Seven Questions to Keep You Client Focused

Before you ever set pencil to paper, before your fingertips caress a single key, you should answer the following seven questions. They'll force you to develop a client-centered perspective.

If you are a proposal writer who supports a field sales organization, you should ask these questions of your colleagues in sales when they submit a request for proposal that they want you to work on. Without knowing these basic aspects of the opportunity, you can't give them the best possible support. If they resist, point out to them that you don't want to undercut the work they've done during the sales process by delivering a boilerplate proposal. (If they still resist, maybe they haven't done any work during the sales process and don't know the answers. When that's the case, you should question whether or not the opportunity is "real.")

Seven Questions for a Client-Centered Proposal

1. What is the client's problem or need?

2. What makes this problem worth solving? What makes this need worth addressing?

3. What goals must be served by whatever action is taken?

4. Which goal has the highest priority?

5. What products/applications/services can I offer that will solve the problem or meet the need?

6. What results are likely to follow from each of my potential recommendations?

7. Comparing these results to the customer's desired outcomes or goals, which recommendation is best?

1. What is the client's problem or need?

Sometimes the client issues a request for proposal that specifically states what is wanted:

The FAA needs a course that will teach customer service and total quality principles to its management staff and hourly employees.

Smith, Goldblatt, and Wong, attorneys at law, are hereby soliciting bids for an office telecommunications system to be installed in the firm's new quarters no later than May 15 of this year. The system must provide the following features: ...

The trustees of the Kallaher Group of Homes for the Aged solicit bids for an audit of all of the properties for the fiscal years 2002 and 2003.

Tom's Auto Parts seeks a system to manage the inventory of parts and equipment at all thirteen store locations. The desired system will use bar code data to maintain a current inventory of parts and will integrate with our existing MAS 90 accounting system to automatically update inventory as parts are sold.

These are all pretty clear. But it's not a good idea to assume that the problem or need as stated in the RFP is necessarily complete or correct. Read it, understand it, but keep an open mind. There may be more left unsaid that pertains to why the client is looking for help than has been included in the RFP.

In addition, bear in mind that the client isn't always right. Sometimes the client thinks he or she knows what the problem is, but when you begin to look at the situation, you may find that the client is wrong or has only part of the problem defined.

Use the RFP, if there is one, as a springboard for understanding the client's situation, but don't stop there. The RFP is telling you that there's a gap between what the issuing organization has or knows and what it thinks it needs in order to function effectively.

Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of statements of need that might appear in an RFP. The question you have to answer is, what are the likely business drivers that lie behind them?

• The client needs a detailed inspection of all cabling and wiring in the Blue River Nuclear Generating Station.

  The business driver that makes this need important: The utility company faces potential liability issues if they are found to have defective or noncompliant cabling in their nuclear power plant. Failure to comply can result in significant financial penalties.

• The client requests proposals for nondestructive evaluation or other advanced testing processes that can be used to guide life management practices in the maintenance and repair of turbine blades.

  The reason this problem or issue is important: The entire aviation industry is under tremendous financial pressure. Reducing maintenance costs on engine turbine blades will lower overall operating costs, easing some of the pressure on airlines and other operators. That will make this vendor's engines more competitive from a total cost of ownership standpoint.

In many sales situations, there is no RFP. You are working with a client who has expressed interest, and you have uncovered a need as part of your sales process. The client agrees that it's worth looking at in detail, requesting that you address it in a proactive proposal. This is actually a better situation for you, because you now have the opportunity to offer an unsolicited proposal without facing any direct competition. But you still need to probe that situation carefully to make sure you understand its implications and consequences fully.

In fact, one of the most frequent mistakes salespeople make in a proactive situation, one where there is no formal RFP to define the customer need, is to confuse the solution they are offering with the customer's need. I was working with a large bank, developing the basic outline for a proposal for treasury services with the account team. As part of that process, we were answering the seven questions to make sure we were client centered.

When I asked them, "What is the client's need or problem?" the senior account executive said, "Well, they need real-time verification of credit cards on their Web site."

"So if they can process credit cards online, they'll be happy?" I asked.

"Right."

Somehow that just didn't click for me. It seemed more likely that online payment verification was the bank's way of meeting a broader need of the business. So I asked the account manager the obvious question:

"Why do they need to improve their e-commerce capabilities on their Web site?"

"Their competitors have better Web sites, so these guys are losing market share to them. They're used to selling from their retail locations, and they've been slow to adapt to online selling, I guess. But now they can see it's hurting them not to have a good system."

After further discussion, we decided that the client's main problem or need was to regain market share and become more competitive by improving its ability to provide secure, fast transactions online. The ability to verify credit cards on the Web site was an enabling technology to help them achieve their broader business goal. It was, in fact, a key part of the solution. It wasn't the problem.

Try to find out who is feeling the "pain" associated with this problem. Who is having a difficult time achieving their objectives because of it? If you are unable to get better definition of the problem, you might consider doing some research into the company. A Web search might turn up press releases and news stories that suggest what the problem is. Sometimes a visit to Web sites run by your prospective client's competitors will be revealing. The competitors may be hinting at weaknesses or problems that your proposal is intended to fix.

How else can you find out what the customer's needs are? One way to start recognizing customer needs is to work backwards from existing projects or contracts you have with similar companies for similar products or services. In other words, if you have written this kind of proposal before, perhaps the reasons that drove that opportunity are relevant in this new opportunity. Ask yourself:

• What did we sell or propose to provide?

  Starting from your own products and services is usually comfortable and easy. Just don't stay there.

• Why did the customer need that service, product, or expertise?

  Looking back at previous opportunities, you probably have a better insight into what was going on than you did at the time you wrote the proposal. What was the real reason they were looking for the particular solution you provided?

• Why couldn't the customer wait?

  What made this need urgent? Was there a compelling event looming in this customer's business life cycle that had to be addressed? Was there a competitive situation which the company could not endure? Was there a market opportunity?

• Why couldn't the customer solve the problem internally?

  And what was it about the solution that made it necessary to go outside the company to contract with your firm to get it? Specialized expertise? Speed of delivery? Equipment? Perhaps this isn't part of the customer's core business competency?

The goal here is to understand the problem, define it accurately, and use it as the starting point for what you bid.

2. What makes this problem worth solving? What makes this need one that is worth addressing?

Try to look below the surface. Ask yourself why? Why now? As we said previously, there are all kinds of problems and needs that every business confronts almost daily. Most of them will never get fixed, because they're just not important enough. So what makes this situation one that can't be ignored? What makes this the right time to take action? Who in the organization is being affected by the problem? What corporate objectives are being blocked? What outside pressures are making this problem something that cannot be ignored? For example, if we go back to our sample problem statements from above, here are some questions we might ask:

Why does the FAA need a course on customer service and total quality principles? Why do they need it now? Why do they want to combine those two topics in the same course? Why is the course intended for both hourly and management staff? To what extent have recent changes in the aviation industry contributed to the need for this training?

Why is the law firm moving? How do they use their telecommunications system? What functions and capabilities do they include under the heading of "office telecommunications system"? Why have they specified the group of features they list in their RFP? Are there other features that could benefit them that they may not know about?

The Kallaher Group of Homes for the Aged is insolvent. Why do the trustees need an audit now? How will they use the information? Are they looking for more than just the financial statements? For example, are they seeking an opinion, a restructuring plan, or documentation prefatory to filing bankruptcy?

Tom's Auto Parts has announced expansion plans. They plan to grow from thirteen stores to fifty over the next two years. Is that a driving factor in their desire to update the inventory management system? Will scalability be a critical factor for them? And what about shrink?

3. What goals must be served by whatever action is taken?

Before you can figure out what to propose, you must know how the client will judge success. What is the client trying to accomplish and what is he or she trying to avoid?

Delivering the right results through your solution is usually more important than quoting the lowest price. In fact, it's the definition of value.

Compelling value usually comes from a solution that goes beyond merely solving the problem to deliver important improvements. Understood in this sense, results are improvements in an organization's ability to achieve its objectives and function efficiently and profitably.

Ultimately, you have to ask the customer what he or she values. When you look back on this project, what do you hope to see as a consequence? How will the organization be better than it is now? What measures will you use to determine whether or not you got good value for the money?

As you question your customer about how he or she will measure success, make sure the results and outcomes you are noting meet three criteria:

• They must be measurable or quantifiable

  "Improved efficiency" is not an outcome or a meaningful goal, because you can't measure it. "Reducing system downtime by 20 percent" is a measurable result, assuming there are reliable baseline statistics available.

• They must be organizational in nature

  Personal or political goals are not the kinds of outcomes that can be quantified or used in a proposal. Results and outcomes are important and defensible if they benefit many people across the organization, not merely one decision maker.

• The results must come as a direct consequence of the impact your services or solutions have on the customer's business operations

  There must be linkage between what you specifically are offering (not what everyone who is submitting a proposal is offering, but rather the specific elements of your recommendation that differentiate you from your competition) and the specific outcomes the customer seeks. If you "own" the outcomes in the buyer's mind, you probably own the deal.

As you gain insight into the customer's desired outcomes, resist the temptation to take the first thing your customer contact says as the one, true goal for this opportunity. Sometimes this contact is thinking about personal parochial interests and not looking at the larger, organizational objectives.

For example, suppose you are talking to the I.T. manager and you are learning more about the reasons why this person's company wants to develop an in-house test bed for monitoring engine performance. You ask question #3: "What are the goals that the monitoring system must deliver? How will you know that the system you purchase is the right one for this application?" And the I.T. manager says, "The system must be compatible with our Microsoft infrastructure. That's the main thing. If it's not compatible, it won't work here."

Now, do you think that's the most important goal for the entire company? Or does it perhaps reflect the I.T. manager's anxiety about not being able to support an application that doesn't work in the corporate-approved platform and doesn't match the skill sets of his or her employees?

Always push for deeper insight into the goals. In fact, I urge you to analyze the situation in terms of four overlapping areas: business, technical, social, and personal.

Business goals might include such issues as increasing market share, increasing net profitability, reducing overhead, creating differentiation in the marketplace, or reducing unit cost of manufacturing. Business goals can often be translated into financial measures, although not always. If you are proposing to a government agency, replace the concept of business goals with mission objectives. Most government agencies or departments have a clearly defined mission, and your recommendations should be focused on helping them achieve that mission faster, safer, more completely, or more economically.

Technical goals typically address problems in the infrastructure. For example, a technical goal might be to automate a labor-intensive process, to provide greater flexibility or modularity in system design, or to enhance quality through the use of automated inspection technology. Our I.T. manager who wants the solution to be Microsoft compatible is looking for a technical outcome. It's possible, of course, that a "technical" goal may have nothing to do with technology. Instead, it might involve implementing quality management methodologies or achieving standards of compliance. For example, a factory might need to reduce emissions of volatile nitrous oxides in order to meet regulatory standards. How they achieve compliance may not matter to them, so long as they can avoid having their plant shut down and fined.

Social goals can be directed either internally or externally. Internal social goals might involve enhancing employee morale, reducing turnover, increasing the professionalism of the company's sales representatives, raising awareness among all employees on issues of diversity, and so forth. External social goals may focus on relationships with customers or on relationships with suppliers. For example, a company may want to increase brand recognition, change consumer attitudes, reduce the number of calls to customer support, increase the company's share of the customer's total spending, or capture a greater share of existing markets, among other customer-focused goals. Social goals involving suppliers might include supplier certification, integration of data systems, or development of long-term contracts.

Personal goals, finally, include all the outcomes that affect the decision maker's own career, income, or prestige. If the decision maker owns the company, there may not be much difference between personal goals and business goals. But in a typical situation, the decision maker may be looking for an opportunity to be a hero, to climb the corporate ladder, or simply to avoid making a career-damaging mistake. As we noted above, the most defensible goals are those that are organizational in nature, so be wary of making somebody's personal agenda the basis for your proposal.

4. Which goal has the highest priority?

You've identified the client's desired outcomes. Now which one matters the most? You need to know what's most important to the decision maker for two reasons.

First, you want to present your ideas in the same order that they matter to the reader, because seeing them presented from most important to least important will create the impression in that reader's mind that you think the way they do. This is the primacy principle all over again: they assume that what you say first is what is most important to you and an indication of where the proposal as a whole is headed.

Figure 5-1: Types of Outcomes Clients Typically Seek.

Second, you want to know which goal is most important so that you can use it as the basis for developing your value proposition. Presenting an ROI based on improving quality in a production environment may be easy, given the features and functions of the nondestructive test system you sell, but if the customer is primarily looking for a way to increase market share, it may not be very convincing.

In my experience, proposal writers often attribute their own values to the customer. For example, in working with one of the world's largest professional services firms, I found that virtually every proposal contained the same value proposition. "We offer a greater breadth of services than any other firm," it went. "We can do it all. No matter what kind of analysis, implementation, or outsourcing service you may need, we can handle it." The problem was, as research into the values of their customer base revealed, customers didn't care about breadth of services as a differentiator. What they wanted was much more task specific: Speed of delivery. Risk minimization. Performance guarantees. Relevant prior experience. Introduction of new technologies that will improve productivity. Breadth of services was strictly an internal focus, something the partners in this firm were proud of but which had little meaning for customers.

5. What products/applications/services can I offer that will solve the problem or meet the need?

Usually there are several ways to solve a problem or meet a need. Brainstorm. Look at all of the approaches as uncritically as possible. At this stage, consider anything. For example, you might be able to meet the needs of a client who is seeking a training program by offering a one-day seminar at the client's site. Or you might be able to do it via the Web. Or you might propose developing a computer simulation that can be issued on a CD and reused throughout the organization. Or maybe you could just give the trainees a book to read, followed by a test.

The more creative you can be in combining what you know about the client's needs and goals and what you have to offer, the more likely you are to separate yourself from the pack and develop a truly client-centered solution.

6. What results are likely to follow from each of my potential recommendations?

Make an educated guess, perhaps based on prior experience with other customers, about the probable results of each possible course of action. Will they lead to the client's most important goal? Will they provide competitive advantage? What will they cost? How long will they take? Are cost and timing important issues? Will they require the client to commit employees to the task?

7. What should I recommend?

Choose the best option from the client's point of view, and use that as the basis of your proposal. Even though it can be tough sometimes, try to resist the temptation of recommending the solution that offers you the highest profit margin or the biggest commission check. Manage your proposals and your business for the long term.