What do Jean van de Velde, Jana Novotna, Devon Loch and Don Fox all have in common? They all fell within spitting distance of the ultimate glory – winning the blue ribband event for their sport.
Jean van de Velde was three strokes clear on the 18th hole of the final round of the British Open in 1999 when his performance collapsed resulting in a triple bogey. The match went to a play-off and van de Velde lost out to Paul Lawrie. Jana Novotna suffered a similar collapse in 1993’s Wimbledon ladies final. She was 4-1 up against Steffi Graff in the third and final set before losing the last five games. Thankfully she eventually won Wimbledon in 1998. Devon Loch, ridden by Dick Francis, had been leading the 1957 Grand National when it inexplicably stumbled in front of the royal box on the home strait, losing out in the end to E.S.B. Just imagine clearing Becher’s Brook, The Canal Turn and The Chair – three fiendishly challenging hurdles – only for that to happen.
As for Don Fox? Well I’ll leave it to the first paragraph of his obituary from the Guardian in 2008 – beautifully written by Andy Wilson – to tell that tale:
“It was the great misfortune of Don Fox, who has died aged 72, to be best-remembered for the worst moment of his career, a missed last-minute goal-kick that cost Wakefield Trinity the 1968 Challenge Cup final against Leeds at Wembley and left Fox a disconsolate figure, the “poor lad” of Eddie Waring’s BBC commentary. That incident unfairly overshadowed an excellent personal performance that had already secured him the Lance Todd trophy as man of the match, and also a distinguished 18-season career in which he set a try-scoring record for Featherstone Rovers, helped Wakefield win their first two championships, and shared in three victories against Australia – one of them for Great Britain, when he won his single Test cap in 1963.”
This was before my time but even my Dad, who has no interest in sport, remembers it well. The video is worth a watch.
Each of these personalities had done the work, built the foundations and were put in a position by their teams to have a shot at winning. That they fell so publicly is unfortunate and just a part of life.
The hurdles to winning business
When new clients knock on my door they have often just lost out on winning a big contract or have failed to renew one and don’t want it to happen again. They are sore after a bruising experience where they feel that they were unfortunate to fall at the “final hurdle.” When I carry out my review I look back down the track and usually see a number of misplaced or skittled hurdles.
These are the hurdles that you will need to clear in order to be in the mix to win major contracts:
1. Brand
Would you buy from someone you don’t know? Probably not. If you’re going to pick up something in the supermarket you’ll go to the tried and trusted or else whatever was in the background on the radio, television or online when you were going about your business. Brands build slowly and you have to start somewhere. Before a buyer gives you any form of access – responding to an email, granting a meeting, or picking up the phone – they will need to have noticed you somewhere in the market and have some sense of what you’re about. This is where all that marketing collateral that you’ve developed and sometimes doubt has an impact.
2. Market
Have you decided where you want to play? Will you be busking on Grafton Street or shooting for the stars at the Hollywood Bowl? If it’s the Hollywood Bowl you’ll need to build different and deeper foundations to support servicing that market. Flitting from one market to another will put pressure on your ability to provide solid and consistent service and lead to a Frankenstein portfolio of contracts. You’ll confuse the market as they’ll see a lack of clarity and they won’t know what you stand for.
3. Calibrated products and services
Is your product or service designed and presented to address the genuine concerns and problems of the market or have you developed it because you think it’s a cool thing to do? In my experience one of the main reasons why organisations lose out on winning large contracts is because they offer cookie cutter, one-size fits all products that completely miss the mark and put their prospects’ feet to sleep.
Developing products that resonate involves building a relationship with the client. Without doing the work to build the brand – mentioned in step one – you won’t get within an ass’s roar of this. It involves listening for what is actually going on for them – not for you – and developing empathy. Once they feel seen, heard and understood they’ll be open to you educating them on what you can do and more. This is the gold among the chicken feed. Mine this and you’ll unlock the key to influencing your prospect.
4. Team
Prospects want to work with a team that is competent. It’s a core consideration in any procurement competition. It’s very hard for them to get a real sense of the people involved just through reviewing their resumés or meeting them for the first time at a pitch. Get them in front of the prospect well before any competition so that they can get to know each other and build trust over time. This can be through presentations, webinars or even dinner.
5. Playbook
Do you have an approach you follow when you are going after a prospect? A good playbook will outline the steps to follow when you want to:
- Identify and hygiene opportunities
- Build identity
- Gain access and influence
- Design and collaborate
- Survey your competition
- Propose and pitch
6. Proposal: The final hurdle
Nail this, after putting the work in above, and you have every chance of winning the day. So many opportunities are lost though through laziness and carelessness at this stage. This is often because of leadership beliefs that this should be a fait accompli after doing everything above and that it’s merely a question of “filling out forms.” As a result they give what is extremely important work to unqualified and inexperienced staff who make a balls of it. You’ve no idea how often I’ve seen this approach lead to needless losses and failures to renew contracts. Bigger organisations will give the work to a specialist bid manager or team which is fine, but I often find them lacking in flair and imagination when it comes to important product or service design work.
If I’m asked for my view on who should work on a multi-million euro bid I’ll suggest that they take their best project manager, a business analyst, their best writers and a graphic designer and use them as a squad. The sales person closest to the prospect should oversee the project. That way all bases – organisational, design and clarity – are covered and you have a much better chance of submitting something fresh that resonates and is in tune with the prospect.
The tales of woe in the first half of this article tell us that it’s still possible to fall at the final hurdle, but put in the foundations above, do each of them well, and you’ll have a far better chance of reaching and clearing it.
What happens now?
To find out more about the health of your own business development foundations and whether they’re fit for purpose in order to clear the hurdles I’ve just discussed why not fill out this scorecard? If you want to chat about what you find you can click on the link below.
