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Understand who you are pitching to
Or why concentrating on the Power Map not the PowerPoint can win the day
By Ian Forbes
What is a Power Map? Often a major part in preparing for a pitch, it is drawn on a whiteboard or single (large) sheet of paper and shows the names and position of all the people who could impact on the pitch decision and maps their interconnectivity.
It will capture;
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• Those who will choose the winner (the Decision Makers)
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• Those with the power to say “no” (also Decision Makers)
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• Those who can influence the decision
What’s good about a Power Map is the fact is that doing one will force you to realise that there are usually many more Decision Makers and Influencers than the few you have met when taking the brief, or been identified in the Request for Proposal.
Now you have the opportunity to get to know them and their issues. You start with Decision Makers because they have both the authority and influence. However just as important in many bids are those with influence but not authority. They can persuade and cajole others to follow. Their influence can be so strong in some cases that the person with authority might bow to the influencer, even though the influencer does not have the right to enforce the change. These people are often called Key Influencers because of the effect they can have on the Decision Makers.
Sometimes the CEO might be the Decision Maker. In other situations it could be another C-Suite officer or a senior line manager. Make sure you get it right. The full Power Map is not always obvious. Be wary too of the client contact who tells you that he or she is the sole decision maker - it is rarely the truth. Ego often gets in the way of accuracy.
It is clear that being the incumbent in a bid will help significantly when drawing up the Power Map. However all is not lost as there are a number of ways to learn the information that will guide you to drawing up a Power Map. Key in these is probing or questioning skills. By asking the right questions to the contacts you have you can test your assumptions and get an accurate Power Map in most cases.
Again good probing skills will help uncover the rational, emotional and political motivators of the Decision Makers and Key Influencers. What is important to these people will drive your solution. This information will help your team select the most appropriate messages, benefits and evidence to convince them.
Conversely, lack of data about who are the Decision Makers and what is important to them will force the pitch team to make assumptions. Research shows that more pitches are lost because they were based on assumptions (later proved wrong) than for any other reason.
So the message is: - to win more pitches spend your time getting the Power Map right rather than concentrating on the PowerPoint.
Overview of Ian Forbes – CEO and Principal Consultant, CORPORATE PERSUASION
Ian has worked as a Principal Pitch Consultant for ten years and has helped companies win over US $3 billion of actual business opportunities. Ian is the C.E.O. of CORPORATE PERSUASION Limited, a UK based consultancy that helps companies around the world achieve success when persuasion is critical. He also speaks regularly at industry conferences on persuasion and winning major deals. Ian came to that work from a career in advertising where he was an agency principal for several successful agencies.
when persuasion is critical
