The pitch doctor

Zeitgeist for pitching and tendering

By Peter Rush, Pannone LLP

Welcome dear reader to my first column on pitching and tendering your business in the fastest moving and most shape-shifting market ever.

My brief and purpose is simple. To help you remove ‘amateur night’ and the attitudes and behaviours that go with it from the pitching and tender process.

Business development and marketing frontliners will know what I am talking about. Very senior people busking a major pitch on the train or car there; grabbing late e-mails containing garbled and flat descriptions of what is a super service for a vital tender; benefits untold and unsold and the deadline just hours away. And this for a potential deal with multiple zeros after the figure nine.

Each month I will try to share hard-won insights and smart thinking that will shorten your route to success and empower you to challenge current thinking or drive it to higher level. There will be times when the investment of time is the only way to change the thinking to get the new behaviours that almost guarantee success. I’ll try to show what works and why, and how you can get that wonderful virtuous circle of client focus and potential to communicate spinning in your firm, so you too can dazzle and shine brighter than the competition. Every time? Well no, but it’s the right target.

Your brand perception shifts with every tender or pitch you do. Like football there are three possible outcomes. Promoting it – win, defending it – draw, and damaging it – lose. Continually ask yourself and your team what result this offering to the market will achieve.

So let’s kick straight into four proven tactics that underpin every compelling pitch and, if played well, will promote your brand whatever the result.

Verisimilitude, that ring of truthfulness that separates the chancers from the real deal. Compare the different sound you get as you strike your spoon gently on a crystal goblet and then on plain glass. One rises gracefully, lingers and sweetly ends. The other has a hollow and flat tone. No matter how you wallop the ordinary wine glass it is never mistaken for Waterford. We are hardwired to detect the false note, the over-reaching claim, so use the truth. It doesn’t mean we can’t be imaginative about what we say or write. But it does mean you will have three stunning honest clinchers that connect your deal to my needs.

Structure. Without a proper beginning there can be no clear end. In the opening moments I need to know where you are taking me, why you are doing things this way and how I will benefit from this approach. Without form, your ideas will wander and then I will wonder why I let you get this close. Structure around what connects your business to mine, inform me about what is compelling in your offering, and what motivates you to seek my business out. Appeal to my innate curiosity and desire to work with businesses for mutual and sustainable advantages. You can begin at the end as many a murder movie does and take us through the back story. Step by compelling step, convince me you are the one. Beginning, middle and end is more conventional and works fine, too. But do make sure you set the pitch up so I can catch every key message you throw at me. Warm me up by taking a few minutes at the start to show how carefully you have prepared to use the precious gift of my time.

You have to speak my language, be at ease with my jargon and familiar with the special words that show you really are connected to my culture and goals. The right words in the right place with exactly the right tone of voice. That tone is persuasive, assertive and proud of what is on display. Plain business English without clichés is your core language now with every word counting and connecting to the brief.

Daring to be different and brave enough to genuinely only seek to do business in markets you want be in with people you want to be with. Differentiation is the marketing speak for this and it really does mean showing the world just what sets you apart from the rest of the offerings out there. This is getting harder to do as internal quality drivers and external benchmarking collectively drives the wider profession upwards. Your people and their motivation and achievements are what sets you apart so focus on them.

Smart IT counts too and is going to be even more important as artificial intelligence develops. Behind every IT development is a developer so connect to them if you can. If you can bring alive these overlooked and unsung heroes imaginatively you certainly will stand out.

Prepare like this and prepare to win. Frequently.

Peter Rush is tenders manager at UK firm Pannone LLP. He can be contacted at peter.rush@pannone.co.uk