A slightly different view of qualifying a sales opportunity, based on ratings across the Bid Workstreams rather than a generic rating.

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Ten Slides in Ten Minutes:
Bid Qualification across Workstreams
[Capturing the Hearts and Minds of Prospects & Clients]
Presented by:
Bill Graham CP.APMP
October, 2014
bill.graham@sales-synthesis.co.za

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Opportunity Qualification
•The purpose of opportunity qualification is to determine the ability to ‘close’ each sales opportunity
•Qualifying sales opportunities is not merely the action of following steps in a process. It is an integral part of the ongoing business processes of the organisation itself. So, as circumstances change an opportunity could be qualified ‘in’ one day and qualified ‘out’ the following day
•Each sales opportunity in the funnel needs investment to move it forward. This is not just the salesperson doing their usual business, but possible involvement of other resources such as at the ‘C’ level (e.g. CEO, CIO, and COO)
•Simple qualification questions such as ‘What do they want and when do they want it?’ are actually worthless. Similarly, chasing large opportunities because they sound good is also pretty much worthless
•The simple reality is that a logical process of qualification must be followed and the decision from the process must be upheld.

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Consider the Workstreams in YOUR typical Bid
Solution Architecture
Commercial
Legal
Service Management
Account Management
‘Whatever’
‘Etc…’

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Ensure YOUR Workstreams have all of the Sub-Workstreams Covered
Solution Architecture
Commercial
Legal
Service Management
Account Management
‘Whatever’
‘Etc…’
Product Development
Costing
Regulatory
Contracts
Service Levels
Sales
ITIL
ABC
XYZ…

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Have a List of Sections within your Bid Qualification Questionnaire
The typical high-level areas that must be addressed in a qualification questionnaire/review are classically:
•Customer strategy & requirements
•Solution definition
•Resource skills and availability
•Competitors
•Submission content
•Application development
•Customer relationship
•Relevant Experience
•Terms and conditions
•Financial
•Contractual Obligations
•Third party involvement.
Note: Application Development has been split out of the ‘Solution definition’ and ‘Submission content’ to show that it’s fine to have a more granular approach - if it’s applicable to the situation.

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Flesh Out each Section to Add a List of Relevant Questions
The typical high-level areas that must be addressed in a qualification questionnaire/review are classically:
•Customer strategy & requirements (capability alignment and value proposition)
•Solution definition (including complexity)
•Resource skills and availability (for submission & implementation)
•Competitors (positioning & differentiators)
•Submission content (ability to craft a winning proposition/submission)
•Application development (new development vs packaged solutions)
•Customer relationship (Relationship Intellectual Property)
•Relevant Experience (Appropriate track record & case studies)
•Terms and conditions (legal obligations – including regulatory)
•Financial (including business case & pricing)
•Contractual Obligations (including penalties and Service Levels)
•Third party involvement (e.g. partners, sub-contractors).
Note: Application Development has been split out of the ‘Solution definition’ and ‘Submission content’ to show that it’s fine to have a more granular approach - if it’s applicable to the situation.

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Facilitate a Pre-Qualification Review with each Workstream Team
Solution Architecture
Commercial
Legal
Service Management
Account Management
‘Whatever’
‘Etc…’
Each Workstream marks (rates) ALL of the questions and an additional weighting is applied in respect of the importance to them
Consolidate
Use RAG (Red, Amber, Green) to focus efforts

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Facilitate a Qualification Session with All Key Bid Team Members present
Solution Architecture
Commercial
Legal
Service Management
Account Management
‘Whatever’
‘Etc…’
Use the Consolidated Questionnaire as the ‘Agenda’
Complete Bid Team
Use an iterative process to further ‘tune’ YOUR Qualification template and rating/s for future use

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Facilitate a Qualification Session with All Key Bid Team Members present
Solution Architecture
Commercial
Legal
Service Management
Account Management
‘Whatever’
‘Etc…’
Use the Consolidated Questionnaire as the ‘Agenda’
Complete Bid Team
Use RAG (Red, Amber, Green) to further focus efforts

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Whether to Bid – or No-Bid is a Business Decision
The actual decision to bid – or not to bid - is based on business decisions by the Sales Operations Manager – with supporting input from the salesforce, middle management, sales leadership and senior executives.