem in the past. More importantly, it should be a measurable outcome that a prospect – with a similar business problem – would want for that project.

Artemis has seen too many examples of firms that rely on the same metrics in all their prospect conversations. Money earned or saved, profit impact, efficiencies, market share, employee retention, and shareholder value are all good numbers. The problem is that these numbers might not reflect the outcome that your prospects are trying to achieve.

And then there are the metrics that are more “seller-centric” and not client-centric. Things like awards, industry recognition, even growth rates. (“Work with us because we’re one of the ten fastest growing firms.”)

The bottom line here is to select metrics that meet two criteria: They track directly from the solution to the problem, and they are measures that matter to your prospect.

5. The broader impact of those outcomes on what the decision-makers really care about

This is the business development component that most pursuit teams miss. And it’s the one that can be most important in driving success. That’s because it’s the part of the story that gets the prospect to say, “Yep, finally, someone understands what’s really important to us!”

When your firm solves a business problem in a meaningful, measurable way, it should have implications that go beyond the metrics. Let’s say your solution is a cost management, back-office project. You had a recent project where your team reduced errors by 10% and turned up $500,000 in savings. It’s measurable. It’s very cool. So, what would that result actually mean to the people who would eventually make the decision to hire you?

Or how about if your company builds a strategic business plan for a client, and it results in a three-point market share increase for their top product? What would that mean to a prospect of yours if you could get a comparable result for them?

By nailing the broader impact that matters most to your prospect, you can create miles of separation between your firm and your competitors in the prospect’s mind.?Many firms can promise a measurable outcome, but only your company would demonstrate an understanding of what truly matters to decision-makers.?And, voila, differentiation.

Putting it All Together

As you can see, focusing on each of the five components of business development positioning enables your firm to create and deliver a compelling, meaningful, results-focused, and metrics-driven story that clearly differentiates you from the competition and puts you in the driver’s seat for upcoming RFPs.

Yes, Winning IS Better, ?and understanding your business development positioning is the way to get you there.