How to create a winning tender document. Golden Rules for winning work. Rules for Effective Selling in Writing. Leif Kjetil Skjæveland, Partner of Xait

1. How to create a winning tender document
Leif Kjetil Skjæveland, Partner of Xait

2. Illustration: P. Dybvig

3. Illustration: P. Dybvig
Which Tender
do you want to deliver

4. What is your client thinking?
•So what?
•How so?

5. Golden rules for winning work
1. First and foremost, a proposal is a sales
document.
2. Customers do not buy what it is; they buy
what it does for them. They buy
benefits, not features.
3. In a proposal, you do not just sell here and
there.You sell all the way through.
4. Virtual planning is virtually useless.
5. The audience, not the author, drives the
design.
– Tenders are 2.5 times more likely to win when
they designed and delivered key messages
directly to decision makers
6. Ease of evaluation is a very real factor of
success.
7. In the early phases of evaluation, they are
not looking for the winner. They are
looking for losers.
8. In most cases, proposals do not win
contracts, but they can lose them in a
heartbeat.
9. When writing a proposal, writing is the
last thing you should do.
10. Win or lose, always debrief with the
customer. If you have to choose, debrief
after a win.
11. When capability becomes
commodity, competition becomes
communication.
Source: D.G.Pugh, A bidder's dozen

6. GOOSE OR DUCK?
What is it?

7. 11 Rules for Effective Selling in Writing
1. Recognize the importance
of writing
2. Care about the things you
write
3. Become a believer in bad
first drafts
4. Lose your ego
5. Outlines payoff
6. Set aside time without
distractions
7. Read
8. Read it aloud
9. Words: Shorter is better.
Jargon is embarrassing
10. The logical progression of
indisputable facts
11. Revise, revise, revise…
then send it
Source: http://mandelman.newsvine.com/