Winning Edge: March 2015 - BESMA 2015

Page 30

Feature | proposals

Showing full value Sarah Hinchliffe explains the importance of translating your market offerings into customer value in your written proposals

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alue is important throughout the entire business development lifecycle. While value is often covered in sales methodologies, it’s easily forgotten in proposal development, especially if the brief from the sales team to the proposal team is scant or non-existent. So, what is value, why is it so important and how can you express it? Simply put, value is the net result of a purchase. By “net result” I mean the difference between the investment you make in terms of cost, time, effort, risk and emotion – and what you gain in tangible

28 Winning Edge

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or intangible outcomes. As the seesaw opposite shows, the gain must outweigh the investment. A tangible outcome can be measured in terms of a clear metric of some sort. In businesses, this will usually be related to improving a financial position, such as increasing revenue/profit or reducing costs, or decreasing risk, for example better legal compliance or stronger security. Ideally, these outcomes can be quantified by calculating an actual value like a cash or percentage gain. For consumers, a tangible outcome could be measured in the same way, especially when it comes to property and pensions. ismm.co.uk

18/03/2015 10:54


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