PROPOSAL STORYBOARDING

Writing customer facing proposals is a time consuming and resource intensive exercise. Too often proposals are completed by bid teams who have a limited view of the end to end sales campaign, are showing levels of fatigue and therefore make mistakes or who are not close enough to the sales strategy to understand the win themes and therefore reflect them in their proposal output. Too often the written submission does not make your proposition come alive for the customer, is disjointed and inconsistent, and fails to differentiate your business from the competition. Through our research with customers, we know they often feel that the logos on supplier proposals could be interchanged with no real impact.

Customer response templates can make this situation harder, often designed to strip away your differentiators so customers can compare “apples with apples”.

1/2 day – 1 day

depending on complexity

MAXimising the impact

At Digital Distance, we work with customers to help them maximise the impact of their proposals utilising Storyboarding. This digital service involves scripting the proposal outline and content from the outset. Storyboarding encompasses essential inputs such as your value proposition, win themes, and differentiators. Plus any insight from best practices such as stakeholder profiling, win strategy development, competitive analysis and win/loss reviews.

Where the written proposal is scored by the customer, Storyboarding supports achievement of the best possible proposal, scoring the highest possible number of points, and significantly improving your win chances.

The mark of success

Successful Storyboards:

Ensure your win strategy and themes, plus supporting graphics, are given appropriate emphasis and are clearly articulated throughout
Highlight your features, advantages and benefits and, importantly, how they address your customer’s key drivers, needs and success criteria
Clearly convey your differentiators, proving that you are better than your competition
Take into account the way in which the proposal is delivered, e.g. Excel-based customer templates do not lend themselves to highly graphical submissions
Provide your proposal team with a consistent response format with specific author guidance as to the messages/differentiators for incorporation, including diagrams
Provide direction to maximise the efficiency and quality of the writing process
Provide guidance to the RED team (Read, Evaluate, Decide), assisting their proposal review
Ensure that the response produced aligns with the customer scoring mechanism, by section and/or question

OUR APPROACH

Digital Distance has extensive experience in completing compelling proposal submissions and applies this expertise utilising a secure digital medium of your choice. This agile approach ensures we can work effectively with input from across your bid team regardless of their location and time-zone.

A Digital Distance specialist facilitates this virtual best practice activity, storyboarding the proposal outline and content prior to work commencing on the actual proposal writing. Taking this approach helps you “get it right first time”, making the best use of the precious time available.

The length and frequency of storyboarding sessions varies according to the complexity of the response document, therefore please contact us early in your sales cycle for a free consultation to discuss your specific requirements. We will be happy to provide a competitive quote for this game-changing digital service.

Win Strategy Workshop

Proposal RED Team