Go / No-Go – what’s the point?

This is a popular mantra amongst the business development world. It rings true in many cases, and is definitely something I have said many times before, but its not the only reason you shouldn’t bid.

So what should we be considering when deciding whether to dedicate time and money into a lengthy public sector bid? That answer is not simple, and most definitely not a black and white science.

Conquering the fear of missing out (FOMO to some)

Many of our clients have a tendency to bid too much, overstretch their capabilities and grab at everything that comes onto the pipeline. Saying no seems to be the hardest choice for professionals and business leaders. Its not something that is ever trained, and when KPI’s are linked to sales, it becomes even harder.

If you have ever dabbled in stock trading, you will have learned that the most revered skill is the discipline to back out when targets are hit, even if your gut tells you that it is going to continue to rise or are on a winning streak. Stock traders work to very specific strategies that are mathematical, and incorporate market intelligence. They are playing the odds all the time, and by setting informed strategies, and never deviating, they simply tip the odds of success in their favour in comparison to everyone else bidding on the stocks. When a strategy is not performing, they change the strategy, they do not persist until the market bends to their approach.

This discipline and approach is something we can adopt in when bidding in the public sector. Set a clear strategy based on our strengths, weaknesses and position in the market. Know what a ‘ideal’ opportunity looks like and stick to bidding for these by creating a Go / No-go process that prevents you from deviating from the strategy.

So how do we apply this in reality without it being cumbersome?

Without talking to you, we don’t know what your particular strategy is, but in most cases there are some standard generic questions we can ask whenever bidding that can give us a guide on our win chance. We can then add questions specific to your strategy or business that will help ensure you stay true to your strengths. The key elements to a good No / No-Go decision process are:

1. Make sure someone has gathered all the intel available. This includes talking to anyone who has been working with the client, any past projects etc. Use client spend reporting software and past contract awards to work out incumbents and competitors. Look at your resource schedule to understand team availability and existing workload / bids.
2. Get the right people in the room. Its no good making a decision at the highest level, if the person who will lead the bid and project is not there to have their say. Make sure that when you walk out of the room, the decision is made and can proceed to bid kick-off without it circulating back around a couple days later.
3. Know what happens after the decision is made. Have a bid kick-off process in place to ensure there isn’t a big delay between decision and starting. If you aren’t going to bid, make sure you respond to the client indicating the reasons why, be polite and nurture the relationship. Being ghosted is not what they want to see from a potential future partner!

To support all this we commonly use tools. Remember that any tool needs to be tailored to your business, and should be updated as your requirements change. Common ones include:

• An opportunity proforma that is completed by whoever is responsible for collecting the intel. Information around the opportunity, timelines, competition, client, etc. Using a proforma shortens the amount of time spent by the wider team trawling through long documents for key information.
• A Go / No-go matrix or question list. You can find many templates online, or we can send you one with common questions. You should ensure this is easy to complete and as objective as possible.

If you have a lot of opportunities to assess each week, look at tools that allow side to side comparison of opportunities, so you can pick those you have the best chance of winning.

How can we help you?

It can be difficult to get this set up. Common fears are:

• What if we reject the wrong bids?
• We are in a rut, we need to bid as much as possible.
• We don’t have time to complete this process.

Our response is easy. You will likely lose those you should have rejected anyway. If you overstretch your bid team, they wont win any more than they would have done if you were strategic. Doing this will save massive amounts of time not spent on low win chance bids, and it removes the endless email threads of back and forth whether to bid (we all know it happens..).

We have tools and templates to help. We can take you through a couple of decisions to aid the process. We can also provide interim support to help complete the proformas and templates if you are really struggling for time. Drop us a call to discuss how we might help you!