Key Takeaways
- Information gathered before the formal process starts determines most of the outcome.
- The evaluator who likes you personally is not the decision-maker. Find the decision-maker.
- Proposals that mirror the customer's language are read more carefully than proposals that use your language.
Competitive sales processes, where a customer is formally evaluating multiple vendors simultaneously, require a different approach than the bilateral sales conversation that most early-stage companies develop their sales motion around. Saim Abbasi has competed in and won several formal competitive evaluations.
Pre-Process Intelligence
The work that determines competitive sales outcomes happens before the formal process starts. Understanding who the decision-maker is, what their specific priorities are, what the incumbent solution is and why they are considering alternatives, and what the internal politics around the decision look like is information that can only be gathered through relationships, not through the formal process.
The vendor who enters a competitive evaluation having already had individual conversations with the key stakeholders is operating with an information advantage that the formal process cannot replicate. The vendor who shows up with no prior relationship to anyone in the organization is disadvantaged from the first meeting.
The Language Mirror
Proposals that win competitive evaluations use the customer's language to describe the problem and the solution. When a customer's RFP describes a problem in a specific way, the winning proposal reflects that language back rather than substituting the vendor's preferred terminology. The customer reads their own language in the proposal and experiences it as recognition that the vendor understood their situation, which is a significant psychological advantage over proposals that are generic or vendor-centric.
Following Up on Evaluation Criteria
Most formal evaluation processes include explicit criteria against which vendors are scored. The vendor who asks clarifying questions about how each criterion will be weighted, and then addresses the highest-weight criteria most prominently in their proposal, is more likely to win than the vendor who responds comprehensively to all criteria equally. The questions themselves signal analytical sophistication that evaluators notice.
"A vendor who understands the customer's internal politics wins competitive processes. A vendor who ignores them finishes second."