Sales vs Bid Management

In the changing sales landscape there are some confusion about sales and bidding, what is what? If you understand, clarify and define clear tasks and role descriptions you can avoid a lot of frustration and substantially improve efficiency and effectiveness in your sales organization.

I have recently had this discussion with several of my customers, and I would like to share some findings with you.

When What you sell becomes more complex and valuable for the customers, the more complex the bids and tenders will become. It’s not only about price, quantity and compliance any longer. Even if what you sell has a lower value and is more of a commodity and transactional sales the tenders and bids are consequently a bit less complex but still very important.

There is not a good definition around what sales really is, there are many definitions flying around about where sales start and stops and what is a part of sales or not. Sales can be different things depending on Why, What and How you sell, but in the end the fiscal term of sales is all about money coming in for products, systems or services you deliver. Since what you do as an individual and as an organization will have a great impact on how much money is coming in its crucial to know what behaviors and activities are paying off.

 I prefer to talk about sales as a whole process, because if you can’t describe the activities you expect the sales organization to perform they have no real guidance of what is important to do and its only randomly up to the individuals’ opinion and initiatives. Unfortunately, sales is often measured only by the end result, and not on KPIs on behaviors that will give you good end results.

Many organizations that I meet have no sales process, or have a sales process which is just not good enough. Some have the sales process as a part of the Quality system like ISO 9001, but that is not really a sales process. Some talk about pre-sales and sales, its indication that they define activities before sales as pre-sales, and that sales is only about bidding and closing. For me sales is the entire process from analyzing you market for potential customers all the way to closing deals and how to keep them after delivering your products or services. So, pre-sales is the proactive part of the sales process before you get to bidding and closing and is an organic part of sales as well as bidding.

In a value based sales situation, you always need a supporting value proposition or business case to support your bid for at least three reasons:

·        To proof that your customers will get a good return of their investment

·        To proof your solution is addressing the most critical issues they want to address

·        To differentiate from competition

The proactive tasks before you get to the bidding part of sales are the most important in the sales process. Here is when you can make a difference by building trust in you for your buyer. They need someone who understands their operations, problems and needs, they need someone who listens and also can enlighten them with new ideas and perspectives, even challenge them in the nicest possible way. We know that proactive sales pays of in higher hit rates and margins as well as in higher customer loyalty. The way you sell is important and makes a difference.

If your sales process is seamless and when really qualified people are working with the customer interaction in the early stages of the process and equally qualified people support them with the bidding part of the process you will be more efficient and effective.  By specializing you become better as a team and organization and deploying the right people for the proactive part and the right people for the bidding part of the sales process. Both are really important roles with important tasks and needs the right people to fill them. I see a lot of sales managers who is better suited for the bid managers’ roles and you will make both them and your organization a favor to put them in the right position in the team.

Bid management is a part of sales as well as "pre-sales" but just like in a soccer team you must have the best players in each position to win. You need good sales and bid managers, but they are seldom the same persons but equally important.