The Insights Blog

Win more business with prospect-centric agency proposals

Proposals that win are focused on what the buyer needs.

It takes serious work to write a proposal that way! It takes a change in approach. It takes a new focus and a new process.

Here is a simple process that ensures your focus is on what the prospect needs.

Try the following approach and your proposals will be more prospect centric. There are two major phases to this approach:

The Two Major Stages to Developing Prospect-centric Proposals

Here you go:

1. Understand the Business Issue

Marketers don’t really want to hire agencies or spend money on marketing or advertising. Rather, they have Business Issues that they need to address.

What’s a Business Issue? We define Business Issues as “the key challenge(s) or opportunity(s) a company is facing.” These can be CSuite issues like profit or revenue, marketing issues like acquisition or loyalty, or a number of other challenges or opportunities.

Understanding the key Business Issue that is driving the need for your proposal is the magic that can help set your proposal apart from competition.

2. Address the Business Issue

With clarity around the core Business Issue, focus the remainder of your proposal on how your agency can help the prospect succeed by addressing the Business Issue.

Six Steps to Better, Prospect-Centric Proposals

You can use the following six steps to make your proposals more prospect-centric:

A few words about each key step:

Understand the Business Issue

1. Deconstruct the Request: The starting point is the “ask”. RFP and other proposal requests often lack clarity, but by reading with a discerning eye you can identify considerations that are important to the prospect.

2. Plan/Request a Q&A: You’ve torn apart the request and have a good idea of the need. Before you continue, request a quick call to understand the situation even better and the prospect’s desired outcomes. What’s the core reason they need help? Identifying this Business Issue – which may not have been clear in the RFP – is critical to helping them solve their issue.

3. Create a Business Profile: A quick but thorough job of desk research can help your team develop a much more thorough understanding of the prospect’s business. Desk research can readily help you better understand:
– who are their customers?
– channel highlights, points of distribution and/or number of stores?
– what’s the annual business calendar?
– who do they compete with and how do they stack up?
– digital presence?
– social presence?
– product/service quality?
– media & marketing investment?
– new products recently launched or planned?
– revenue and/or market share trends?

Various AI tools can help. The best for agency proposals is Waldo.fyi – give it a try!

A quick but detailed Business Profile can help you better understand the context of the Business Issue and help tailor your proposed response.

4. Uncover the Business Issues: With the deconstructed RFP, a Q&A call and Business Profile in hand you should have a pretty clear view of what is happening in the prospect’s business, what the key Business Issue(s) are and the context driving the request. You can now talk effectively about the prospect’s challenges and opportunities.

Address the Business Issue

5. Strategic Analysis: Before you can solve for the Business Issue in a compelling manner, you need a strategic insight that can elevate YOUR solution versus the solutions proposed by other agencies. Analyze the competition, target audience and Brand. Develop an insight that can help drive a compelling solution. Do this work and your proposal will stand out!

Waldo.fyi has pre-built templates and tools that can help a great deal.

6. Address the Business Issue: With your insight in hand, tailor solutions that solve for the Business Issue and deliver outstanding impact.

Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.

The Insights Blog

Win more business with prospect-centric agency proposals