I thought I would shift gears a bit and share a personal story about a time when having a documented win strategy paid off for our firm. I guess I just spoiled the ending of this story for you. Our firm did win the project; however, I still encourage you to read to the end to learn how exactly having this in writing worked for our team.
Disclaimer: Names of people and firms have been withheld to save the innocent.
Project Background
Several years ago, I began working for a national transportation engineering firm in South Florida. I think it was the second or third day, I was brought into this pursuit for a project with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). The firm had already submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) and was shortlisted.
The project was for the design of a highway widening that went through Miami. It had the potential to possibly reshape the downtown area but also at-risk at dividing the neighborhood. Because of this, it was no typical roadway widening project.
Proposal Background
The next step in the procurement process was a proposal submittal. I can’t remember the exact page count, but it was no more than a 20-page submittal. In this submittal, we had to respond to questions from the client, provide our design approach, team, and demonstrate why our team was better. Of course, we also only had about two weeks to prepare the proposal.
First Proposal at the Firm
I remember the day when I stepped into the conference room. The meeting’s purpose was to start developing the proposal submittal. I knew only one person in the room—my new boss. I had only met him a few months before when interviewing for the position. Other folks included the president of the company, design lead from California, proposed project manager, and marketing coordinator who prepared the LOI—none of who I had met before that day.
To say I was a bit nervous was an understatement. In this new role, I was charged with organizing the marketing process and staff for my region of the firm. I wanted to make a good impression by making suggestions to improve the proposal while not sounding like I am criticizing them, or any efforts already put forth.
So back to the proposal efforts. This first meeting was about crafting the outline and setting the writing assignments. We also talked about key differentiators about our design and public involvement strategies.
This is when the Win Strategy really came into play.
Convincing the Team to Develop a Win Strategy
The design lead was from our national design group. He had been working with the local team for months on the specifics for this project. While he came from a design angle, he had experience managing design and the community involvement for other similar major bridge and highway projects around the country.
All this information was floating around in notes, emails, and in people’s heads. It was making the outlining and writing process a nightmare. I finally suggested that we spend a morning to go through a Win Strategy exercise that I facilitated.
Fortunately, they agreed.
Developing the Win Strategy
So, we met again a few days later in that same conference room. This time we forgot about the outline and requirements and just went through the client’s issues and hot buttons related to the project. For each one, we identified our features, the benefits of those features, and proofs of where we have received similar results before.
This exercise forced our team to get all the information from various places into one document.
We could see it up on the screen. The writers easily to could see where to include this relevant information into the various the proposal submittal. The graphics and visuals were made obvious through listing the proofs.
Producing the Proposal Draft
The marketing coordinator and I took that win strategy document from the meeting and the original proposal outline and made the next draft. We still left holes were some of the design specifics needed to be added but we were about 80% there.
When we provided that draft to the technical writers, they found it so much easier to just fill in the holes than starting with a blank Word document.
Realizing the Benefits of the Win Strategy
By spending that half-day together in a meeting, we were able to save the billable staff dozens of hours trying to write from scratch. We were also able to ensure that the information and experience obtained months ahead of the RFP made it into the proposal document.
This is all thanks to a documented win strategy.
My Lesson to You
As you can see from my story, even if you don’t have a documented win strategy before the RFP is advertised, it is still advantageous to spend the time to go through the exercise.
Even if you don’t think you will have time or people are “too busy,” still make the time to hold one of these types of meetings (at least for the projects you want to win). If you can only spend a half-hour or hour with your folks, the information they can share about the client and the specific project will be immensely beneficial for the proposal writers.
Another benefit specifically to my situation was being able to step in as a new employee. I knew very little of the firm so by going through this exercise, I was able to get an immense amount of information about the firm’s expertise very quickly.
Don’t underestimate the value of sharing information with new team members. It might take a few hours but will save them months of learning on the job.
Learn More About Win Strategy
If you are reading this and thinking, “Lindsay, I have no idea what a win strategy is” or “How can I learn more about creating a win strategy?”, no fear. I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that.
I provide a brief introduction to Win Strategy in this article.
In this article, I describe the issues-solutions-benefits framework. Even though it’s related to writing project descriptions, it provides a good definition of each.
And lastly, in this article, guest author Matt Frankel, CPSM, shares his advice on how to conquer “highly interactive” meetings. When you are meeting to discuss win strategies, they may get lively. Matt shares a few simple strategies to be heard.
Your Turn – Share a Win Strategy Story
Have you developed or been part of a win strategy for your firm? What was the one benefit of having a documented win strategy for that pursuit?
