In this episode:

How Nirvana includes pre-engagement, Hot Buttons and effective working with subject matter experts (SMEs)

Most businesses are normally reactive, often not expecting a bidding opportunity to be released and then trying to cater to it with a bad timeline.

Common mistakes include knee-jerk graphics, underestimating the time to create effective graphics, which should be done well before writing.

Where possible, I pre-engage for capture, discover the hot buttons, and establish win themes. Also a trainer, and I help with authoring.

Great insight can derive from what I call "Car Park" conversations. Clues and even body language help you get the key 3-4 hot buttons.

How to influence to engage earlier? Persistence. Show the stakeholders the benefits in dollars saved, time saved and improved win rate. Stop bidding on everything and your effectiveness and win rate will naturally increase.

My motivation years ago, initially, was to win. Now my motivation is to have the team believe in what is possible and to win better.

When Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs) first came out, there was a lot of concern from the industry.

My top tips? Pre-engage and pre-prepare. Have the content and stories and case studies ready. It makes a huge difference in how you win.

Contact me through the website:

www.willsconsultants.co.uk

Also please join me and listen in on my podcast:

'Winning bids and proposals'

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winning-bids-and-proposals/id1517455655

Also Available on all major platforms.

Links to free tools:

Website: www.willsconsultants.co.uk

Podcast: 'Winning bids and proposals'. Available on all major platforms.

Free fact sheets to download with podcast 'Winning bids and proposals'.

About our guest

Jack Wills has forty years of experience in proposal and bid development. His interest in bid writing started when was called in to evaluate a major contract in the UK Ministry of Defence as a staff officer in the British Army.

As a 'gamekeeper' he quickly became a 'poacher' in the bid world!

Leaving the Army in 1988, he started his own business in the video and multimedia world, developing some 5-6 proposals per month! He is now a consultant working with many bluechip clients.

* Capture is about being engaged long before the Request For Proposal (RFP) or Invitation To Tender (ITT) is released

* The Real prize is upstream, as an estimated 60% of decision-making power is before the ITT is ever released.

* Engaging clients in that thinking process is more profitable, as it creates value and we earn the right to take a share of the value we create

* Bid responders should be Snipers, not infantry.

* Better to win 1/100 large deals than 100 small deals

* A lot of firms scattergun their approach

* Bidders are great "midfielders" but if you wait until the ITT comes out you have missed the bigger opportunity

* Capture is based on an opportunity

* Account planning positions for opportunities to come. Pick a leader for the account and build a plan, connecting with who and in what order to inform the next connection and build momentum

* The CRM dirty secret is that real adoption is spectacularly low. CRM implementation is treated as an IT project instead of cultural change, and those who sell CRMs aren’t very good at it. Drive the transformation into how you win work.

* 80% of B2B biz should come from existing clients, which is a reflection of how well you look after them

* If you don’t know the economic buyer's partner name and success measures you are in deep shit :)

* One UK example is with Morgan Sindall https://www.morgansindallconstruction.com/

* Focus on winning deals in accounts that will have more ongoing projects rather than a single deal with nothing to follow. Build the account plan and capture plan.

* When driving change, not all people make the change

* At ISG it was a challenge keeping pace and affected how I had to change the approach to brief senior people. COVID-19 made us isolated and so I had to relearn how to give updates

* My role has been to bring expertise the CEO does not have, but my advice is as the caddy to help their success, not to. be the golfer.

* Maturity in Capture differs around the world. In Capture, the US is pretty mature.

* The UK is the leading nation in bidding as others are derivatives of the UK's lead, and Americans are a bit behind there.

* But Capture is the opposite, where almost all capture roles are in the USA, but not many "get it yet" in Europe. Capture is the next key step.

* US capture managers see the opportunity it all the way through. This creates continuity as most bid teams elsewhere don’t look at the relationship and what has happened upstream.

* The bidding person should mentor upward: invite a senior sponsor. * The biggest factor in winning is a board member, mentor them in what you need.

* Capture works for a smaller number of bigger deals, otherwise focus on account management.

* Bid teams are helpless when forced to bid everything, it’s "bullshit"

* To influence the business and the bidding decisions, show data and win rates and feedback.

Links to free tools, useful tips or offers for our listeners

Visit htps://www.thebidtoolkit.com for our free to air bid process content, listen to our podcast The Red Review, and become a member of our online community at https://www.patreon.com/theredreview

About our guest

* Jeremy Brim brings 20 years of experience as a capture and bid management professional across both the public and private sectors. * Leading successful bid function spanning professional services, outsourcing, and construction - Jeremy has secured an enviable collection of high-profile projects, programs, and frameworks with blue-chip clients around the globe.

* Jeremy founded growth ignition in 2018, where he works with leadership teams to plan and execute interventions across the sales cycle.