You probably recall a time when you failed to act quickly enough to take advantage of an opportunity. We tend to realize missed opportunities after the fact.
Evaluating and responding to new opportunities is a key growth driver. Your team may be so consumed with the tasks at hand that they don’t recognize the potential of a new opportunity when it appears.
1. Recognize the opportunity. Not every opportunity is worthy of extra focus, so develop a process to “perceive” valuable opportunities by defining what constitutes substantial value for your business.
Typical opportunity recognition triggers include:
- Key/Core customer inquiries regarding new products or services;
- Inquiries from prospects in targeted markets; and
- Requests for proposals that exceed a certain quantity or dollar target.
2. Evaluate the opportunity. Once identified as a worthwhile opportunity, assign its evaluation to a focused, cross-functional response team rather than the normal proposal development group. Chaired by a senior sales or business development executive, this team seeks to discover the customer goals/needs that are driving the opportunity and to identify unique competencies upon which to build a proposed solution that produces a financial and a competitive advantage for the customer.
If the prospect refuses to engage in a more comprehensive pre-proposal discovery dialogue, then you should reconsider if the opportunity is still worthy of your special attention.
3. Respond with appropriate urgency. Balancing the urgency of response with the necessity of learning and addressing customer goals can be challenging but it is essential. You get just one chance to establish your position as potential partner rather than peddler, strengthening your competitive differentiation. Responding to a substantial opportunity by quoting without connecting your proposed solution to the achievement of customer goals diminishes the likelihood of preserving the value this opportunity offers.
Format your proposal to describe your understanding of the prospect’s current situation and goals, and then specify how your solution produces strategic value, the combined financial and competitive benefits, that will help achieve those goals.
Having a process in place to recognize, evaluate and promptly respond to significant opportunities will ensure that you don’t miss a chance to discover a new customer or develop a novel concept that can grow your business.
How does your organization recognize substantial opportunities?
What process do you use to ensure that your response is value-based as well as urgent?
