What separates you apart from competitors who are providing the same service as you? If you’re doing business as usual and your projects are in the “green” status, have good customer feedback, what else should you be doing to avoid becoming a commodity service for them that could be easily replaced? Here are some ideas: 

• Continuously improve, innovate, offer new ideas, new ways of providing value and services, new consultative ways to solve problems, propose new solutions, show “what good looks like”, etc.  Have improvement plans in place that show what you’re improving, how it is progressing, etc. Customers are working with you and value your ideas and pro-activeness to make them better. Customer are actually eager to hear about those, they brought you to help, to consult, to offer new insights
• Hackathons – do one internally with your team, or better yet, jointly with a customer so you can actually work on specific business use cases that will resonate and land with the customer to drive ROI and real value that is important for them
• Create an Innovation Fund – For example, put X% of the value of the contract into the “fund” matched by the customer so you can engage in innovative, CXO, visible projects. This could also be used with discounts. Instead of discounting a certain percentage of the deal to the customer, put this money into the “fund” to be used for activities in this list
• Create Innovation Programs, Run POCs, Pilots that demonstrate solving real challenges for the customer. Show innovative ways to solve a problem or introduce a new feature into the product, or ways to re-architect a problem, etc. 
  Explore as pilots, POCs emerging technologies e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, RPA, Blockchain, etc.
• Accelerators, IP – offer accelerators, IP to kick start new projects, accelerate new ways of doing projects, minimize time to market, increase re-usability 
• Create Training Labs, Bench for your and customer team to learn new skills, be available to help in “burst” mode on specific projects, or shadow specific projects, or simply be ready for the next upcoming project ahead of time.

Here are some thoughts to include in your proposal outline and general best practices to consider to make your pitches successful.

Outline

Best Practices

• Exec Summary for Each Deal – For each deal, list the following about the Deal
  • Deal type – e.g. Proactive
  • Deal nature – e.g. Modernization efforts for in Store for Pharmacy Services
  • Deal buyer – e.g. XYZ, VP Product Services
  • Deal tech, solution – e.g. Human Centered Design Research
  • Industry – e.g. HCLS
  • Pursuit team – e.g. Digital, Account, Delivery
  • Win Themes
• Buyers, Stakeholders, Champions
  • Identify who is a buyer, Champion
• Identify a pursuit team
  • Align at the right level e.g. you don’t want your junior team “selling” to VP. Match up your pursuit team and customer on the right governance level
  • Identify contact from Presales Team who will help orchestrate putting Proposal in PPT, WORD together
  • Delivery Manager – ideally identified and part of the pursuit team who will drive the engagement and validate resource plan, estimates, etc.
  • Solution Architect – US and Offshore (to work in same time zone as presales and scale onsite SA)
  • Identify contact from Presales Team who will help orchestrate putting Proposal in PPT, WORD together
• Ownership, Due Dates – assign
• Research
  • Research all the customer attendees who will be in the room or on the call during orals presentation. Do LinkedIn relationship analysis, e.g. who are we connected to, etc.
  • if it’s in response to an RFP, try to get as much context as possible, meet / talk to customer (not to circumvent VMO though), meet for introductions so they at least know you, otherwise you’ll be “Supplier Number 5” in the process and in their minds.
• Briefing Document
  • Create briefing description of the opportunity, stakeholder, account background, etc. (Account Team should own and start this and this could be shared with all Pursuit team members to get up to speed on the deal, opportunity)
• Questions & Clarifications with Customer
  • Ask for additional documents to share
  • Have customer show demo of the product or pilot they’ve done or demo
  • Prepare list of questions, share with customer ahead of time, setup a session to review
  • If it’s in response to an RFP, try to get as much context as possible, meet / talk to customer (not to circumvent VMO though), meet for introductions so they at least know you, otherwise you’ll be “Supplier Number 5” in the process and in their minds.
• Start with End in Mind
  • Work Backwards from Message, Outcome you desire to achieve, Deliverables, or End of Project Success e.g. Future PR (Amazon style)
• Outline
  • Braindump and create Outline of the proposal
  • Create a story that follows AND, BUT, THEREFORE format (ABT)
    • AND = positive message, agreement (or Setup in storytelling)
    • AND = more positive messages, more agreement
    • BUT = problem, challenge, contradiction
    • THEREFORE – consequences, solution, action, next step
• Briefing, About you Company
  • If new customer, ask them for time to brief them on Company and get introduced. It’s not breaking RFP rules, you’re introducing your Company in general. Otherwise you’ll be “Supplier Number 5” to them. Also, when I lost RFPs, I’d ask customer for a chance to give Company briefing, it led to better relationships and other RFPs, deals, wins in areas where we could win.
• Message, What are you Selling or Proposing?
  • Have a message. Could be the value prop or Why your Company, but have a clear message. Have it day 1 so everyone is aligned to that message, theme.
  • Always know what you’re “selling”. Know exactly those 3-5 things that you’re selling in the proposal.
  • Same Message, Keywords, Lexicon introduced in the executive summary should flow throughout the proposal.
• Answer the questions
  • “What exactly are you proposing?”
  • “What am I (as a customer) getting for $XYZ spent?”
  • “What is the outcome after the meeting?”
  • “What does success look like after the meeting?”
  • “So What?”
• Ask
  • Ask Customer what they’re really looking for (can do offline, unofficially)
• Executive Sponsor
  • assign executive sponsor on the deal, account level.
• Review Ahead of Time w. Execs
  • Review Pricing, approach, presenter list with your Company Exec team to align so it doesn’t happen the night before presentation if we need to make any adjustments
• Pricing
  • REALLY understand what goes into pricing, all the rates, roles, investments, discounts, licensing, etc.
  • During Orals this is one area where you should anticipate to be “grilled” and questioned by the customer.
  • Know your numbers cold or what goes into to those numbers.
  • Must have Excel Model to support it. Excel should have Resource Plan outlined by role, rate, monthly allocation, etc. and include any discounts, etc. that you’re offering.
  • Have P&L Model done on the deal as well so we understand the margins in case we need to discount
• Output, Format, Content
  • It’s easier to build PPT proposal vs. WORD, try to steer customer to submit PPT proposals
  • If you’re submitting WORD doc, also consider submitting a reduced version of the PPT as the companion deck
  • Put a Thought Provoking slide into the presentation. I’ve seen digital teams do that to spur conversation. One Pitch had “LOVE” word listed and asked the customer what’s opposite (Apathy not Hate). It was a build up to the story that would follow later in the presentation.
  • Artifacts, Creative Ideas – if possible, embed in your proposal actual ideas, screen shots, pictures, photos, wireframes, how we went about our process ideating for the proposal (e.g. white boarding, mobile app screen shots). Example: when we responded to one of the customer’s RFP we actually created mock up screens for the mobile app and we showed pictures of the internal workshop that we ran to come up with mock  up design, and white boarding sessions full of sticky notes.
  • WHAT, HOW, WHEN – In the proposal, focus on what we are going to do EXACTLY for the Customer. Remove marketing, marketecture or move to Appendix.
  • Outline how what we propose is aligned to Customer strategy, key initiative or pain points e.g. what we propose, how does it help them save cost in Cloud
  • Show “What good [end state, architecture, solution] looks like”.
• “Readout, Pre-read”
  • “Prime” the customer, organize “Pre-Read” Session – “pre-read”, preview draft proposal with key individuals, coaches at the client. Meet with them ahead of time. They can help fine-tune your pitch, plus they’ll start priming their own stakeholders
• Competition
  • Find out about competitors, what they’re doing, where are they failing or succeeding.
• Workshop
  • Pre-Proposal – Ask to do a Workshop, Discovery, Assessment or just a few hour meeting to understand more about their business, problem, etc. before submitting a proposal (paid or as investment) so you can learn and fine-tune your message in the proposal. Or you can do it after proposal and orals to fine-tune/revise the proposal.
  • Post-Proposal – Offer Validation Working Session/Workshop to get to SOW. Frame it to zero in on deliverables, scope to prepare to put SOW together. You can include an ASK in the proposal to do follow up workshop (e.g. half-day, full day) to dig deeper into scope and refine approach, estimate
• Orals – identify a small team who will present to a customer face to face (best way). Every speaker should have a part, don’t overload the customer by bringing a lot of people into the meeting.
  • BRING RIGHT TEAM – who will be able to close the deal and speak, not just be passengers
  • People who present should be involved in the RFP or building the proposal early on so they don’t change the message at the very end
  • Presentation – limit number of voices that speak so you don’t continuously switch between speakers, that maybe confusing.
  • Dry run it ahead of time
  • Meet with team face to face (most likely twice during business trip evening dinner the night before and during breakfast the morning of presentation) and run through flow and who’s covering which slide and make any last min slide adjustments
• During Presentation
  • Company Overview – Ask “How much you know about our Company” before jumping in. You might have to cover Company 101 Story briefly before jumping into the details of the proposal.
  • After “Here is what we’ve heard slide”, pause during the presentation and ask “Did we miss anything? What else is the problem?” Have the customer help you fill the gaps by talking so it doesn’t feel like a one-way conversation during your pitch
  • Ask a customer what success looks like? What are Conditions of Satisfaction? (ideally you ask before as you qualify opportunity)
• Case Studies
  • It’s powerful to include video in your presentation, short one e.g. 1-2 mins. For example, Google story.
• Partner Channel
  • Find out if there is partner e.g. Microsoft involved.
  • Meet with their Account, Technical Team. Meet Industry team covering that account. Get them to jointly pitch or create joint slide about engagement, partnership model.
  • Find Executive sponsor supporting their account.
• Delivery Practices
  • If working with Delivery Practices e.g. Cloud, Data, suggest to Practice and Presales teams to setup a separate working and hands-on session without extended Account Team (AM, DM). That way Practice team can work on ideas, scope, approach, team model, etc. independently AND THEN bring teams (Practice, Account) together for review. For examples, Tue, Th could be all-up reviews with Account Team and M, W, F as hands on working sessions by Practices/Presales teams.
• Assumptions
  • If you can’t clarify with Customer any details, Q&A, then just make a set of assumptions in your proposal and then you can validate it during “pre-read” or during preso

• Prep
  • Identify OWNER for the meeting who will Project Manage, orchestrate, lead, be responsible for logistics, rallying the team together, shaping agenda, etc.
  • Identify Point of Contact e.g. from Presales team (if available) to help orchestrate content from the pursuit team and help compile PowerPoint, Case Studies, Agenda, etc. Otherwise owner of the meeting needs to orchestrate.
  • Research customer attendees to understand their backgrounds, responsibilities, etc. ahead of the meeting
  • Identify pursuit team (who will be face-to-face and remote)
  • Start working on agenda
  • Assign each agenda topic to an owner
  • Bring only people who will have talking, real parts during face-to-face (don’t bring a “kitchen sink”, keep it small)
  • Prep Questions, prioritize and categorize Q’s
  • Prep PowerPoint with Message, Value Proposition, Why We are the Right Partner of Choice, Case Studies
  • Schedule to have a few prep sessions before the event with a customer to get overview, grounding, problem statement
  • Ask Customer to share any materials ahead of time so we can prepare
  • Meet with Business Users and also Tech/Arch teams to understand current Business and Tech landscape
  • Schedule daily internal sync to preperare well ahead of time so it’s not the last minute rush to compile materials and organizing people
• Logistics
  • Start OneNote Page to capture notes
  • Start Dropbox to share materials
  • Night or day before the meeting, have lunch/dinner or meeting with internal team to do final preparations, align on topics. At the very least, do it with the internal team a few hours before on the day of the meeting, presentation
  • Share Logistics (e.g Calendar invites, Address, parking, any registration requirements with front desk/security, reminders (bring driver license for security), etc. with participants)
  • Setup GoToMeeting
  • Come to the customer meeting early e.g. 30 mins to check-in, find room, setup equipment, dial-in, WebEx, etc.
  • Record the meeting (if possible)
• Agenda
  • See Sample Agenda below
• During Workshop
  • Try to Record (if possible)
  • Dial-In remote team and use Screen Share
  • Re-arrange tables so people are facing each other, don’t be shy to re-arrange seating in the room (especially for the workshop)
  • Mingle your team with customer’s and spread out so it’s not one side vs each other, sit side by side with the customer
  • Stand up, use whiteboard, move around, people need to huddle, post posted notes
    • e.g. we did a Customer Workshop and CIO came in the room and the room was bustling with energy, activity, excitement
  • Have side conversations during breaks
  • Build rapport, relationships
• After Workshop
  • Summarize and share Notes, Action Items
  • Proposal – work on the proposal, SOW
  • Assessment, Discovery, POC, MVP, Sprint 0, etc. – start with something as a follow up
  • Or maybe propose more in-depth discoveries/assessments to go deeper into specific topics
• Sample Agenda
  • Vision, Goals
  • Roadmap – where are you heading
  • Business Problem Statement, Pain points
    • Why?
    • What is the problem?
    • What is the Ask? Need to understand.
    • Need to understand the problem statement
    • Let’s list and prioritize w/ Customer team
  • Needs
    • What are you current needs?
    • What are you solving for?
  • Outcomes
    • e.g. how will you measure success, how does success look like, etc.
  • Scope
    • e.g. identify the scope, don’t boil the ocean, prioritize the top ones
  • Use Cases
    • Identify use cases
  • Current State
    • Current State today
  • Future State
  • Technical Topics to cover – example:
    • Web, Mobile track
    • End to End Use case
    • Cross-geo, international efforts
  • Approach
    • How would be approach tackling the problem, e.g. Step 1, Step 2, Step 3
  • Timeline, Dates
  • Engagement,
    • How do we start engaging?
    • Ways of Working Together
    • Drive towards Assessment, Discovery, Workshop, POC, etc.
  • Next Steps
    • Make Plan Actionable to Implement (as a table, summary, e.g. what are we doing on Monday)

When considering discounts, have some P&L analysis done in preparation for approval meeting with your management:

• What is the current P&L on the account?
• What is P&L on the proposed project that we are trying to discount?
• What would P&L be for a proposed project after applying discount?
• What would be Account P&L be considering existing Account Projects and Proposed Project discount?

• Figure out, focus how to do or achieve 10X growth, results, results for yourself, results for the company, results for your customer
• Look to achieve logarithmic/exponential progression growth, “hockey stick” growth NOT just incremental e.g. 25% improvement
• Look at the problem from other viewpoints, other angles to solve the problem, don’t look for incremental improvements, look for exponential improvements
• Question, challenge how to achieve these results in shorter periods of time. If someone says it’s a 10 year goal, question why can’t it be done in shorter period of time e.g. 6 mo – Peter Thiel
• Focus on hacking, tweaking, bootstrapping, being scrappy, innovative, collaborative, being entrepreneurial, etc. to achieve it
• Step outside of yourself, evaluate, see what you can do BIG, 10X
• Make Goals Interesting!
• “If you set a crazy, ambitious goal and miss it, you’ll still achieve something remarkable.” – Larry Page
• Focus on things that will drive those types outcomes, e.g. focus 20% of your effort that will produce 80% of your results, put the rest of “noise” on cruise control or ignore
• Prioritize appropriately, allocated % of time appropriately