What is a Proposal Strategy Meeting (and why you need it!)
When a customer asks you to send a proposal–whether it’s for an RFP or not–it’s easy to jump ahead to pricing and slap together a basic overview for your proposal.
But taking a moment to pause and think through your strategy can be the difference between winning the contract…or not.
That’s where the Strategy Meeting comes in.
What is a Proposal Strategy Meeting?
A Proposal Strategy Meeting is a meeting dedicated entirely to figuring out why the customer would choose your company over your competitors. It’s typically held at the start of your proposal process, often right after the kickoff meeting. If you have a very short turnaround, you can sometimes combine the strategy meeting with the kickoff. Just make sure you have time to cover everything that’s needed.
What to cover in a Strategy Meeting
The goal of the Strategy Meeting is to create a winning proposal strategy. A few things you’ll focus on include:
The Customer. The customer should be at the center of your proposal, and that means they are the basis of your strategy. Use the Strategy Meeting to discuss any insights you have into the customer, including what’s important to them, current challenges, and what they hope to accomplish with this project or contract.
Competitors. Especially in the case of RFPs, it’s important to be aware of who else the customer might be considering. Identify the most likely competitors and compare their offering with yours against the evaluation criteria and the customer goals you identified above.
Differentiators. Once you have a feel for how the competition will bid, you can focus on identifying the positive ways your solution is different from the competitors. Keep in mind the customer and their goals here so you identify any strengths of yours related to how they will be evaluating proposals.
Win Themes. After determining your differentiators, you can create your win themes that you will incorporate throughout your proposal. Identify key pieces of information you can include to support each win theme and earn you higher points during evaluation.
What to do After the Strategy Meeting
Once you hold the Strategy Meeting, you should have a solid list of 3-5 win themes that you want to incorporate within your proposal. Ideally you also have some supporting evidence, but if not, your first action item is to gather supporting evidence for each win theme that will then be added to the appropriate section in your proposal.
The goal of the Strategy Meeting is to create your best possible proposal. This means that after the meeting, your focus will shift from creating a strategy to actually putting it into place within your proposal.
If you’d like to incorporate the Strategy Meeting into your process but aren’t sure where to get started, then check out the Bid to Win course, which covers how to create a competitive strategy and key meetings to hold for every RFP.
Or grab the Key Review Meeting Templates bundle for a quick start without the training.
