|
This
Month's Featured MasterMind: Tom Sant on Creating
Winning Proposals
 According
to the American Management Association, Tom Sant is
"America's foremost practitioner of proposal writing."
Sant, author of Persuasive
Business Proposals, is a recognized expert
in business and technical communications.
Sant's innovative software programs, ProposalMaster
and RFPMaster, have been adopted by leading companies,
and have been featured in Sales and Marketing
Management magazine. He is a popular public
speaker, teacher and writer on the trials and tribulations
of proposal writers, sales and marketing professionals
and business communicators.
MCNews had an in-depth discussion with Sant about how
consultants can put together winning proposals for their
clients.
MCNews: How would you characterize consultants'
proposal writing today? Is it getting better, staying
about the same or declining?
Sant: Well, at best it's probably staying the
same. My firm gets hundreds of proposals from clients
and prospective clients every year. Based on those and
some studies we did over the past year and half, I
have to admit there hasn't been much improvement.
To give you one example, I've been preaching literally
for decades: don't start a proposal with an overview
of your company's history or your company's capabilities.
It's useful information, but it doesn't belong up front.
And yet, one of our surveys found that something like
thirty-six percent of all proposals start with a company's
history.
MCNews: Is that because proposals writers are more
comfortable talking about themselves than about their
clients' situations?
Sant: I think that's exactly it. We head for
our comfort zone, which tends to be talking about our
own stuff at our own level of technical competence.
That's an appropriate way to talk to your colleagues,
but not to your clients. Also, most people are much
more comfortable communicating in an informative way--providing
information--than they are in a persuasive way.
The more technical people are, the more that is a problem.
Somebody who is a consultant in IT management, for example,
may have more difficulty escaping the informative mode.
I've seen many proposals that launch into very technical
descriptions of projects or applications without any
focus on why the client would care.
Under pressure to produce proposals, people are not
sure what's the best model to follow, time is running
out and so they do what they feel they can do well:
talk about themselves at a level of fairly sophisticated
technical content.
MCNews: Have clients' expectations of proposals
changed over the years and, if so, how?
Sant: Client expectations really have changed.
Interestingly, I think clients were more tolerant of
bad proposals when my book came out ten years ago than
they are now. One reason for that is the almost total
dominance of consultative sales methodologies such as
Solution Selling, SPIN Selling or Target Account Selling.
These methodologies have become the approved way to
sell.
As a result, the salesperson or business development
expert goes through a process of uncovering client needs,
establishing the client's expectations and focusing
on value. The client reasonably expects the proposal
to reflect that process.
So when clients get boilerplate or cut-and-paste proposals,
there is a real disconnect. They say, "Wait a minute,
I gave you a whole lot of insight but none of it's here.
Instead, I'm hearing about your web architecture. Who
cares? I told you that what I've got to do is figure
out a way to give inventory access to my field sales
reps so we stop wasting co-op dollars. Okay, I kind
of see how web architecture relates, but you're not
solving my problem." So we are creating a set of
expectations through sales methodologies, which we then
fail to meet.
The second reason client expectations are higher is
that, in spite of its much-publicized failure, e-commerce
really has succeeded. All of us now buy off the web,
and that has changed what we expect a good buying experience
to be. Yesterday, I bought some books on Amazon, and
it was wonderful. You log in and they call you by name;
they remember your interests and make recommendations
without forcing them on you. You can immediately go
find what you want, and they track where you have been.
The whole experience is personalized.
Well, the net result is that it doesn't feel right
if I get a proposal that doesn't call me by name or
that calls me by the wrong name, that doesn't reflect
what I have expressed interest in, that doesn't pay
attention to my buying criteria, that appears to be
just shoving something down my throat. I am actually
getting a less personalized buying experience from another
individual than I am from a web site. To me, that speaks
of laziness or incompetence.
Another factor is that, as a result of the current
economic downturn, clients are much more risk-averse.
So proposals that don't clearly establish relevance,
value and significant impact on client operations are
getting discarded, or at least delayed. People don't
want to spend money in a down economy if they can avoid
it.
MCNews: Have you noticed changes in what today's
clients want to see in the writing style, tone and voice
of proposals?
Sant: Writing style has become less formal.
If you go back ten to fifteen years, proposals were
probably the most formal documents people wrote. They
were comparable to published white papers in terms of
tone. Now they are more like marketing materials with
an emphasis on readability. But, having said that, I
think people still want in proposals what they have
always wanted--clarity and ease of reading.
My rule of thumb for clarity is real basic: if I can
read it once and understand it, it is clear. If I have
to go back through the paragraph and read it a second
time, it's not clear. It's amazing how often we encounter
stuff in business that we have to go back and re-read,
and still end up asking, what are they saying?
Clients don't want to put up with that. They just don't
have time.
Clients also want conciseness. We did some tests
with a group of people who make their living evaluating
proposals. We gave them three proposals, one twenty-five
pages, one fifty and one 100 pages long. We asked them
to look for certain things, but we didn't really care
about that. Typical psychological experiment--we just
wanted to see which one they would pick up first. Almost
without exception, they picked up the shortest one first
because they wanted to get one out of the way quickly.
And, it's to your advantage to have your proposal read
first, assuming, of course, you have done a good job.
Even though we are supposed to be objective, human nature
being what it is, the client will inevitably compare
the next proposal read to yours. If it's not as good,
you win.
If you ask a room of twenty business people what they
like in a document, I guarantee you that the number
one answer will be, get to the point; don't beat around
the bush with a bunch of nonsense. The point for clients
is do you get it? Do you understand what they are trying
to do, and can you deliver?
MCNews: There are times when clients ask consultants
to write proposals just to get them out of the office.
The client says send me a proposal and I will look at
it. How do you decide whether or not to even write one?
Sant: I think anybody who values his or her
own time needs to have a structured bid, no-bid process.
Proposals are time consuming and they are an embodiment
of intellectual capital, which you don't want to squander.
You don't want to give away good ideas or insights when
there is no prospect of getting a reasonable return.
So consultants need to develop a qualification process,
which will vary by the industry type, client base and
so forth. But there are some common elements. One is
know the client. Do they do business in an ethical way?
Will they solicit a proposal and then use it as a project
plan to do the work internally, with no intention of
paying you for it? Do they see nothing wrong with having
you spend days developing a very detailed proposal and
pricing document, which they then use to beat up their
current vendor?
Sometimes, clients are trying to slow down the sales
process. They feel the momentum build as you go towards
the close. As you said, they figure, if they have you
go write a proposal at least that will get rid of you
for a couple of weeks. They're really not ready to buy.
The qualification process has to be based on observations
of where you are with the client in the sales cycle.
Is it too early to be sending a proposal even if they
ask for it? Is there an incumbent provider of this service,
and are you just being used as a way of testing that
incumbent's ability to cut price? Statistically, incumbents
will win ninety percent of all re-awards. If there is
an incumbent and you suddenly have been asked to bid
and you really don't have a strong relationship, you
might want to question if it's worth doing.
Even if the incumbent has done a horrible job, is on
notice or got a really bad performance rating, they
still win half the time, statistically. If you're not
the incumbent and there is somebody firmly in place
doing the exact kind of work you are proposing to do,
that should be a yellow flag. I don't mean you shouldn't
do the proposal, just be careful.
Another question: is their budget approved? Some people
are more than happy to waste your time when they have
no money. You can't always determine if they are telling
the truth about money. One consultant has clients sign
a letter of intent stating that if the proposal meets
the criteria and addresses the problem in a suitable
way, they will move forward; the project has been approved
and they intend to go forward. Now, it's not legally
binding, but it does give clients pause. It makes them
stop and think if they really want to sign their name
to this letter saying they are serious when they know
they are not.
You must also make sure you have access to the true
decision maker. You can ask, are you the decision maker?
And the answer is oh, yes, I am the decision maker.
But if you probe and notice the way other, similar decisions
have been made, you may find that this person is a decision
influencer or a gatekeeper. Then you should say, what
I would like to do is spend thirty minutes presenting
the outline of my approach to your vice president of
finance. Can you arrange that for me so I would be able
to do a better proposal? If the person refuses to give
you access to the actual source of decisions, it's a
pretty good sign you shouldn't be doing this.
Everyone gets ripped off occasionally, but those are
some ideas to help winnow out the real from the not
so real proposal requests.
MCNews: So if you decide to write one and you are
staring at a blank piece of paper, what's the first
thing you do to get started?
Sant: I have an advantage in our software systems,
which help jump-start proposals. For consultants who
don't have such an integrated approach, I teach them
to use a process I call cognitive webbing. First, make
sure you understand the end result the clients want.
What's going to make them feel they got good value for
their money? Oddly enough, when I pose this question
the typical answer I get is that the result the client
really needs is whatever product or service the consultant
is selling!
Here's an example. Let's say a client needs to develop
an e-commerce site to keep up with the competition and
hires you to help set up bank services to handle credit
card transactions for the site. You might think that
what the client needs is a great system for online,
real time verification of credit card payments. But
what the client really wants is to regain market share,
or not to lose any more. The ability to process credit
cards is just enabling technology.
Ask yourself some basic questions: Why does the client
want this? What's the problem you're solving? What's
the need that is not being addressed, or the gap in
capabilities that needs to be closed? Why is it important
to the client? What is rippling through the organization
that is causing discontent, lost productivity or lost
profitability?
How will clients measure success? What are they looking
for in terms of clear outcomes? If they were to tell
you their top three objectives in terms of results or
performance measures for this project, what would they
be? And which one matters the most? Is it financial?
Is it improvement to the infrastructure? Is it some
kind of change in the organization's culture that enables
employees to be more productive, or that reduces turnover,
or makes is less likely that senior executives will
jump ship? Knowing which result is the most important
is critical because that tells you where to frame your
value proposition.
Then you have to ask yourself, what have I got? How
can I solve the problem and deliver the right results?
Usually there are multiple ways to tackle a problem.
Given the likely outcome of doing it one way, how does
that match up with the client's goals? That should make
clear which approach is best.
MCNews: So this process clarifies the client's needs,
objectives and the best approach to the project. What's
the next step?
Sant: Cognitive webbing generates the content
for your proposal. The next step is to structure that
content. For that, I recommend using a pattern I talk
about in the book, the Persuasive Paradigm. It's very
simple: restate what the client needs, the goals the
client has established, and then give them the answer.
Here's the problem, here's the impact, and here's the
solution.
People understand stating the client's need, but sometimes
question stating the potential benefit before giving
them the answer. That's the difference between information
and persuasion. You restate the outcome the client is
looking for because that's where the motivation to act
comes from. If you don't show them the gain, they
will live with the pain. Show them that although
they may have many problems, this one is actually worth
doing something about--it has a big payoff.
Finally, prove you can do it, on time and on budget.
Prove that you have the recent, relevant experience,
competence, staff and whatever else they need to feel
confident. You want their risk aversion to go down and
their confidence in your ability to perform to go up.
At that point, you've got an outline and are ready to
write your proposal.
MCNews: When you review a proposal what's the most
common area you see that needs improvement?
Sant: It's almost always the up-front stuff:
the cover letter, title page, table of contents and
the executive summary. It's terrible to see generic,
bland titles like "Proposal" or Proposal for…"
or titles that just repeat the name of an RFP. Tables
of contents are often bad because they don't include
page numbers or they are disjointed.
The executive summary is the lynchpin of a proposal
because that's the one part everybody is likely to read.
But they often miss their mark. I group those four things,
the cover letter, title page, table of contents and
executive summary, into a bucket I call the "business
case." That's where you establish that you understand
the client's business and what they are trying to accomplish,
and that you have a reasonable and defensible plan for
helping them get there.
The business case elements add up to only four or five
pages. The rest of the proposal, which constitutes the
bulk of it, is substantiation--answering the questions
in an RFP, detailing the steps of a project, providing
resumes of key personnel and laying out management methodology.
People usually do okay with substantiation. They usually
blow it in the up-front stuff, which is where they need
to make the persuasive case. And that's the hardest
part to write.
MCNews: When you look out three or four years how
will the proposal process evolve, and how should consultants
think about and prepare for those changes?
Sant: There are two strong trends already underway.
One is a move toward more oral presentations; the other
is web-based submission of proposals.
The Federal government often drives change in these
areas and one of the most significant has been encouragement
from the GAO to streamline federal acquisition processes.
They have moved away from written proposals towards
orals, and businesses are now being developed and contracts
awarded based strictly on oral proposals.
That's a whole different way of communicating with
prospective clients. In theory, it's supposed to be
easier to create an oral presentation than a written
one, but it's really not, not if you do it right. But
orals are much easier for the evaluators. Instead of
reading twenty proposals and scoring them, which could
take weeks or months, evaluators can watch twenty presentations
in the course of five days and then they're done. It
saves a lot of time and money for the buyer, and I think
the use of oral proposals will spread.
The other change, web-based submissions, is a by-product
of e-commerce. I see it as a negative trend, but I think
it's going to become increasingly important. A client
posts a spreadsheet or some other kind of form on a
web site and you have to complete the form to compete
for the project. That's reducing the proposal down to
a spec sheet.
What the client is saying between the lines is "Everything
you provide is a commodity; I don't really care about
differentiators between you and your competition, and
I don't believe in your value proposition. What I want
to know is what have you got and what does it cost?
Just fill in the blanks and then I will choose."
That's not a smart way to buy or sell anything, but
if everybody in the industry does it, we may be stuck
with it. I don't think it will last, though, because
it violates key principles for making decisions in a
business environment. People can't calculate true rate
of return without understanding what differentiates
vendors. If you don't know the differentiators, you
can't compare.
A third trend for proposals is the integrated use of
media. In the future, you will receive a proposal electronically
and it will have hot links embedded in it. If you click
on one, the CEO will appear in digital video format
telling you how much the company wants your business,
about their strong commitment to the job, and so on.
Though splashier, this trend won't really change the
fundamentals of writing proposals but it will change
the delivery somewhat.
MCNews: Last question: what one piece of advice
you would give somebody who is getting ready to write
a proposal?
Sant: It may sound dumb, but my advice is don't
start too soon. Make sure you know what you need to
know. First, you need to know your own stuff, to be
a real expert, to write a good proposal. Sometimes people
write from a marginal level of competence. Maybe they
are new and just don't have the depth yet, and you can
tell.
Second, you've got to understand your clients and their
business--how they work, what the problems are and how
you are going to help them. And third, you need to know
how you can improve the relationship between your prospective
clients and their customers, or constituents if it's
a government bid. How you can improve that relationship
is the nexus of value. From the client's perspective,
if you can help me get stronger or more profitable relationships
with my customers, then I'm interested.
Make sure you know those things before you sit down
to write. Otherwise, you have no basis for differentiating
yourself or for delivering a client-centered message,
and no foundation for a compelling value proposition.
Without those, you end up writing about your company's
history--I don't know anything about you so let me tell
you about me.
MCNews: Thanks for your time and thoroughness.
Visit Tom Sant's web site at http://www.santcorp.com
for more tips on proposal writing and to find out about
his book and services.
Top
of page ^
Is
the Consulting Pyramid Toppling?
The answer to that question is yes, according
to a recent white paper published by the partners at
The Hocquet Group,
a boutique advisory and executive recruiting firm that
focuses exclusively on the consulting industry.
The special report entitled "The
Rise (and Fall) of the Consulting Pyramid" warns
that consultants are facing the most sustained downward
cycle in the history of the industry, and must correct
fundamental organizational flaws or risk their future
viability.
For a complimentary copy of the report,
send an email to Tim Bourgeois at tbourgeois@hocquetgroup.com.
Book
Talk: Dan Paul has The Cure for What Ails Business
Dan Paul is a management consultant and co-author of
The
Cure, a business novel about the transformation
of an under-performing company and the techniques that
worked to turn it around. Formerly with General Electric,
Dan Paul is CEO of General Management Technologies,
a consulting firm that helps clients align strategies,
work processes and culture.
MCNews talked to Paul about what The Cure
cures.
Read
the Interview
Just the Facts: The Realities of Consultants' Billing
Rates
Ever wonder how your billing rates stack
up to those of your peers? A new report by Kennedy
Information--Fees, Utilization and Key Metrics:
Managing Profitability in the Consulting Profession--has
that answer, and more.
The Consulting Industry's Average 2002 Rates
|
|
Average
Hourly
Billing Rate
|
|
Partner
|
|
|
Project
Manager
|
|
|
Consultant
|
|
|
Associate
Consultant
|
|
|
Support
Staff
|
|
Kennedy's analysts have prepared an Executive Summary
of the report, which is available to you on a complimentary
basis.
If you'd like a copy of the Executive Summary, send
an email
to John Egyed or call 800-531-0007 ext. 667. jegyed@kennedyinfo.com
top
of page ^
This
Month in History
The 1st is April Fools' Day, which began in France
in 1564. At that time, New Year's Day was
changed from April 1 to January 1. People who
insisted on celebrating the "old"
New Year became known as April fools, and it
became common to play tricks on them.
Teflon was invented on April 6, 1938. Du Pont
chemist Dr. Roy J. Plunkett created the resin,
which is considered the most slippery material
in existence. Teflon has contributed to advancements
in aerospace, communications, electronics and
architecture, to say nothing of the omelet pan.
top
of page ^
Coming
Attractions
Next month will be MCNews' one-year anniversary issue,
and we'll feature an interview with Al Ries, one of
the world's best-known marketing strategists. Ries'
books, written with Jack Trout, are marketing classics
and include The
22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Positioning
and Marketing
Warfare. In our interview, Ries will talk
about the intricacies of marketing and differentiating
a professional services business.
We'll also talk to Jeffrey Fox, best-selling author
of How
to Become a Rainmaker and How
to Become a CEO, about his rules for finding
and keeping clients, particularly in tough economic
times.
Look for the next issue of MCNews on May 6, 2003.
top
of page ^
The
End Page
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning
of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
- Winston
Churchill
Thanks for your subscription
to MCNews. You have been subscribed as: $subst('Recip.EmailAddr')
MCNews is published on the first Tuesday of each month.
If you received this issue from someone else and wish
to subscribe, please visit www.ManagementConsultingNews.com.
You can look at our privacy policy at www.ManagementConsultingNews.com.
We welcome your comments on the Newsletter, the site
or about what you'd like to see on either one in the
future. So, please don't be shy. Send your comments
along to us.
You may forward this Newsletter in its entirety
to anyone you wish. If you wish to use any individual
part(s) of the Newsletter or the web site, you must
request permission in advance from the editor. For details,
please see our Terms
of Use.
Michael McLaughlin
Publisher
Management Consulting News ISSN 1539-2481,
Washington, DC, USA
Copyright © 2003 Management Consulting
News All rights reserved
top
of page ^
|
