Y ou’ve pre-qualified the opportunity, decided to bid and chosen your likely team. It’s all systems go. But don’t start writing yet.

First, you’ve got to fully understand what the client needs and wants, and what they don’t want. It’s a sad truth that most ITTs/RFPs won’t give you that information, at least not in the detail and nuance that you need to tailor your response. In my experience, most ITTs aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. That’s because most of them have been cobbled together by junior staff from past documents and have mushroomed into unwieldy, over-engineered documents that often ask bidders for a ridiculous amount of detail.

A tender is much more than a document; it’s a competitive influencing campaign.

Your goal is to positively influence the client’s perception of you and your team, so that they vote for you in their selection process. If they don’t meet you, you can’t influence them. And if you can’t influence them, they’re unlikely to vote for you, especially if they know and trust another bidder. Trust and rapport here are key: there’s a world of difference between having a great track record on paper and the client seeing the whites of your eyes in a face-to-face meeting.

The ideal is to meet them pre-submission.

Even if you’re the incumbent and they already know you, my best advice is to treat the opportunity as if you are an external bidder. Of course, you must use your inside knowledge of the client and their business, but this attitude will stop you being complacent about your standing in the bid. And seeing you take the same attitude as an external bidder will impress them no end.

“But what if the documentation discourages contact with the client?”I hear you ask.

Good question. Here’s what I suggest:

Ask to clarify some points in the ITT. Most bid documentation gives the name and details of a contact, often referred to as ‘the gatekeeper’. Prepare some detailed questions, which they are unlikely to be able to answer, forcing them to refer you upstairs. Your objective here is to talk to a decision-maker, initially over the phone, and then persuade them that meeting you face-toface will benefit them in the long run.

I’ve used that tactic successfully in private sector bids. In the sealed process of public sector procurement, however, you have to tread more carefully.

These days much public sector tendering takes place via electronic procurement portals, to ensure a fair, open and transparent process. But portals occasionally fall over or the tender documentation may not answer all your questions. If so – provided the documentation does not explicitly forbid you contacting the buyer – then you have the right to contact them within the clarification period. Your preference should be to call them.

As long as whoever makes the call is articulate, has a good telephone manner and is clear about their questions, then it’s another opportunity to connect with the buyer and demonstrate your professionalism. But if the buyer senses you’re using the clarification process to get the inside track or to gain an advantage over the other bidders, then you could find your organization labelled as ‘chancers’ and harm your bid.

Another risk in the public sector clarification process is that you ask a perceptive question that no-one else has thought of… but which the buyer shares with all the other bidders to maintain a ‘level playing field’. Of course, not all buyers are equally conscientious. In the case of a telephone conversation, they may not get around to broadcasting your question and their answer to the other bidders – which is another reason for calling them, rather than emailing them.

Clarifying the ITT/RFP is an opportunity to build a relationship with the buyer. Like any communication with the client, it must be planned, prepared for and handled competently.

HOW DO YOU RESPOND IF THE CLIENT ASKS WHY

YOU WANT TO MEET THEM?

Your main argument is: the better you understand their needs, their culture and their business in detail, the more relevant your response will be and the easier it will be for them to evaluate it. The more precisely they can assess a submission, the likelier they are to make the right appointment.

If they still push back, tell them that you have a range of ideas for addressing their needs that you’d like to test with them before writing them up in your written response. Entice them with the prospect of free ideas.

The trick is not to talk about your own needs (which is to win the contract), but what’s in it for them by meeting you. Motivate them by relating it to how they will benefit.

If their answer is still a flat ‘no’ to meeting, and they appear diffident even about clarifying your questions over the ‘phone, think hard about proceeding. Signs of resistance or holding back at this early stage in the tender usually mean one thing: they’ve already got a supplier in mind… and it’s not you. If they’re not prepared to invest the time in getting to know you now, how likely are they to award you the contract at decision time?

WHY DO FEW BIDDERS ASK TO MEET THE CLIENT

PRE-SUBMISSION?

There are several reasons, but here are six that spring to mind:

1. They’re scared of the client saying ‘no’ (rejection).

2. They’re scared the client will consider it a non-compliant request and disqualify them from the contest.

3. They lack the confidence to ask, perhaps because they haven’t thought through all the benefits (see below).

4. Meeting the client is out of their comfort zone: they prefer to stay in their technical ivory tower.

5. It never occurs to them, especially as the ITT/RFP seems to discourage contact with the client.

6. There’s not enough time: the bid timetable is too tight.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MEETING THE CLIENT DECISION-MAKERS PRE-SUBMISSION?
Establish whether there’s a budget or not	You may laugh, but many bids end in tears because the tender is phoney; there was never a real need in the first place. Many organizations put contracts out to tender to fob sales people off or look busy, find out what else is out there, put price pressure on the incumbent supplier, or pinch new ideas. Before proceeding, make sure there’s a budget and they are committed to awarding a contract.
Clarify and ‘contextualize’ the ITT	Most ITTs are poorly written and rarely tell the whole story. Meeting the client face-to-face helps you uncover the real needs, issues and challenges of each decision-maker, as well as find out what’s really driving the tender. You’ll also find out what they don’t want. And you need to understand the strategic context of the tender. What I mean by that jargon is: how will the tendered contract contribute to the client’s ultimate business or organizational objectives?
Uncover their attitude to pricing	If there is a budget, they’re likely to have a view on how best to spend it. Don’t be scared of exploring their attitude to price, but don’t do it in a vacuum: always talk about it in relation to the value that they will get at each price point.
Develop your value proposition or service model	I talk about this in more detail later in this chapter, but your value proposition or service model is your overall offering to the client. It includes your proposed approach, team, schedule, benefits (or value to them) and price. I t’s the guts of your bid. Your meetings with the client are a golden opportunity to involve them in shaping it.
Build rapport, empathy, affinity	Connect with them, personally and professionally. People buy from people, especially people they like and respect. Get to know them. Convince them to do business with you by showing interest in them and their organization, its needs, issues and objectives. The more they invest in you emotionally and professionally, the harder they will find it to reject you. They will extrapolate this experience of meeting you to imagining working with you. They’ll be asking themselves, “Can we work with these people?” The answer needs to be a resounding ‘yes’.
Demonstrate teamwork and enthusiasm	As I ’ve already said, clients buy the team, not the firm. Teamwork sits high on most clients’ mental checklist. They often value the softer skills more than the ‘hard’ technical ones. Technical competence – the ability to do the job – is usually a given. I t’s the softer, interpersonal skills that separate bidders. The individual qualities (e.g. confidence, charm, credibility and communication skills) we discussed in Principle 2 count for a lot. And we underestimate enthusiasm at our peril. Genuine interest in their business and the desire to win and do the job superbly will impress them and get you brownie points.
Understand their culture	Pitching to a local authority will be very different from pitching to an advertising agency. Meeting the client will give you a feel for their culture, style and values, including how they want you to communicate with them. A law firm I know bid for a contract with a major UK supermarket chain, but they got the culture wrong. Their bid was slick, sophisticated and slightly arrogant. “You came across as more Waitrose than us” was the client’s comment. (In the U K, Waitrose is an upmarket chain.)
Find out who has the real power	Sometimes the actual selection process differs from the rulebook. By asking the right questions, you can find out how they plan to make the appointment decision and who wields the most influence in and over the group. Meet them. I nfluence and position can be two different things. Best practice says that you must meet every single decision-maker. Or at least ask to meet them, and be seen to do so. You don’t want any noses put out of joint and their owners opposing you. You want every client decision-maker voting for you or putting in a good word about you.
Position yourselves as equal partners	Too many bidders are so pathetically grateful for the opportunity to bid for work that the client perceives them as subservient suppliers. If you win the job and you want your invoices paid on time and your ‘phone calls answered, you need to position yourself as an equal partner. These meetings are an opportunity for you to do that, by behaving as your own person, pushing back (politely, of course) if you don’t understand or disagree with something the client has said. You need them to respect you, not think you’re going to be a pushover.
Open communication channels	Once you feel you’ve established rapport with them, ask them if they mind giving you feedback on how you’re doing during the bid process. I f anything goes wrong, no matter how minor, the sooner you know about it, the sooner you can fix it. This is also a good time to tee up your post-proposal research: win, lose or draw, ask them if they’d be happy to give you feedback on your performance at the end of the bid process. They’re more likely to say ‘yes’ here than if you spring it on them at the end, when they’re focusing more on contract delivery than supplier selection.
Check you’ve assembled the right team	You will have chosen your core team on paper, but the proof of the pudding is in the meeting. How does each team member get on with their opposite client number? An immediate clash is not a good start, so you might need to consider replacing them and testing the new person with the client. I f you can’t or won’t do that, you’ve already got a problem.

Except possibly for no. 6, none of these should put you off from meeting the client, especially when you realize the jamboree of benefits on offer. As for no. 2, it would be excessively harsh to disqualify a bidder just for asking to meet the decision-makers. The worst they could say is ‘no’.

Convinced yet of the need to meet the client pre-submission?

Let’s deal with four vital points of preparation for these meetings: which team members to take; the meeting agenda; the development of your value proposition, service model or outline concept; and your mindset.

WHICH MEMBERS OF YOUR TEAM SHOULD YOU TAKE?

I’m assuming you’ve already selected your core bid team, as a function of the skills and experience required by the contract, each client decision-maker’s buying role and their personality. Now you need to think carefully about which members of your team should meet whom from the client.

The principle is to match your people with their counterpart in terms of role, grade, age and experience. So to take an example from a typical audit contract, the Audit Manager – who will run the contract day to day – should meet the client’s Finance Manager, who will provide much of the audit data and give the auditor access to the right people in the organization.

Equally, if the client CEO or business unit head was attending, you’d probably want to field your bid leader or senior partner. And make sure that the people in both teams who will most likely be working together in delivering the contract meet pre-submission.

If in doubt, ask the client who will be attending from their side and which role and/or grade in your team they would like to meet. Having an advance conversation with them about the agenda and the team members you plan to bring will flush out their expectations of the meeting. That way there are no nasty surprises or awkward moments when you meet the client for the first (and possibly only) time pre-submission.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE AGENDA?

When prepping each meeting, you need to agree who in your team will lead on which topics and who will gather what type of information from the client. This ensures that, in the meeting, you don’t tread on each other’s toes. Everyone needs to be clear about their role.

It’s also worth preparing an agenda for each meeting. While you’ll undoubtedly have your own, you must check it first with the client before the meeting. Apart from anything else, it’s plain good manners. Seek the client’s input to and approval of it in advance. And if they’re due to meet different suppliers or have several meetings with your organization, add clearly labelled photographs of your people to the agenda. This will help the client remember who you are and whom they’ve met.

Not only will that differentiate you from the competition, but when it comes to them assessing your bid, they can put a face to a name. (And don’t get hung up on judging looks here: this is about easy identification, not Miss World.)

“It was clear they were all briefed to the hilt before they set foot in the place.”

A local authority client

SHAPING YOUR SERVICE MODEL OR OUTLINE CONCEPT

You’ve decided who will attend which meetings with the client, and you’ve agreed an agenda for each meeting. Now you need to develop your thinking around possible solutions to their needs, goals or problems. Start designing your service model or outline concept. What’s your BIG IDEA?

This is an outline of the approach that you think will work based on your knowledge of the client and their tender documentation; it’s the embryo or ‘straw man’ of your eventual value proposition. Represent it as a picture or diagram that captures the overall shape, structure and configuration of your solution. The client needs to be able to ‘get it’ in seconds. Your job in the pre-submission meetings is to talk them through it, get their feedback on it and, ideally, involve them in developing it.

What you’re doing here is co-developing your solution with the client. Armed with their feedback on it, you then refine it back in the office and articulate it in your written response, to create a key part of your pitch or proposal: the killer page or slide. This is the heart of your value proposition – tailored to and by the client themselves!

Taking a pre-prepared expression of your thinking to the client differentiates you from the competition and gives your meetings with them focus and purpose. It also shows you’ve done some solid thinking about their business. And if they feel they’ve contributed to it, it gives them a stake in the eventual solution. They’re less likely to reject a ‘joint’ proposition that they helped develop.

The bid team for The Economist, a client since 2004, put together the above graphic to capture on one page their multi-media proposal to a fashion client. It formed the kernel of their written response and the subsequent presentation, and in the Q&A was the major talking point. In other words, it focused everyone on the same thing: the solution. This ‘anchored’ the team’s pitch, as they were able to relate every feature and detail of their value proposition to it.

Can you see the huge value you can add to your bid by holding pre-submission meetings with the client? They allow you to tease out their real needs and issues, nail what is ultimately driving the tender and develop the solution jointly with them.

WHAT’S THE RIGHT MINDSET FOR THESE MEETINGS?

Your mindset in approaching these meetings mustn’t be about getting from the client, but about giving to them. While there will clearly be certain pieces of information you want to find out, these meetings are not about ‘filling your information buckets’, as one junior auditor once said to me. That wouldn’t add any value and would be deadly dull for them. You won’t win if you bore them.

Remember: any contact with any client member is an opportunity to influence their perception of you. If you can get them thinking differently about their needs, goals or challenges and help them see new approaches, you’ve added real value before even putting pen to paper.

HOW SHOULD YOU PERFORM IN THE MEETINGS?

These all-important meetings are not about presenting to the client, but interacting with them. This is your chance to:

Test your outline service model and other ideas on them

Clarify their real needs

Showcase your expertise (without showing off)

Enthuse about their business

Ask intelligent questions and react thoughtfully to the answers

Show you’re a team

Get to know them and build rapport

Position yourselves as equal partners.

Literally or metaphorically, you need to roll up your sleeves and show you’re serious about delivering what they need.

WHAT’S THE BEST WAY OF FOLLOWING UP

AFTER EACH MEETING?

Set the time aside to send them a simple, well-written letter or email that thanks them for their time and openness, clarifies what was discussed and confirms any actions arising. Do this within 24 hours of the meeting. Finally – provided you have a range of people you can field on the bid – get a senior, non-involved colleague to ring the client and check they are happy with the people they met. This sends the client a clear message that you want to win and are ready to place them and their needs at the heart of your response.

“The senior partner rang me and said, ‘We’ve put this team together and are you happy with it?’ I liked that approach very much.”

A regional law firm

Having refined your service model, it’s now time to plan the bid document, then brief everyone who will contribute material to it, especially those who did not attend the client meetings.

PLANNING THE BID DOCUMENT

This should be relatively straightforward.

If the ITT/RFP is prescriptive about the format and structure of your response – which is typical of many public sector tenders – then you must comply with that to the letter. If you don’t, you risk submitting a ‘non-compliant’ bid and being disqualified.

If, however, you have more latitude to submit what I call ‘a free-form’ bid, then your document can follow this gold-standard structure:

1. Executive summary (for bids longer than about ten pages)

2. Our understanding of your needs/goals/current situation

3. Our proposed solution to meet your needs

4. Why you should appoint us

5. Proposed next steps.

Simple and clear. Feel free to play around with the wording, but not the order. Here’s the same structure with more detail:

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• a brief summary of the major benefits that the client will get if they appoint you

• this is your business case and the most important part of your document (Principle 4.5 is devoted exclusively to writing powerful executive summaries)

2. OUR UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR NEEDS/GOALS

/CURRENT SITUATION

• this section acts as the launch pad for your proposed solution

• articulate and build on what you learnt in your meetings with the client

• show the client you understand the strategic/organizational objective(s) driving the bid

• show you also understand each decision-maker’s issues/agenda

3. OUR PROPOSED SOLUTION TO MEET THOSE NEEDS

• this is your value proposition or client offering, the guts of your proposal

• use your service model diagram as the lynchpin or ‘killer page’

• include client benefits/outcomes and link these explicitly to your price

• include your proposed approach/methodology, the team and their roles, responsibilities and experience, i.e. why their experience makes them perfect for their proposed role on the contract

4. WHY YOU SHOULD APPOINT US

• your credentials, i.e. you’ve done this before, got the T-shirt, you won’t be fazed by unexpected issues or waste the client’s time climbing a steep learning curve

• ‘you’re a safe pair of hands’, especially for risk-averse clients

• reassure and convince the client through evidence, e.g. case studies, CVs, client references and testimonials, guarantees, warranties, industry awards, statistics

5. PROPOSED NEXT STEPS

• explain clearly what the client can expect in the days, weeks or months after you are appointed

• flag up any input you may need from the client in the early days of delivery, so they can organize themselves and their resources

We look at the bid document in more detail in the next chapter (Principle 4, ‘Persuade through the written word’). But this simple structure will stand you in good stead for the next step in the process: the kick-off meeting.

GETTING OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT:

THE KICK-OFF MEETING

To recap: you’ve pre-qualified the opportunity and decided to bid for it. You’ve posted it on your sales pipeline. You’ve chosen your dream team and a bid manager to support them. And your core team has had successful meetings with each of the client decision-makers. Now’s the time to gather everyone involved in the bid (often referred to as ‘the stakeholders’) and debrief them on your meetings with the client and allocate drafting or design responsibilities for the bid document. It’s time for the kick-off meeting.

I think of this meeting as a mass briefing session.

This will probably be the first formal meeting of the core bid team and all the other internal stakeholders, and may well be the only time in the process that they all meet in person – especially if the tender is international and involves a number of overseas offices. It’s vital that it goes well, as it governs the overall quality of your written submission and sets the tone for the rest of the process. That means it must be thoroughly planned and prepared, a task that usually falls to the bid manager.

If you regularly manage bids for your organization, you’ll probably have a number of these meetings under your belt. You’ll know that they demand a lot of work. But they’re also your opportunity to shine and establish credibility with the bid leader and their team that will stand you in good stead throughout the tender. The investment you make up-front in running a great kick-off meeting will pay dividends down the line.

WHAT’S THE BID MANAGER’S ROLE IN THIS MEETING?

Simple: set it up, run it, write it up.

You need to be clear about the purpose of a kick-off meeting. It’s to ensure that every contributor to the bid document has the same understanding of:

• the strategic needs and objectives of the buying organization

• the needs and agenda of each client decision-maker

• the client’s selection criteria and decision-making process

• the value proposition/proposed solution that their organization is offering the client

• their drafting or design responsibilities and associated deadline(s).

Another way of defining the purpose of the meeting is to use my fast-food abbreviation, K.F.C. Not Kentucky Fried Chicken, but what you want people attending to Know, Feel and Commit (to do):

KNOW (UNDERSTAND)…	FEEL…	COMMIT (To)…
…the client’s needs, issues and objectives …the win-themes/proposed solution …which parts of the document they must deliver on and by when …the client decision-makers and their selection process	…part of the team …valued and valuable …enthusiastic about the bid and its prospects of winning …motivated to devote quality time to their contribution	…comply with the agreed timetable …give early warning of delays or problems in delivering their text or design

Once you’re clear about the purpose of the meeting, there’s some prereading to send to all attendees:

• a copy of the ITT/RFP

• your summary of the ITT/RFP, including a ‘compliance checklist’ (a list of the client’s requirements, instructions, evaluation criteria and questions that your response must address, grouped into meaningful categories such as strategic, commercial, technical and operational, plus brief comments or explanation)

• your summary of what your organization knows about the client, e.g. desktop research, press articles and any other information used to prequalify the opportunity

• the service model agreed with the client in the pre-submission meetings

• the decision-makers’ matrix.

When you invite people to the meeting, make it clear that you expect them to have read these documents beforehand. Otherwise they’ll be severely handicapped in the meeting, won’t be able to contribute meaningfully and may hamper progress. It’s also a discourtesy to their colleagues not to put the work in up-front. The better prepared everyone is when they sit down, the shorter and more efficient the kick-off meeting will be.

Here’s a sample agenda, so you can see what it covers:

[KICK-OFF MEETING: SAMPLE AGENDA]

THE CLIENT: THE ORGANIZATION AND THE INDIVIDUALS

• Use desktop research/public domain info to build clear picture of the organization

• what industry they see themselves in

• their position/status in that industry

• the major issues/challenges/pressures they face

• Use decision-makers’ matrix to build clear picture of the individual buyers

• understand their role in the process (Boss, Money Person, Expert, End-User or Guide?)

• understand their personality (Adapter, Driver, Carer or Professional?)

• understand their issues, goals, challenges, needs

•

CLARIFY THE ITT/RFP AND CLIENT REQUIREMENTS

• Use compliance checklist to ensure everyone is clear about the needs/ service(s) the client is seeking and what’s driving them

• are the needs grouped logically?

• are there any missing?

• Additional local intelligence, latest industry developments or other client issues

PROPOSED VALUE PROPOSITION/SOLUTION

• Use service model as discussion tool

• seek feedback on/input into model

• does it need developing, or is it robust as it is?

• identify ‘win-themes’ of your bid

• Costings

• what are the pricing implications of your proposed solution?

• can you deliver it within budget?

• do finance/estimators have all the info they need?

DRAFTING AND DESIGNING THE WRITTEN RESPONSE

• Identify who will draft which sections/answer which questions by when

• Brief designer on layout, page grid, front cover, images

• What info/support do authors need to produce first draft?

• need to cover for/’backfill’ contributors?

• Agree editorial process

• e.g. who will review and sign-off which sections, version control, minimum readability score

TIMETABLE

• Agree draft plan, milestones and other key dates up to submission

• identify major dependencies and how to deal with them

• schedule progress meetings in diaries

• get agreement to chase late contributions

SANITY CHECK

• Where are we strong?

• What’s our USP?

• What are our weaknesses and how do we handle them?

• What will it take to win this tender?

• What could lose it?

NEXT STEPS

• Bid manager to issue timetable, updated compliance checklist and decision-makers’ matrix

From then on, the role of the bid manager is to support, chase, challenge and do whatever else it takes to ensure contributors (sometimes called SMEs, ‘Subject Matter Experts’) deliver the text on time for the editorial review, sign-off and submission.

WINNER TAKES ALL BOTTOM LINE:

Meeting the client decision-makers pre-submission lays the foundation for success or failure: it clarifies their actual rather than assumed needs, allows you to tailor the document to them, sets the tone of your relationship with them and allows you to brief the wider bid team. All of which primes you for Principle 4, ‘Persuade through the written word’.

[ FOOD FOR THOUGHT ]

Think back to bids you’ve submitted in the past three to six months, then answer the questions or complete the tasks on the following pages:

if you didn’t already know the client, did you meet them pre-submission?	y/N
If not, why not?
If Yes, rate the value you felt you added to the client in those meetings (e.g. by asking probing questions; getting them thinking differently about their business, goals or needs; making interesting suggestions).	High – Medium – Low
If you scored ‘High’ or ‘Medium’, how did you achieve that? B e specific.
What would you do differently next time?
Did you co-develop an outline service model / solution with the client in those meetings?	Y/N
If not, what could you do differently next time to make that happen? Jot down some ideas.
Did you hold a kick-off meeting to brief all the bid stakeholders on the bid document?	Y/N
How would you assess the value that that meeting added to the bid?	High – Medium – Low
What could you do differently next time to make the kick-off meeting even more effective? Jot down some ideas.