6 Ways to Improve Proposal Success - A Middle East Experience

Companies I have worked for and with are naturally curious about what a good proposal looks like and how their proposals stack up against competitors. What most organisations don't realise is that there are tools available to help them understand exactly where they are at against best practice and their industry peers.

To improve proposal success, one would assume there are some variations depending on client, sector and the type of bidding process being undertaken, and this is somewhat true. There are still some key methods that apply across the spectrum of proposals and my experience in the Middle East has demonstrated this repeatedly:

1. Bidding an Opportunity You Can Win

This seems obvious, but it can be a fraught issue for many companies. Qualifying opportunities can be a very difficult and emotive decision with many organisations reluctant to “no bid” for fear of ‘giving business away’ or 'disappointing the client'. The reality is that if there is little chance of winning the bid, or a client is merely running a beauty pageant of suppliers, your money could be better spent investing in opportunities you can win. My experience in the Middle East indicates a much greater reluctance to "no bid" than when I worked in other markets, and a greater tendency to want to be "in the race" even if the chances of success were slim.

2. Making your Proposal Easy to Evaluate

A proposal must be easy for evaluators to quickly identify key information and messages that can be checked off their evaluation sheets or matrices. The easier they can evaluate your proposal, the better it is for your company, assuming you have a compelling bid! Evaluators do not read a proposal from cover to cover and the challenge for Proposal Managers is to build a document that clearly highlights elements of the proposal that meet the client’s buying criteria. The Middle East is an extremely diverse region and you need to understand who will be evaluating your proposal as this will influence how you build your document. You want your proposal to be remembered for the right reasons and not because the evaluator had to spend hours searching for points to award or was confused by the language you used. The longer it takes to find information, the less likely they are to continue looking.

3. Addressing Customer Buying Criteria

There’s no doubt clients make emotional buying decisions. Client issues and pain points keep decision makers up at night and significantly drive the buying decision. These may be the stated evaluation criteria or they may be unstated criteria which is why capture is extremely important in major pursuits. Companies must identify and address the key client issues and buying criteria throughout the entire sales life cycle, definitively addressing them in the proposal. There are a number of techniques for addressing these hot buttons and you should aim to be succinct, clear and direct. In emerging markets like those within the MEA region, it is not uncommon for unstated criteria to significantly influence the final decision, so developing solid relationships with clients is ever more critical.

4. Using a Logical Proposal Structure

Structuring your proposal in a way that enables evaluators to rapidly assess your company's solution and capability is critical to improving your chances of proposal success. When competing in the Middle East it is not unusual for the quality of proposals to range from stapled pages to full production packages of multiple volumes, samples and boxes. Establishing a professional standard for proposal delivery that is consistent and replicable is one element of proposal structure. More importantly, Proposal Managers should produce a compliant document that is easy to navigate with relevant tables of contents and compliance; highlights key messages, addresses the buying criteria and is easy to read.

5. Replacing Words with Images and Graphics

In the Middle East the use of powerful imagery and info-graphcs cannot be over-stated. Although research by various marketing organisations already shows that using imagery increases reader engagement in both web and print media, the same is true for proposals. As an example, I once delivered a concise proposal to a client in the UAE and was asked to re-submit it as a brochure with more photos and less words. This scenario has been repeated by many of my colleagues in the region. Of course we obliged, but the point was clear - let the pictures tell the story where it is appropriate. They must be relevant, informative and engaging.

6. Offer Value

Not all decisions are made on price alone. There’s no disputing that price is often a significant driver behind buying decisions and in some cases it is the only decision (e.g. certain Invitations To Bid (ITBs) or Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable (LPTA) RFPs). Very often though, awards are made based on “value” and firms in the Middle East make their own value-based determinations when awarding contracts. The trick here is to understand what is valued the most! Buying decisions must be justified at one level or another, so value needs to be defined in these terms. The message for the Proposal Manager is that concise statements about the value of your solution must be identified and quantified succinctly throughout your proposal document. This requires careful thought and attention to hit the right notes.

These are just some of the ways that you can improve proposal success but there are more.

To find out the rest and how to apply them Shipley is holding a Writing Winning Proposals Open Workshop in Dubai on 10 – 11th September 2014.

Download a brochure or register for the event online.

What other tips do you have?