By Keith Dugdale

I think we all pretty much know that the briefs clients issue with Requests for Proposals (RFPs) usually only tell about 50% of the story – if you’re lucky.

Often they don’t really state the full problem or outline the full scope. Often there are glaring holes, or unexplainable things. Often the brief does not reflect the needs and concerns of all interested parties internally. Often they’re just written really poorly.

One significant thing usually missing from many RFP documents is why the entity is planning the project they have gone to market for. This disconnect is significant. Unless you as the potential provider understand why they are doing the project there are two major risks:

1. You may miss out on the other 50% of the story.
2. You will not be in a position to challenge them if they have gone to market for the wrong project to achieve the ultimate aim – the why.

We all know, at least in theory, that we need to find out the why and the other 50% of the story by meeting with them in person before we submit the RFP or do a pitch. And yet time and time again I still see individuals and firms submitting bids and doing pitches where they only have half the story. Which is a sure-fire way to make sure your pitch is pretty boring and may really miss the mark.

A story of a boring pitch

I always remember when a client of mine was part of an assessment panel for a government pitch in Adelaide – he worked for an engineering consultancy but was involved with an industry association so was asked to sit on the panel. He told me that he had to sit through 8 presentations that day – all standard powerpoint stuff – and it was pure torture. Not just because the pitches were boring, powerpoint-led monologues that were basically just regurgitations of their proposals and almost impossible to differentiate, but because he had the insider knowledge on what the client really wanted, and not a single pitch team managed to touch on this or more importantly, to attempt to find out what it was.

The thing is – one of these firms still won. Because the client had to choose a winner. So you can still win doing this, but this is where price comes into play – because if the client cannot really differentiate between you and the next presenter, if you’re all talking to the needs stated in the RFP and nothing else, then all they can really do is choose based on price. Because you haven’t captivated them enough to make them choose you in any other way.

Conversation is the key to pitching

If you want to win, you absolutely must be talking way beyond the stated need. If you are only talking to the stated need, you’re ‘in with the pack’ and it’s going to be pretty tough to differentiate yourself.

Clearly in an ideal world you need to have had the conversation before the pitch. Whether or not that has happened though, the secret to making your pitch less boring, more compelling, and captivating the client so they can make no choice but to buy you, is to turn the pitch into a conversation by starting with a question.

Now I know many of you will be saying ‘But what about probity! I can’t do that in a Government pitch!’ or ‘But the client sent us a list of 10 things that they want us to present on…so surely that’s what they want?’. To which I say there is still absolutely no reason why you can’t (and should) open your pitch with a question.

What I see is that most sales and relationship people resist this idea because they are actually scared to ask the why question – because the answer is likely to be far from their area of expertise, and that can be terrifying for people who define who they are by the expertise they have.
But as long as you have the agility to adapt to what you have been told as a result of your question, you will be pitching to issues that your competitors are not even aware of.

If you know the why or unstated need before the pitch:

If you have a partner relationship with the client, and you think you already know what their why and unstated needs are going into the pitch, I would still use the start of my pitch to:

– test and confirm this.
– to make sure that my understanding of the need is accurate and acceptable to everyone in the room.
– Find out if there is anything I’ve happened to miss.
– Start a conversation that elevates my relationships within the client organisation.

So I would start with something like this:

“From our previous discussions, my understanding of the reason you are doing the project is to……….., could you start out by confirming that me my understanding is correct?”

I would then follow this up with:

“Ok, and from that it seems the three most critical issues are this (write on whiteboard or butchers paper). Is this correct, or are there any other issues that are more important to each of you?”

If you don’t know the why or unstated need before the pitch:

If you have no idea what the client’s needs are beyond the RFP when you head into the pitch, then you must make an attempt to find out what these are for each of the individuals in the room.

I would do this by starting out with a question like:

“As you will see from our proposal, we have identified from the RFP that issues X, Y and Z as critical. Before we go any further I would just like to confirm the ultimate desired outcome of this project and whether or not there are any issues that are critical to any of you in the room that I have not just mentioned?”

I would ask permission to spend some time talking through those issues before you get back to your pre-prepared presentation….which you may find you never actually get to if all goes really well.

So next time you’re thinking about pitching, try and find out the why and the unstated needs before the pitch. You want to have done everything you can to make sure you’ve already won the work before you get near the pitch presentation.  Because it’s far easier to lose at the pitch presentation stage than it is to win.

A story of a great pitch

To end on a positive note, another client of mine (also in Adelaide, funnily enough) was recently pitching to get on a panel. By turning their pitch into a conversation, they received an email from the potential client post-pitch explaining that they had decided not to go to a panel arrangement after all. Instead, they were sole-sourcing all of the the work to my client. Why? In their words, ‘because you have given us no choice but to do so.’

Now that’s a great position to be in.

This post was first published over on my LinkedIn page. If you’d like to join in the conversation or comment on this post, please head over there.