On-demand webinar
Most firms lose the project before the RFP lands
What you’ll learn :
- The milestones in an enterprise buying process that happen before the RFP, and why a firm that enters at the RFP has usually missed most of them
- How to shift an interview from your credentials to the client's problem, risk and definition of success, with a three-step pivot: respect the process, reframe the value, ask permission
- Why designing to the program makes you an order taker, and how to find the problem behind it and define success with the client
- A three-question self-assessment for the pursuit you are chasing now: the relationship, whose story you open with, and the problem in one sentence
Speaker :
Frank Niekamp
Chief Growth Officer · USA
Maryanne Hewitt
High Performance Coach · AEC
What's covered
Inside the session. What it covers, then get the full recording.
Most firms lose before the RFP lands. Maryanne opens with thirty years in design and construction, and says the firm leaders she works with achieve an average of 37% growth in the first year. The three topics are the milestones you have already missed, why the interview is not about you, and the question nobody asks before designing.
Relationships and informal conversations, needs taking shape, pre-budget proposals from trusted consultants, capital approval, then the RFP. Most firms put almost all their effort into the last steps, when the first six have shaped the outcome.
Research cited in the session says 61% of buyers enter an RFP already favouring another firm. The session sets out what it means to be in a preferred or a disadvantaged position, and what to do about each.
Firms that win are not meeting the client for the first time at the RFP, and client contact is often blocked. A story of a mid-sized boutique firm that lost to a mega firm, then: look back at your last three losses and stay at the table.
Research from Objective Management Group, which Frank calls a partner of ours, shows that reaching the decision maker has more influence on the outcome than anything else. Qualify opportunities hard, and be wary of investing proposal hours without 30 to 60 minutes with the client: the session costs a proposal at $500 or more an hour of leader and staff time.
Lead with the client's problem, risk and definition of success instead of your credentials. Learn from Art Gensler's client-first approach, and use the three-step pivot: respect the process, reframe the value, ask permission.
Order taker or trusted adviser. A residential bathroom story shows how to find the problem behind the request, and the session closes the loop with "What did we hear? Did we get it right?" and a definition of success.
Three lenses for your live pursuit: when real contact began, whose story you would open with, and the problem in one sentence. Then Q&A on starting a relationship from an open RFP and on building a network that knows you.
Resources
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Frequently asked questions
Common Questions
According to the session, they have a weak process: no method for influencing the decision, too much effort spent selling themselves rather than getting to know the client, and an understanding of the program rather than the problem. In Maryanne Hewitt's words, they lose them because they propose before they understand.
Relationships form or already exist, informal conversations begin, needs take shape, trusted consultants submit pre-budget proposals, and the project goes through capital approval. By the time the RFP arrives, the client has usually formed a view of who to trust.
Frank Niekamp advises being ruthless in qualifying: if the client will not give you 30 to 60 minutes before you invest the hours, avoid it where you can, though he accepts there are sometimes reasons to take a shot.
Three steps: show respect for the process, reframe the conversation around what success looks like for them, and ask permission ("Would it be okay if we ask a few questions first so we can tailor our discussion to what matters most to your team?"). Put it in your own words and practise it aloud.
The program tells you what; the problem tells you why. A client without a problem is a client without a project. A firm that designs to the program alone acts as an order taker, and one that finds the problem behind it becomes a trusted adviser.
Maryanne Hewitt: research the company, use LinkedIn to find the likely decision makers, and start a conversation now about them and their problems, not only the RFP. Frank Niekamp adds that it is less who you know than who knows you.
Yes. Request it by sending your AIA member number to maryanne.hewitt@salesstar.com.
Yes: Revenue OS: The AEC Firm Leader's Field Guide, with field insights from Frank Niekamp, Maryanne Hewitt and David Mullins. In the session, Maryanne describes it as covering nine disciplines, including revenue process and capability development.
The next step
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Whichever way you work with us, the same proven Revenue OS runs underneath. Book a growth session and we’ll show you where to start.