Do you need an expert?

DO YOU NEED
AN EXPERT?

Industry sector knowledge is the biggest challenge given to bid writers seeking work. You’ll probably ask about my knowledge of your sector when we get talking.

I treat this as a sales objection.

We all have to deal with objections, and effectively, if we want to make progress. All of us except Estate Agents, it would appear. I’ll tell you my Estate Agent stories when we get talking. They‘re fairly amusing.

Key question: Is a contract Bid Writer’s knowledge of your sector helpful, or unhelpful, or neither, for your bid team’s situation?

Here is a fuller answer

When the pressure is on you to win your next tender or if you’ve had poor results, then take a step back and look at the key issues. Re-examine your concerns and rationalise them - the first step to winning this contract.

My answer to your question is informed by a long career in sales in which I have beaten the ‘Big Five’* (tier 1) consulting companies. I beat them by finding out exactly:

What really matters here?

* For ambitious mid-tier (tier 2) vendors trying to win a large services contract (like I was), there were always larger, more menacing adversaries. Perhaps we should call them the ‘Big n, where n is an uncomfortably large integer‘. I explain this in The strengths of the mid-sized services vendor DJ.pdf which is available to you on request when you Contact me.

Rationalise

Ask yourself this, “will having more sector knowledge in our bid team be the thing that makes us win, when our company is overflowing with experts in our sector ? ” Will it? Really?

And then ask yourself a more enlightening question, “If we had more of X , would that make our chance of winning this one higher ? ” So what is X ?

Measure what matters

Those sales managers (like me!) and bid managers (like me!) who are savvy at hiring the best people use psychometric testing to find out what makes a candidate ‘tick’*.

* All my interviews started with a psyche test. Ian R, the owner of a recruitment company in Crewe, told his candidates this about me, "he's very nice, but you'll get a grilling!" Ian introduced me to psychometric testing. He was a very savvy recruiter.

The ‘Rolls Royce’ psychometric analysis system* is OPQ from Saville and Holdsworth.
(www.shl.com and search OPQ).

* See lower down for precise reason.

OPQ measures behaviour.

Behaviour is the best

predictor of performance,
and it is performance

that produces results.

OPQ your candidates, get an in-depth report explaining how they operate and find out if he/she has the X you need to win that next contract.

(BTW: HR people love doing this stuff, but make sure you decide who goes on your bid team.)

Results come from winning

The single sales objective in the sales account plan defines exactly what you want to win. And you want your bid team to be the team that wins it. So, an even better question is, “what constitutes a winning team? ”

Those who have recruited, managed, and led winning teams (like me!) will tell you:

A winning team is
a team of winners.

* OPQ is so good it specifically measures a Behavioural Style called Business Winner.

* That is why OPQ is the best for recruiting Bid Teams.

To see what OPQ covers, please request David Jones Business Profile.pdf on my Contact page for my full OPQ report.

Gain an advantage

To get into a winning position in a bid it’s vital to demonstrate your leadership, even if you’re not perceived as an industry leader. This is done by creating a knowledge advantage and using it to ’connect’ with the customer.

At this point I can hear those who asked for more sector knowledge in the bid team now saying, "told you!" But hold your horses. That way your strategy is to ’out-expert’ your competitors. But they might ’out-expert’ you instead. Very risky, dangerous, and, when you see it in the flesh, very ugly.

Confirm your authority

There is a better way. Instead of putting emphasis on sector knowledge, put emphasis on customer knowledge. Understand the customer’s Situation, Problem, the Implication of their problem and derive the customer‘s Need. This is the SPIN* view.

* We are all indebted to Neil Rackham. His research-led consulting provided us all with SPIN Selling, Consultative Selling, Major Account Sales Strategy and Negotiating Behaviour. He founded the Huthwaite Research Group.

(www.huthwaiteinternational.com and search SPIN.)

Now, armed with your customer knowledge advantage you can demonstrate precisely how you will achieve their need. This is the most positive way of alignment with their situation and the principle reason for their contract. This is the way you create confidence, you confirm your authority and you gain a winning position in this bid.

We all absorb sector knowledge

This is exactly what I did when I became the Sales and Marketing Manager of the best security services business in Cheshire, knowing nothing about security.

A high-profile prospect was RHM Foods which makes Bisto, Oxo, Homepride, McDougalls and many more well-known UK food products. I was the Key Account Manager and Bid Writer. After some initial relationship sales activity, I was introduced to RHM’s team by their Project Manager, Ian P, as a security expert!! for heaven's sake. I put that down to my fake-it-before-you-make-it * skills. The bid team, naturally, had real security experts, foremost of whom was Cliff U, the owner, the MD, and a former Police Commander. RHM accepted my bid and I won the contract.

* This light-hearted phrase really means demonstrating confidence without arrogance.

At the beginning of the contract delivery phase, Ian gave me his assessment of their supplier selection. Ian’s exact words to me were, “David, I trust you and your company 99.9% and I trust ***** about 10%. ” It would be impolite to say who ***** is (the best-known and the biggest supplier in the sector), but the number of asterisks is correct. I still have Ian’s letter.

I didn’t win because
I was a security expert.
I won because I was TRUSTED.

How to beat ‘serious‘ competition

Ultimately it’s all about the desire - or better, obsession - to win.

If you are overflowing with the desire and the capability to win, you will win!

But if you are overflowing with sector knowledge, will you win?

Which would you bet on when you’ve got to beat the best?

Remember, the best are the ones that have already found out:

what causes them to win and

what causes them to lose?

Inside the cringe-worthy and hackneyed directive “join our winning team ” that we see in job ads, lies a hidden gem. Those who know what it takes to win will create a winning team. And what exactly is a winning team? It’s a team of winners.

Finally ...

DO YOU REALLY NEED

ANOTHER EXPERT ?

NO YOU DON’T !

Because ?

To beat serious competition,
the proven ‘trick’ is to
hire a winner.

So ... have I handled
your objection?*

* I’ll be happy to receive and respond to your comments and observations that you provide on my Contact page.

A word of warning

I looked up ‘Bid Writer’ on the web. One site I found – I won’t name it because they don’t deserve publicity with ideas like this – says “A Bid Writer is a Subject Matter Expert ” in their name AND in print!!

This statement is false.

I’ve explained above why you don’t need more Subject Matter Experts in your bid team.

Subject Matter Experts are vital to your bid team to inspire confidence in the client’s Technical Buyers’ and User Buyers’ minds.

I started out as an expert, so I know.

But where this has to stop is before their copy becomes final. Their copy has to sell too (see my page on this) but their #1 skill is not writing persuasive copy. The Bid Writer must ensure that their expert message is not damaged by negative influencers such as Power Robbers* etc. And their messages must be aligned with the win themes that the bid team has chosen for this bid.

Consistency is a key factor

for creating TRUST.

* Remember, we're also writing for reading types called skimmers and skeptics (deliberate American spelling for alliteration purposes). If I said, "Skeptics could, most likely, be aligned with a competitor." Note: using could creates a perception of self-doubt and you would be right to think, "he's not sure, so how can I be sure?" The word could robs your copy of power, undermines your authority and enables an anti-sponsor to attack. However, if I said, "Skeptics will, most likely, be aligned with a competitor" there’s no self-doubt is there? For more detail on this subject, request Dealing with customer prejudice DJ.pdf here on my Contact page.

At a presentation in Scotland that I was leading, I got a tough technical question. I handed it to our expert with, “Rob this is one for you.” Rob gave an answer that seemed satisfactory to me. But it wasn’t for this audience member. What ensued was a competition between two experts that were determined to ‘out-expert’ each other and fight their personal contest in front of an invited audience of potential decision makers. Not a pleasant experience and damaging for our cause.

The lesson from this, and other similar negative experiences, is:

Be careful how you use your experts.

They do not own the account plan.
A bid has to persuade.
Make sure that sales have the final word.
Sales carry the sales target.