Proposal Playbook: Part 2

Proposal Playbook: Part 2

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to part two of the proposal playbook. And on today's episode, we are going to be chatting about getting clear on not just our needs, but the needs of our customer and figuring out a way to create a win win solution so that when we create a proposal, it's a winning one. Stick with us. This is a really important episode.

Stay tuned.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences.

And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 83 of the Business Development Podcast. Today we are chatting about proposal playbook part two. But before we get into today's show, I wanted to give a gigantic thank you to all of the sponsors of the business development podcast. This show could not continue to grow at the rate that it is growing without your support.

Thank you to our listeners for taking the time to check out our sponsors websites. Say thank you to them on LinkedIn. I appreciate it greatly, everyone. Really, we're at a point now with the show where it takes money to grow from this point. We really have kind of hit a point where organically, yeah, we grow, we grow quite a bit, but we need to do more advertising, we need to do more on the production front.

We need to be continuously improving. So we've definitely hit a point in the show where the sponsorship is greatly appreciated, greatly valued. And I wanted to thank you very much to my listeners and my sponsors, listeners for taking the time to listen to what they have to say and sponsors for believing in the business development podcast and trusting us to represent your brand well.

And I hope that there's a great synergy to everything that we bring, not just for our sponsors, but for our listeners too. I always think about the value to our listeners when I bring people on this show. So understand, I am thinking about you, and I am going to be specific about making sure that whatever we bring to you makes sense for you.

Okay. As we get into today's show, I just wanted to give a thank you to Ashley McKarney. She's the president of Involvi she came along for episode 82, Follow Your Gut. Ashley is a HR rockstar, and she came in and talked so much about culture, about human resources, and what has changed in the last 20 years. And it's been amazing, and Ashley is amazing.

And if you need any HR services, please be sure to reach out to Involvi Consulting. I believe if you go to the website as well, it also says Involvi HR. Thanks Ashley, we appreciate it greatly. It was an amazing, amazing episode. Wanted to just give a reminder about community questions, and an update for this month.

So... We are taking community questions for November. When I started November, I hadn't really thought too much about doing the proposal playbook. And once that kind of came into my head as something that we wanted to do it's going to push community questions to December. So just a heads up, November community questions are still going to happen.

They're just happening in December because that's, what's going to happen. They're going to happen after we're done with the proposal playbook series. So if you have community questions, what that means for you is you have more time. So please do shoot us any community questions, any business related questions, any business development related questions to podcast@capitalbd.ca.

That is podcast@capitalbd.ca, and they will go into our community questions file. And we will be getting around to that as soon as possible to make sure that we answer those for you. And I love doing Community Questions episodes, so I'm looking forward to it. But understand that in this particular case, it is going to be moved to December in order to allow us to finish our four part proposal playbook.

Okay! Well... Let's just get into it then. Thank you so much for sticking with us, and let's just talk about the Proposal Playbook. So, as you guys may remember, Part 1, if you haven't heard Part 1 of Proposal Playbook, this is a series. Please go back, listen to Part 1. It's going to have relevance into Part 2.

They're going to go in order, and they're going to feed off of each other. And so it is very important that we are taking the lessons from each of these into the next episode. So if you're, if you're just getting to this and you just found part two of Proposal Playbook, and this is your first episode of the Business Development Podcast, please go back.

Actually, go back a lot. There's like... 83 episodes now for you to go back to, and they all have great nuggets of information, amazing expert interviews for each and every one of you. So please, go back. If you're new, we appreciate you. Go back to the beginning, listen to some of the podcast episodes, give us a like, give us a subscribe, give us a rating on your podcast platform of choice, and tell a friend, because that is what allows us to continue growing, and we appreciate it greatly.

All right, so part two of the proposal playbook is going to be very much based on your client. We based part one very much on you and your business and understanding the statistics of your business, what it takes to be effective, knowing every little bit about your business and your services and how you perform them in step by step and process and procedure because we need to know ourselves.

Before we can go out to market and get to know a business and be able to tell that business how the heck we are going to meet their needs. We have to really know who we are. What is our model? What is our service? What do we provide? What value are we providing the world? And we need to know that. Inside and out before we get to the part where we're talking about client proposals.

Why is this? Why do I say this? Because you cannot put together an effective client proposal until you truly understand your services and how you perform them, what value they provide to the world, the statistics behind them, what type of results you can get. You need to be able to know this intrinsically.

inside your business before you can bring this outside your business and tell a client what it is you can do for them. So part one talks about us, our business, our organization, our deliverables, our ability. And part two now is going into defining success and scope with your customer, understanding their need, understanding what their problem truly is.

And this is a lot harder than you think. This part two of Proposal Playbook is the most important part of Proposal Playbook, okay? Out of the whole four part series, this one, if we get it right, has the greatest effect of success. It will give you the highest possible chance of success with your customer if we can get part two of Proposal Playbook right, okay?

And so... We need to define success and scope and then we're going to have to work backwards in order to accomplish that success and that scope for our customer, okay? Clarity on both sides is to define successful outcomes, right? We have to know what is successful and I'm talking about what is successful for you too, okay?

Negotiations and proposals are a two way street, right? You're not in business to not make money. That's just not how businesses work. I suppose maybe some non profits, but even then, there is, there is some type of budget that you have to live within, okay? So we know that there is a certain level of Profit or performance that we must meet in our delivery of a service in order to stay in business and stay profitable and not die as a company.

So we know that we have our side. Okay, the customer also has their side and they have a set. A set goal or or set performance metrics that they would like to hit regardless of what your service is, right? Whether that be a monetary or or a production schedule, right? And so we have to truly understand what is successful to both sides.

You can tell the customer all day how you were going to help them, but it does not matter if you are not solving their need. We do this way too much, and I've done this. Like, I'm not, I'm the first to tell you. I've made all the mistakes in the book. All of them. I am literally teaching you from what I have learned has worked and not worked from my own failures.

I think that's why this series is going to be very powerful, because it truly is from a place of, I have made all the mistakes. I am not going to sit here and tell you that I am the best. Best proposal maker in the entire world. I am not. I'm sure that there is somebody out there who does much, much better.

However, I have learned a lot of lessons in sending hundreds of proposals in my time as to what is effective and what is not effective. And I'll tell you what, you telling a customer how you're going to help them without them telling you what their problem is, is always going to lead to disaster. And I think a lot of organizations.

Do this. And why? Why do we do this? We do this because when we started our organization, we said we're going to sell this product or this service. This is the needs it meets. Here's who our customer we think is, and this is the price we're going to charge for it. Okay, great. Send that out to market. We have a rate sheet.

We have a price guide. Send it out to market. Now, that doesn't usually work very well, especially if we are selling to multiple organizations with different needs, okay? This, this part is really left out in a lot of proposals, in a lot of business bids, okay? And yet it's so critical and we want it, we want that to work, we want to be able to go out to market and say, Hey, we've created this solution, this service, it costs you this much, it'll take us this long, we think, and you'll get this for doing it.

So just come, come do it, come try it, right? If I'm talking to you today, I think, especially if this is the approach that you and your organization has taken, you will have noticed something. It was really hard to sell your service. It was really hard to sell your product because you were trying to jam it.

You're trying to jam a round service, how about this, a round service into a square hole. It just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. The most important thing about a good proposal is it fits, right? How can you, how can you sell a product or service effectively to client satisfaction if we don't know? We have no idea what it takes to make the client happy.

We're just saying, take this. This is our service. It's going to work. You're going to love it. Just take it. And I know this is seeming a little aggressive, but I'm telling you, I, you know what I mean? I did this too. I did this too. I had this great service. The world needed it. Why aren't they taking it? They weren't taking it because I wasn't meeting the need.

Right? I wasn't getting real clear with my customer as to what their problem is. And so what I'm suggesting to you with this part two as we get through it, is that I want you to spend some time here. I want you to spend some time here. I want you to get to know your customer. I want you to have multiple conversations with them.

as to what their challenge really is. Okay. One of the things that I've realized, and you know, this is actually a more modern realization. Actually, this is something that I've learned more recently, and it's that it can take multiple conversations with a customer before they are clear about what they want.

Most of the time, especially if you have a niche product or service or something that maybe isn't as well understood, your customer will come to you saying, Hey. XYZ company, solve my problem. Here's my, here's my problem. Here's the problem I think I have. What's your solution? What would you do here?

There's a big problem with this. There's a big problem with this. And it's that the customer I don't think has fully thought through their challenge, right? They might say, hey, I think we need more meetings, right? In my case, right? I think we need more meetings. And I might come back to them and say, well, probably, but what does that really mean for you?

Right? Well, it means that if we get more meetings, we'll get more customers. Okay, great. If you get more meetings, you'll get more customers. But like, how many customers do you even need? What, what does that mean? And you keep going back and forth with them. You keep going back and forth until they get clear and they say, you know what?

Well, yeah, our real problem is we're trying to grow our revenue by like, let's say another million dollars a year this year. Okay, great. Now we have something to work from, but it takes multiple discussions back and forth for them to get clear about what their problems are. Now that you know the goals of the organization, what your service truly means to them, in this case the service would mean an increase of a million dollars a year in revenue, well, boom, now we can go backwards, right?

Now we can go backwards. So, let's just play on this a little bit. Let's play a little bit with this million dollar conundrum. Okay, so we've talked with a customer. We actually had, let's say, two different discussions now about what their needs are, what their challenges are. And the customers come back to you and said, Hey, in our case, you know, what we're looking to do is increase our revenue by a million dollars.

Okay, well now you as an expert need to go back to the drawing board and say, Okay, the customer has now said they want to make an extra million dollars a year. What are the questions that we need to ask them that might be relevant to this goal? Right? I hope you're seeing there's a lot more to this. We have to really understand the client goal, and then we have to put together a plan on how we're going to accomplish that.

Okay? Like in my case, I might take a look at this example. And say, okay, well, what is your closure rate on a customer? Well, you know, when we have meetings with customers, we close it. Let's say 50 percent of the time, we've got a great closure rate. We're 50, 50 on all these meetings. Amazing. What is a customer actually worth to you?

Well, okay. An average customer account is worth about a hundred thousand dollars. Okay, great. So it's going to take roughly 20 meetings. With a 50 percent closure rate in order for you to accomplish your million dollar goal this year. Yeah, that sounds right. Great. Now we have a number to work from. And now we can start talking about what the deliverables would be in this scenario, right?

And additional services. You recognize too this probably takes some pre work and some post work to make happen, right? And so you can sit down with them and you can say, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, XYZ Company, you've given me these goals. Here's what we are telling you it's going to take because we are the experts in the space.

This is what we are saying it's going to take to accomplish this goal. Here's the timeline. The timeline you've given us is a year, so we're working within a year's period. You're going to need to rework your advertising material. We're going to need to come up with a proper pitch. We're going to need to create target lists for all of these customers XYZ industry.

In order to achieve your million dollar goal, we know we're going to need to to to create at least 20 opportunity meetings. So great. This is what it's going to take for us to create these 20 opportunity meetings. And here's the timeline we're going to do it in. And here's the post work like these are your key deliverables in order to meet.

The client need, but do you see what I'm doing? I know this is a bit of a long drawn out one, and I understand this may seem obvious. This may seem obvious, but believe me, it is not obvious. It is not obvious. And there are a lot of organizations that are doing this completely wrong. What they are doing is they're shoving their round solution into a square hole, and they are not trying to truly understand your customer, right?

You need to truly understand your customer, understand that. If your proposal is not custom and tailored to your customer, it is a price sheet, okay? It is a price sheet. There's no difference. If all you're doing is saying, every solution that I have to every client problem is this, this rate guide, or this is my price, you are not creating a proposal.

You are sending a price sheet. You are sending a rate guide. You might dress it up with some words, but you are sending a price sheet. You're sending a rate guide. You are not solving directly the client's problem. If you do it the way that I'm explaining to you in this, in this model, where what we're doing is we're creating a collaborative approach.

We're looking at the actual client problem and we're identifying it with them because they probably If you haven't thought deep enough yet, it takes probing, it takes back and forth, it takes questions to get the customer to open up, to tell you what their true goal is. And not just what their true goal is, what the, what it means to them, what is the value to them?

How can you create a great proposal if you don't know what your proposal's worth? If you don't know what the value is to your customer, okay? We need to probe, we need to truly understand what the value is, whether it's a dollar value, whether it's a, the value of the success of a project or not, like I get that I'm talking to some people who might just be putting out bids, I get that, who might just be bidding on, let's say, you know, a transformer or something like that for a project, but understand there is a value to that transformer, right?

It means the difference between the project being successful or not. Okay. Okay. Well, what is the dollar value of that in your mind or in your customer's mind? How important is that to them? Right? It doesn't always have to come down to price, right? You can base your price based on the value to the customer.

If you can truly understand what the value is to your customer, and you can still create a win win. You can still create something that, heck, maybe even you make an extra couple bucks, but the value to your customer is huge. The customer still saves a fortune by going with your company. And you can't know this if you're just sending out price guides.

You can't know this because it takes discussion. It takes deep diving. It takes probing questions. It takes a true understanding of the solution that you can provide to your customer because you understand the underlying challenge, you truly. Understand the challenge to your customer and what it is they really want.

Is that goal a revenue goal? Is that goal to complete a project? How important is this service or this product to your customer? What does it really mean? What does success really look like? And defining success is Absolutely critical, and that success has to be two ways. You have to be able to define success for yourself, including whatever monetary value that has to you in your business.

And you have to also be able to truly understand what success means to your client. What would be an absolutely exceptional outcome to your client? And you can you can ask them. You can say, hey, in this conversation I've had with you, it sounds to me. Like the definition of success for you would be this, this, this, and this.

Am I correct? Great. What would be exceptional? Oh, okay. If I could add this service or if I did this level, or if we, if we improve the results by this much, that would be exceptional. Amazing. Now I understand what success means to you, what exceptional success means to you. And then I also understand if by defining these two things.

What lackluster success means. So, you know, now definitively what it is that your customer needs. What kind of power do you think that this gives you? This gives you everything. It gives you everything. Because what we're talking to today is I know, I know, because I'm one of these people. We're talking to people who've sent hundreds of proposals and only a handful of them were accepted, right?

Why? Because we did not understand the true value of our service to this customer, right? We understand the value of our service as a whole, or we would have never started a company, right? We understand that our services or our products have value. We get it. What we don't understand, until we have a deep dive with our customer, way ahead of time, and I'm, I'm literally saying, I don't think that you guys should be sending a proposal immediately after your first meeting.

I think you're going to find that after your first meeting with a customer, sometimes it leaves more questions than answers on your customer's side and your side, frankly. This is a good thing. This is a really great thing. And I think a lot of people are like, Oh crap, we don't have enough information, but let's put together a proposal anyway.

That's where we're at. Let's just, let's just slang out a proposal. This is the wrong move, right? What you need to do is incite these questions, use your knowledge, use your product expertise to really probe with your customer because you're going to ask them questions and they're going to be like, Hey, I didn't think about that.

I literally had a meeting earlier this week with a bank and I was having a great conversation with them. It was an introduction through the show and it was very much appreciated. And when we got to the end of our conversation, the conversation went to, I think that there's more pre work here to be done.

Before, before our services make sense because I think we need to clarify some things. I think we need to identify value proposition. I think we need to discuss what the goals would look like, what your revenue goals are, what we actually want to accomplish with a BD contract and it. That meeting was okay and it left with me not getting work or not even being in a place where I could put together a proposal, but that was okay because what it did is it opened the doors to future conversation.

It sent them back with great information that they can act on and they can start to evaluate and decide what their goals may be. And the next time that we come back to the table and have this discussion, we're going to be in a much better place to meet their needs because they will have identified their needs.

They will have. Potentially done some pre work to put us in a better position for business development. Okay. This is a great thing. It only gives you more success. It only allows you to put together a better proposal. And we both know that if we can put together a proposal. That is amazing that meets the client need, and we can do it at a value proposition that makes sense for them because we understand what the, what the product or service means to them financially, what type of benefit it may have or what type of success it may lead to, whether that is the success of the project or whether that's meeting a revenue goal.

And we can show that, hey, not only can we provide this service to you or this product to you at a great value, you're going to get this for this. We're going to show them that for this investment, we're going to provide them this result. And it's going to make sense. It's going to make sense financially.

And it's going to make sense financially because you understood the value. You hear me right now. You cannot. You cannot make a high value proposal that is, that is likely for high success until you understand what your product or service value means to your customer. You can't. You're just shooting in the dark.

It's a guess. It's a guess. It's 50 50 at best, and I think those odds are almost too high. Okay. Until you can truly understand what value your product or service truly means to your customer, you cannot consistently win proposals. And I want you to understand I'm right here with you. These are lessons that I am learning, have learned the hard way.

Okay. I'm teaching you from my own failure. I'm teaching you from my own experience. But trust me, these are hard learned lessons, but if you can learn them right now, and if you can spend two to three times the amount of time right now you were doing on Discovery with your client before you send a proposal, mark my words.

You are either going to do one of two things. You're going to realize really quickly that you cannot meet this customer's need or that they do not make sense for your business. And you are not going to send a proposal, which frankly, I know sounds sucky, but trust me, this is much better than doing all of the legwork, doing a really great proposal, sending it out and having.

Either a quiet, nothing on the other side, or them calling back and saying, yeah, we don't want to move forward with this right now. And most of the time they don't give you an explanation. So if you, if you're in that spot, how did that help you? How did that help? You would have been better off to have just not sent the proposal, right?

Right, so you're either gonna not send the proposal, which I know can sound sucky, but trust me this is gonna save you time, money, and frankly, stress. Or, you're gonna truly understand your client's challenge. You're gonna know everything that they need and you are going to be able to create an outcome, create a proposal.

You're gonna be able to work backwards and create something that is incredibly effective. Effective drives a ton of value for your client. And you are going to be able to move forward with something that has a high likelihood of success. Okay. This is much, much better for you in the long run. And so I hope that that's kind of what you can take from this is that ultimately doing a little bit more work upfront with your client, truly understanding the value is going to give you a stronger proposal overall.

All deliverables must be to meet the objective that you and the client must define. Together, you and the client have to define success ahead of the proposal. Okay, the proposal cannot be the place where you define success. The defining success should happen before you complete the proposal, and the proposal should reiterate what is going to be successful for you and your client.

Okay, you have to base it on the steps required. Understand that the first meetings can lead to more questions than answer, but this is optimal because it opens dialogue for the client to think about what their needs really are and understand most of the time the client has not thought this far. They have not thought this far ahead.

They know they have a problem. They have not truly gotten to the bottom of what the problem is, or what would solve it. This is for you and the client to figure out together ahead of the proposal. It's for you to come in as an expert and say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to ask you the right questions here.

We're going to talk about things you may have not even thought about. Thought about, and I'm going to send you away with some time to think about this. And then we're going to get back together and have another discussion. Once you have, and this is going to put us both in a much better place in order to create success.

Okay. The goal is always a win win scenario and the clearer, the understanding of the shared deliverables, the more likely a win win can happen. And if you can make a win win happen, you are going to be signing. a proposal. You are going to be starting a project. And that is ultimately what we want to do.

Okay. In order to be truly effective, you must fully understand the value of your product or service and, and the value that it provides to your client. This is absolutely everything. It is everything. The most important lesson in this entire series is that if you do not or cannot understand the value of your product or service in your customer's eyes, what it truly means to them.

Whether it's dollars and cents, whether it's the completion of a project, whether it's fixing a huge problem they have in their organization. If you cannot truly identify what this is costing your client or what value it has to them, if it is, if it is resolved, if it is fixed, if the project is completed on time, or if you hit that revenue goal, it is almost impossible.

To create an effective proposal, you have to, you have to see the problem through your client's eyes. You have to see the benefit through the client's eyes. And this is going to take time because they will very likely not be fully forthcoming about what this means to them. Okay. Why? Because they're afraid you're going to screw them, frankly.

And a lot of people have made some bad choices. A lot of companies have taken advantage of people over time. And you know, that's life, right? Like that, that is unfortunately life. But understand that if you can understand that, and you know, one of the things you can talk to them is say, Hey, we want to create a win win scenario here.

And so in order for me to create a win win scenario, I have to understand the whole picture. You may have to explain to them why you're asking them for so much information. But if you explain to them that what you're looking to do here is create a value proposition that truly is in their best interest, that is going to give them the best value possible.

And you just need the information in order to get there. You are going to probably get the information you need. So being open with them and saying, Hey, look, we're trying to create a collaboration here. We're trying to create something that is a win win scenario for all. And I need to know the whole picture.

You need to find a way to get the whole picture because it truly is everything. And I get it. Like this is not always going to be possible for you. Okay. It's not. It's not. And if it was, business would be easy and we would win every proposal. Right? And we know that's just not the case. It's just not the case.

Okay. Clients are not always forthcoming, right? And you have to... You have to try to get as much information as possible. And one of the pieces of advice that I'm going to give you is that if you were dealing with a customer and you think that you don't have all the information, they're not being forthcoming, they're not working with you.

Maybe don't make a proposal on the one hand. Okay, on the one hand, remember that in this particular case, you don't have all the information you need to come up with a proposal, and it's okay. I want you to know this. It is okay to write a customer back and say, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, I unfortunately do not have enough information from you in order to create an effective proposal.

I would suggest one of the two things. You can either work with me or we can have another follow up meeting to try to get the information I'm missing, if that's okay with you. Or, if you do not want a proposal, it was an absolute pleasure to meet you and I look forward to the next opportunity. That is a great way to handle that situation.

The other side is, if you are just going to create a proposal, you think you have enough information to put together a value proposition that the customer may go with, please err on the side favour yourself. Favour your company, okay? What I'm suggesting to you is, is that if you do not have all the information, don't give them the best price ever.

Don't give them, don't just go bottom dollar and put yourself in a challenging spot because you're hoping to win this bid. You need to err on the side of caution. You need to protect yourself and your profits in the case that you do win because you do not have all the information and this could put you in a very, very tough spot, okay?

Understand there is risk. If you do not have all the information on a proposal, there is risk to you and your organization. It is hard to give a good proposal if you do not have all the information and it presents a danger to you and your company. And so if that is a place that you're in and you're going to move forward with the proposal, err on the side of caution.

Give yourself some wiggle room. Give yourself Some padding and some help in case things do not go to plan because you do not have all of the information. Okay. All right. If your proposal is not custom, remember this. If your proposal is not custom, it's not tailored to meet a client need. It is a price sheet or a rate guide.

Okay. If you want to be successful with proposals, they need to be tailored to the company you're working with. They need to be tailored. They need to meet the client need. And. They can't just be a rate sheet, okay? All right. And I wanted to chat about one other thing. Obviously, we talked about a lot here.

We're doing a lot of deep digging with our clients to create good proposals. And one of the outcomes that you may have happen is that in your digging, in your truly getting to the root of the challenge with your customer, in your truly getting to the value of your service to the customer, you may realize that you don't fit.

that either you're too expensive, your product or service will not meet their need properly. This is okay. This is okay. Okay. This is still much better than you sending a proposal, maybe winning. And then realizing that your product doesn't fit or when it's sending a proposal and it just going dark because it never meet it, it never met the need or never was going to meet the need.

Okay. I want you to understand that one of the outcomes of this could truly be that you don't send a proposal. And that is okay. There is nothing wrong with that. That is a win. Okay? I want you to take it as a win. Because the reality is, it is very time consuming and stressful to do a good proposal. You have to send out this information, you have to tailor it to a need.

And, if you're going to do all that work, And it was for nothing anyway, it's better to know way ahead. And so you may come to the conclusion in this discovery process that your product and service is not a good fit. And this is just a great time to say, Hey, it was an amazing time having this discovery with you.

This product or service is probably not going to fit. And if you can give a recommendation, that's probably the best thing for you to do at that point. And it's going to save you, your customer, a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of headache. Okay. So. The big thing, the biggest takeaway from today's, from today's lesson, the biggest takeaway from defining success and scope is you cannot create a successful proposal without understanding the client's end goal and then working backwards from it on the best way to accomplish that goal for them, okay?

And it's going to take time. They are probably not going to have the exact end goal. They, they, they may not have even thought about it. This is my experience. In most of my cases where I'm sitting down and doing discovery with clients, there's things they just haven't thought about. And it is your job to bring them to light.

It's your job to, to make them think about it and to give you the answers as to what success is. Once you know what success is. You can work backwards to see if your product and service is the best fit and how you are going to deliver that and what that looks like, that is what the best, the best thing for you to do in any of these proposals, the biggest takeaway is you have to, you have to understand the value of your product and service to the client.

And you have to define what success looks like with your client, and then work backwards from there on how you are going to achieve your goals. That is the end of the Proposal Playbook Part 2. Stick with us next week for Part 3, where we are going to go through step by step of what should be in a high level, successful proposal.

Shoutouts this week, Aaron Haberman, David Delvin, Colin Harms, Ashley McKarney, Jan Hnat, Lucas Schmidt, And stick with us next week for an interview with Dr.. Jack Schafer, the author of The Like Switch. It's an absolutely amazing episode. Until next time, we'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in service. sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020 his passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital business development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www. capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.