ARE YOU THE REASON YOUR COMPANY LOSES RFPS?

Winning (or losing) a proposal often comes down to us as individuals doing (or not doing) our jobs as well as we should be. I know you never want to be the reason your team isn’t performing at its best, but sometimes you are. 

But whenever I consult with proposal teams across various organizations, there are a few common problems that pop up every dang time. Because one of my 2018 resolutions is ‘being less selfish,’ I will share my list of habitual proposal team hurdles with you: 

• Reviewers don’t review on time. We all get busy with other important work deadlines, but when you don’t review a proposal on time, you not only cost your team members their nights and weekends, trying to make up for lost time, but you hurt your chances at giving everyone enough time to create solid, winning responses.
• Internal timelines are terrible. When proposals managers don’t take into account holidays, vacation times, or busy periods within a contributor's timeline, internal due-dates cause late, hurried responses and revisions, instead of persuasive answers. It also leads to a burned-out and resentful team who can’t perform as well on the next bid.
• Last-Minute Overhauls. If your senior management is re-writing and reviewing the proposal the day (or hour!) before a response is due, they are hurting the team’s morale and the proposal’s response quality. When last-minute revisions are made, things looked rushed, sloppy, and mistakes are inevitable.
• Technical and sales wars. Technical experts want things to be completely accurate, and sales peoples tend to want to find ‘the creative’ answer. Usually, there is an honest, yet effective, answer, but unless your technical experts and salespeople work well together, they won’t find that answer.
• You write without customer insight. Someone on your team should know the customer. They should know their pain points, their background, and how we should answer each question in an individualized way. If that person doesn’t give that input, then the responses will feel generic and lack the persuasive power you need to win.

If you are doing any of these things, please get out your phone, put it in selfie-mode, look yourself in the eye and repeat after me:

‘I am not a bad person. So I should stop doing bad things.’

This chant will most likely not dramatically change your bad habits, but put a goal in your company’s or your individual goal-keeping tool. Help your team avoid any of these bad behaviors. Your win-rate, your team, and your phone’s selfie mode will thank you.

?So what about you? Do you know of common behaviors that hinder instead of help win RFPs?