I was recently working with a local client, doing some Deal
Coaching to help them prepare to win a large opportunity. My client’s customer
had recently finalised their Request For Proposal, and I’d been called in to
help with the proposal and pitch in response.
“I’d usually just jump in and start writing,” one of the
sales leaders said, “and see what comes out.”
I wasn’t surprised: I see this a lot. But it was a good
opportunity to make the case for stepping back, thinking and planning, and,
only then, writing with the end in mind.
Why not just start
writing?
The key reason not to start without knowing where you are
going is that it tends to be an inefficient use of time. With only a vague
sense of where your key advantages or opportunities to create value might be,
you’re likely to spend more time overall in writing, and produce a less
impactful document. You tend to wander around somewhat aimlessly, making points
here and there. Your thinking might not be consistent. Ideas won’t build upon
each other as well. And you might lack the clarity and simplicity that really
helps to “sell ideas”.
Business writing in general, and proposal writing in
particular, is rarely a purely creative process. In creative writing, the
process of “just jumping in and seeing where it goes” may well lead to a
desirable outcome. In proposal writing it generally wastes time. “You think
you’re saving time because you are immediately working, creating page after
page,” an old sales manager once said, “But it is a false economy: you end up
spending much more time on it.”
The other problem is that once you put effort into writing
parts of the proposal, you become attached to them. Even if your previous work
no longer has very much relevance to your current thinking, it is hard to let
it go. This struggle links to a concept in Behavioural Economics called “LossAversion”, which I’ll summarise as “not wanting to waste (or lose) your
previous investment of time and effort.” Because your mind does not want to let
go of the work you’ve done, you try to shoe-horn it in someplace, often to the
detriment of your ideas.
So what SHOULD you
do?
The best way to invest your time at the start of the
proposal writing process – aside from all the time engaging and influencing key
stakeholders and other topics I’ve discussed before – is to *think*. Step back
and consider how you are actually going to position yourself to win this
business.
In our practice, we use specific tools to help our clients
identify the Value Winners, Value Killers, and Value Sleeper that will power
their pitch or proposal strategy. But no matter what methodology you use, even
if you don’t use one*, the value of planning is significant.
One of the consulting firms with which I do work allocates
10% of every project to upfront planning. This means that, even before they get
started on the work, they step back and really understand what they are trying
to achieve. Another firm actually creates the end presentation they’d LIKE to
give, then goes back to fill in the details and data that they go out and find.
Both of these firms are much more effective in winning business than our
typical clients.
Begin with the end in mind. If you start writing knowing
where you are going, your output will be more powerful, more defined, and likely
more compelling. Or, to quote my client, “I’d already be halfway done with the
writing by now, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as this is going to be
now. And I reckon I’ll finish it more quickly!”
Sales Manager
toolkit:
Things to do to encourage your team to avoid the pitfalls of
“jumping in”:
- · Challenge your team to identify the specific Winners, Killers and Sleepers (or whatever terminology you might use) before they start.
- · Structure a planning/brainstorming session, involving multiple people, as early as possible.
- · Once the key themes are identified, ask your team if each section of the document supports those themes, or should be discarded.
