My new favourite phrase

I was working last month with a lovely team in Qatar. They’ve designed a great bid and proposal process, and built a hugely enthusiastic team. My job: to help them gain APMP certification, and to evangelise good practice to their sales colleagues and senior management.
 
Now we’ve long advocated the importance of pre-proposal planning – engaging with the sales team well before an RFP lands. To a large extent, this simply boils down to making the following dreams come true: by the time the RFP lands:

1. The customer has a good idea of our capabilities and competitive advantages.
2. We've influenced the customer's requirements, criteria & process towards our strengths.
3. We've established a good relationship with the customer’s key decision makers.
4. We understand the customer's view of our competitive position.
5. We know the timescales for the RFP / proposal.
6. We've built our proposal team & they’ve allocated time.
7. We've pulled together any raw material that we'll need when we come to write the proposal.
8. The customer is looking forward to reading our proposal and expects us to win.

My Qatari friends have one extra phrase, that I really loved. One of their goals for their sales colleagues is as follows:
Be the first to know.
 
I think I’ll use this as a test when qualifying deals in future – along with my old favourite: “what do we know about this deal that our competitors don’t.” If we’re late to the table, and don’t have an inside track, why would we bother?!

Posted by Jon