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What to Do When You Lose a Bid

Written by: John Brennan

Article Overview: It happens to the best of us. You think you have done everything right. You have built the relationships, correctly identified the prospects’ needs, assessed your competitors, written a responsive and persuasive proposal and made a dynamite presentation. You knew it was not exactly a slam dunk but you had reason to feel very confident that you would win the business from this key prospect.

What to Do When You Lose a Bid

And then learn that your competitor got it.
You are shocked, disappointed, confused and very concerned. You immediately call your best contact within the account to find out why you were not selected. Your contact is apologetic, tells you that your proposal was awesome, your company is impressive and you could clearly do the job. But they chose someone else. It was a tough call; it just came down to “chemistry”. You probe a bit more but get no further information. You swallow your hurt feelings, thank your contact for the feedback, and thank them again for the opportunity to compete for their business. And you get their agreement that they will invite you to compete for the next piece of business.
Next you hire an independent company to find out why you didn’t win. They validate what your contact told you, and added that your competitor came in at less than a five percent lower price. The price difference did not appear to be a significant factor.
You meet with your team to take a second look at your sales strategy for this prospect.
First you consider the option of offering to sub contract with the winner. Where might they need you? Where are they vulnerable? What do you do better than they do? Could subcontracting be profitable? How will sub contracting impact future opportunities with the prospect? How does it affect your market position?
Next, you consider the option of offering discounts to buy the business next time around. You know how to do this. First you must calculate and firmly believe in the full value of your offering, and the full cost to your company for the product/service offering. With this information you know exactly how deep you can discount. You propose a profit margin that you’re your stakeholders can live. You resist the temptation to offer a price that has no profit. You consider the cost of doing nothing. What will it cost your company to forget this prospect? Are there other prospects that can replace this one? Or is this prospect a “must win” account? Who says so and why do they believe it? What will it cost to continue the pursuit?
Now you consider ghosting your competition. Perhaps you did this in your proposal. If so, figure out how you can track their progress with the business they just won, and how you can amplify their weaknesses. You remind your team that despite your competitor’s success this time, they do have weaknesses. Those weaknesses will come to light at some point before the next sales opportunity. You resolve to be there when it happens and to estimate the full cost of their errors on the prospect’s business.
Next you revisit your plans to build relationship with the prospect. How will you stay in touch with key people? What must your key messages be? What online or live marketing events are upcoming that might interest them? What information do you need from your prospect that you have not been able to get? How are you going to get it?
You wrap up the meeting by reviewing the changes you have made to your strategic sales plan for this key prospect. You make sure everyone is in agreement with the plan. You carefully go over the action steps and deadlines. You remind your team of what winning this prospect means to the business and to each one of them. You express confidence that at the next available opportunity your team can win and will win the prospect’s business.

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Article Tags: dynamite presentation, proposal, prospects, relationships, slam dunk



Related Forum Posts
Willing to Fail Your Way to Success - Entrepreneurs in my opinion, must be willing to fail. (This is that risk-taking factor quoted in the other post). If you aren't willing to fail then you don't take risks and if you don't take risks you do I like to call (I am qouting an awesome book called Play to Win!) 'Playing Not to Lose' instead of 'Playing to Win'. When you Play to Win you must risks. Risks are how you build a business and innovate.
Re: How do you stay motivated as a startup? - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":oaw6ne0y]Hi Everyone, I was wondering if some of you could share a few tips on how you stay motivated as a new entrepreneur. For instance, what do you do when: • You lose an opportunity, sale or client • You see a competitor doing something very well • An expense costs more than you bargained for • Your hard work and efforts haven't yielded any significant results yet Thanks![/quote:oaw6ne0y] Lose an opportunity - i try to remember that there are millions of fish in the sea... i lose one.. there's still plenty of opportunity to go after more. And depending on who it is.. i feel honored to have even had the opportunity to go for it. Seeing a competitor do something well is actually a good motivator for me. It will push me to finish or upgrade one of my services or marketing campaigns. All of business is about trial and error... so if my hard work isn't seeing results, than i tweak my practices a bit until they do. Test and retest. Talk to others...see what it is that i'm doing differently.


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