Let’s make this clear – without a proposition, you are everything, which makes you nothing. You’re a grain of sand in the desert; an apple in an orchard; a biscuit in the biscuit tin, that only contains custard creams (and you are called Custard Cream Ltd).
My point here is, you have nothing to distinguish yourself from the countless other companies that work in your sector, and do what you do. If you supply digital goods, then you can’t even rely on clients shopping locally.
A proposition defines two key things:
Combined, those two things give potential clients something unique to buy in to. Instead of trying to decide between a big list of basically identical suppliers for their next project, they can pick out of the much smaller – maybe even exclusive – pool you’re in, with your specific capabilities and solutions.
It also helps you choose the right opportunities to respond to in the first place, meaning you spend less time focusing on more suitable proposals, rather than rushing out a response for every possible tender you could technically deliver on.
Let’s break down the key areas of a proposition.
You might have already done some ‘who are we’ work as part of a branding exercise. If so, then great – you can definitely use what you’ve learned there…but it’s not exactly the same, so don’t worry if not.
Rather than explain what a proposition identity IS, I think it will be easier to explain what it’s FOR.
Put simply, it allows your potential clients to understand how you’ll work with them. It’s an advert for your personality and your working approaches, and if developed with sufficient detail, it will be apparent in every aspect of your proposal: the tone of voice you use; the art style (if allowed); even the structure you go with. You no doubt dress for the occasion when meeting clients, why shouldn’t your proposals do the same?
A good identity lets your clients get a real feel for you. Much like when you meet people in person, and sometimes you’ll dress more formally, sometimes you’ll get right to the point, other times you’ll bring biscuits, dress in jeans and spend more time talking about the local cafes than you will the work at hand, but you remain you, and your underlying thoughts, opinions and approaches don’t change.
It’s the same when you’re responding to any kind of tender opportunity, public sector or otherwise. Knowing how you work and what you believe in helps you write confidently in the style that a particular response requires, no matter how formal or informal, detailed or high level that might be.
This is the real meat of your proposition, and it’s the thing that so many people don’t do that it’s almost unbelievable. It’s also an area where there’s so much additional content to come beyond this simple introduction!
Let me give you a demonstration.
Supplier A is shipping products manufacturing company. They can source the cardboard to build the boxes you need, and have hundreds of case studies where they have solved manufacturing problems for other clients.
Supplier B is a box manufacturer. They’ve even got some prior examples where they did some lovely branded boxes for a shoe company, which they filled with their own brand of packing foam to keep the shoes safe. They demonstrably know about shipping stuff.
Supplier C is a specialist in shipping box building for the egg industry. They know about challenges around shipping eggs specifically, and how to deal with them going through the normal post (and through the typical postbox). They know how to create the safest environment for your eggs, and can speak confidently about an egg, and what it needs to arrive in an uncracked state.
The question is, which supplier are you picking? There’s hopefully an obvious choice – C, right? A is too generic, and there’s thousands of companies like that, hundreds of which could apply for this tender. B sounds obviously better than A, but C really stands out. They understand the problem and have a tailored solution.
Could A or B deliver successfully? Absolutely. Does C instil much more confidence? Completely.
And here’s the rub – A, B and C could all actually be the same company. The end product is identical. It’s just that A decided to create a proposition around shipping single eggs, and became C. Sure, this example is maybe a bit too niche in the real world, but it hopefully explains in an obvious manner what a proposition is, and how much it can swing things in your favour.
When you’re putting a response together, the more you know about what you are selling, the easier it is to sell. Think about something you’ve built previously, or a topic you’re passionate about. If I asked you to speak about that thing for 5 minutes, and excluding any fears you might have about public speaking, you’d probably be able to do it no problem.
If I then asked you to speak for 3 minutes about something you have some experience of, but you didn’t work on personally, and it’s not an from area you particularly enjoy, you’re much more likely to struggle, even with less time to fill.
This is why a product is so powerful. It allows you to speak coherently and at length about it. More importantly, it allows you to use your knowledge of it to apply the product to a client’s specific requirements, solving their problems in a way that shows you really understand what you’re talking about.
If you are speaking more generically, then you’ll not only find it harder to solve specific problems, but it will be clear that your answers are more vague and come from a much higher level of understanding of both the thing you are selling, and how it can help the client.
And it’s not just how you sell that is helped. It also becomes much easier to actually write your response in the first place, simply because you understand what it is you’re trying to say. If you’ve ever hit a writers block, or found yourself continuously deleting a few paragraphs when you read them back, I can almost guarantee it’s because you don’t actually know what it is you’re trying to sell yet, or understand the problem you’re trying to solve.
A well defined product, coupled with your identity, gives you everything you need to smash out a proposal that will stand out from he crowd AND demonstrate your unique capabilities to the client.
But that’s not all.
You’ll find, once you start looking, that there’s dozens, if not hundreds of tenders every week you could potentially go for. You’re a web agency, right? There’s always tenders being listed for a new website, and the functionality they require is simple. GO FOR IT!
No. No, no, no. We’ll talk more about this in the qualifications step, but there’s no point you going for every tender you could feasibly deliver. If nothing else, no one has that kind of time, but mainly it’s because you’re immediately putting yourself up against every other generic supplier who foolishly threw their car keys into the bowl. In our example above, you are Supplier A.
By taking your proposition, and only shortlisting tenders that have requirements that match your specific product, you are immediately in a much smaller supplier pool. Sure, there might be a bunch of Supplier A companies in there, but we already know that being a Supplier C gets you picked over them, every time.
So you see, a proposition lets you quickly sift out the tenders you COULD do, but SHOULDN’T do, so you can focus your efforts on the ones that you can put together a really strong proposal for.
Hopefully you understand the importance of figuring out your proposition by now. There’s much more to consider, and how you go about defining your proposition is for another time…but the takeaway here is that defining a proposition helps you sell, both by giving you a solid understanding of what it is you’re selling, and also helping you pick the right opportunities in the first place.
