Posted by Jon
?“How do I know if my win rate’s good enough?”
Simple question – but one fraught with complexity. After all, the quality of your written proposal is only one factor in whether you win or lose a deal. Yet I’ve always held strongly to the belief that the ultimate goal of a proposal centre is to help their sales colleagues to win business – and if you’re not doing so consistently, you’re doing something wrong.
?“How do I know if my win rate’s good enough?”
Simple question – but one fraught with complexity. After all, the quality of your written proposal is only one factor in whether you win or lose a deal. Yet I’ve always held strongly to the belief that the ultimate goal of a proposal centre is to help their sales colleagues to win business – and if you’re not doing so consistently, you’re doing something wrong.
The most successful in-house proposal teams we see have win rates of well over 60%. (Last year, we won 87% of the deals we managed with clients, to give an illustration). But what about more simple, intuitive metrics?
Let’s suppose you’re in a market in which, on average, four bidders are invited to tender for each opportunity you decide that you want to chase. As a baseline, then, you’d be expected to capture 25% of the deals you go after.
But I suspect that, of those bidding for a specific opportunity, at least one of your competitors isn’t going to be a serious contender – either due to non-compliant capabilities, or simply because it’s not high priority on their sales pipeline. So for every deal, there are actually only three serious players – and you should be winning a minimum of 33%. If you’re winning more, you’re punching above your weight; less and there’s something flawed in your sales, bid and/or proposal process.
?It’s a simple analysis – and one that understates a whole range of factors (such as market share) – but sometimes simplicity helps. (Yet don’t let this be an excuse not to strive for the 60% – 80+% rate that we know from experience is possible when this stuff is done well).
Let’s suppose you’re in a market in which, on average, four bidders are invited to tender for each opportunity you decide that you want to chase. As a baseline, then, you’d be expected to capture 25% of the deals you go after.
But I suspect that, of those bidding for a specific opportunity, at least one of your competitors isn’t going to be a serious contender – either due to non-compliant capabilities, or simply because it’s not high priority on their sales pipeline. So for every deal, there are actually only three serious players – and you should be winning a minimum of 33%. If you’re winning more, you’re punching above your weight; less and there’s something flawed in your sales, bid and/or proposal process.
?It’s a simple analysis – and one that understates a whole range of factors (such as market share) – but sometimes simplicity helps. (Yet don’t let this be an excuse not to strive for the 60% – 80+% rate that we know from experience is possible when this stuff is done well).
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