How I won a tender by using Stakeholder Influence

Today I want to share with you how I used the stakeholder influence to land a big consulting contract for my team with a telecommunication operator that resulted in a 2 years long and 7-figure assignment.

One day I received a phone call like this: Hi Thea. Would you like to conduct a vision mission value strategy workshop for our company?

I had been doing leadership training for years and my clients gave referrals. Wow, I was excited to be trusted with such an important challenge for a big public corporation.

But here was the thing:

“You know we are a public company so you will have to participate in a tender!”. Sounds familiar? Everybody who exhaustedly spent time filling in the tender documentation knows that that is a lot of work and no guarantee. I quickly remembered the saying. Writing the tender documentation request for a proposal together with the client is usually the best way to win it. 

My excitement went a little down but it was still high enough to feel confident that we can do it. We will create a great experience for the client and a fantastic result and certainly win the tender. At that moment I had no doubt.

The person who called me, let's call him the coach, was telling me that he will put my consulting company on the list and the HR manager will contact me and give us all the tender details.

After some days somebody from the HR department was calling and welcomed us to participate in the tender and providing the documentation of the RFQ. ( Request of Quotation=a competitive bid document used when inviting suppliers or contractors to submit a price bid for products or services Reading the documentation was bringing so many questions and 

I quickly used the opportunity to have them explain to me what they wanted on the phone so that I was a step toward better understanding what the client really wants.

Well, I was very aware of the challenge with tenders: To win the tender and to conduct the workshop requested we ( me and my team) needed to get 3 things right.

1. understanding the real scope of this RFQ project and what are clients' real expectations and intentions behind
2. building relationships with as many relevant people for that decision on the client side 
3. showing the value that we can bring to the table in an easy-to-digest way to make the other competitors irrelevant

I was not so worried about the pricing initially, because it is never about the prices. But sure we needed to find out the max. budget to get the price right.

Now everyone who knows me I love helping my clients to craft their vision for their business, their company, and their life and traveling the world collaborating with TOP CONSULTING companies like MC KINSEY and ROLAND BERGER. But most I am famous for visualizing all processes, using beautiful wall charts, lego bricks to build models of the present and future when possible to visualize the future playfully and have fun talking about the future and sharing stories. but 12 consulting companies have been invited and we were N13.

1. Understanding what does the client really want

This is so important to create the right solution and we all know how easy it is to misinterpret a written text. Misunderstanding and wrong assumptions are very likely. Especially when you don´t know anything or very little about the writer and his background.

The challenges we faced.: We did not know anything about it.

• Why does the client want this workshop? 
• Who was on the team of the decision-makers?
• How they would make the decision?
• Who would influence the decision?
• What would a great exciting result look like?

and so much more…

So these are all questions towards the external stakeholder on the client side - the so-called buying center.

I applied the stakeholder influence system by hiring a team of experts for preparing the proposal, with the opportunity to participate in the project.

That helped a lot to build the confidence that winning the proposal is inevitable. I like to collaborate with the best experts because I wanted to make sure to be able to deliver the best result for the client and to ensure that we submit the best possible proposal.

For this special project, I engaged with telecommunication experts, CEOs of the industry, and strategic advisors to other operators to extend my team. Discussing the concept and the proposal with. this wonderful team gave me the confidence to be on the right track and to develop the best in practice solutions. 

We met in my office and on a huge whiteboard, we literally created a stakeholder map. Then we analyzed the stakeholder landscape to understand the picture and identify the missing puzzle pieces. This was a very important step in helping us to save time, evaluate our opportunities, and be strategic in our communication with the client.

We all know that just relying on just one coach and a single document -the RFQ can be dangerous because we have limited information of maximum 2 two people. Furthermore, when it comes to the information we all know the following wisdom on how we perceive information

We perceive 

10% of what we read 

20% of what we hear 

30% of what we see 

50% of what we see and hear 

70% of what we discuss with others 

80% of what we personally experience 

95% of what we teach others

We knew that the decision will be on the table of the HR; CEO, COO CTO and definitely involve the head of Procurement. All of these executives will have their unique special views and own criteria to solicit the proposal.

But who is really taking the final decision?

How is the powerplay behind the scenes?

We didn't want to spend days developing a genius concept and crafting a beautiful proposal to get kicked out in the first round, of the tender process.

We knew that just relying on 1 coach can be very dangerous as he sees the picture only from his corner.

2. Building relationships

Being the project leader of this sales process, I needed to build relationships with the client and with my team of experts. I was scrolling through my address book and called former clients and asked them to refer to me any expert who could be helpful.

I went on  LinkedIn and social media to find connections I could send a message and ask for advice., I had no time to prepare my influence by placing news articles, writing success stories, and creating whitepapers and videos. But business is still about people and trustful relationships. So I took the shortcut by meeting people on the phone, ZOOM, and in real life. I love to meet new experts in a lobby of a nice hotel- that is kind of neutral and fun.

Together with the team, we met on ZOOM and used the online platform MIRO to conduct our stakeholder analysis in detail. Step by step we filled in the blanks to verify assumptions we had about the client and I had my team of experts who know the very same indiúrstyr well and could advise.  The expertise and communication with these experts who had similar problems and requirements gave me insights into preparing a great proposal. Sure every client is special but industry insight help.

With our digital communication plan, we tracked all communication. email, phone calls,  ZOOM meetings, and Teams, and we verified various assumptions with the client, kept the communication line open with the client, and with the potential team who will execute were present in their inbox which helped to create trust.

The challenge was to balance getting results and information and be kind all the time and create an atmosphere of trust and fun.

I started my conversation always with a positive note, compliment, or a thank you and I was not afraid to ask k clarifying questions as much as possible.

 During that time we focused very little to none on the other 12 competitors. We just did not know who else was on the list. All our effort was focused on how we can make sure to create a concept that serves the clients to its very best and meet their needs and keeps the communication channel open.

The team gave me confidence and assured me we can serve the client at a very high level and deliver excellent results.  But how can we convey that in our proposal to all these decision-makers on the client side?

3. Showing the value  

We knew that we need to show the value in a way so that every decision maker and expert involved on the client side will honor and understand how we serve and meet the specific goals.

The big question was: How can we show the value that we can bring to the table in an easy-to-digest way? How can we make the other competitors irrelevant? How can we sell for maximum profit?

We had the stakeholder mapped and in our analysis, we had a good understanding of what every decision maker needed and I was confident about the solution and the approach that the experts recommended.

In the first step, I tested the proposal by selling the concept to the expert team that I had put together. This was the first proof of concept and after everybody on our side was so excited. I felt great and I had no doubts that we would win this tender.

But still, there was the challenge to communicate the value in a beautiful and clear proposal so that the client will understand at a glance that we are professional, the concept is exactly what h wants and his time and money will be well invested with us. The task was to make it easy for him to say yes.

We knew that there are 12 competitors and that most likely some international consultancies are invited and not only the big 4-5.

Working with large companies means they are price sensitive but they want to buy good value 

Our price for this special project should cover all or effort and time we spend on the preparation of the proposal, on the time and effort we spend on our assignment and include some nice profit margin to feel good about the energy exchange.

How did we finally present the value?

Here are 4 powerful strategies we like to use and they work.

1. For the Decision makers, we created a concise and clear executive summary and elevator pitch.
2. For the Controllers and Procurement, we provide tables with a Cost breakdown and a timeline, and resources.
3. For the inspired Leaders show images and mockups of the event set up to give an idea of how that can look like
4. For the subject matter experts, we create an overview of our approach and the theoretical concepts, resumes of potential consultants involved, and references.

We always made sure to add a nice design. We use both slides and A4 documents.

What gave me the energy to follow through and win the tender?

Good communication on the phone with the potential client, the fun we had with our team of experts in preparing the concept and proposal, and our willingness to give our very best in the time given.

We had a lot of fun flying together to the client, supporting each other, and the client's business development for over 3 years.

Take away

The key success factor was to meet the needs of all stakeholders in this process and deliver the value they need. Very helpful in this process was to create the quotation together with the experts, to stay excited, and to meet the different needs of the stakeholders involved in the decision-making Vizulaizing all our ideas, creating mockups, and providing images that show the atmosphere helped a lot.

 Resources:

Ultimate Stakeholder Template Library: Click here

Five step guide for stakeholder analysis process :  Click here