Have you friends frequently and warmly connected with you…until they didn’t? Becoming former friends, ignoring and abandoning you, becoming silent and indifferent?
Sales prospecting can be similar. Someone eagerly wants your product or service immediately. But they delay in getting back to you, plead that other critically important issues have arisen, then go silent entirely, their former desire evaporated.
Evaporated. Imagen 4.
I’m sure some hard-boiled salespeople believe EVERY prospect can convert, but it ain’t so. And my earlier advice applies to business prospects as well as to personal relationships:
“If my former friends’ focus is elsewhere, my focus won’t impede on theirs.”
In theory, the decision on whether or not to submit a bid for a business opportunity is a well-established process: the bid/no bid process…that is, if you assume that no bidding something is desirable.
As you would expect, Shipley Associates (I may have mentioned Shipley before) offers a detailed description of a bid decision.
“Bid decisions are decisions gate reviews triggered by ongoing customer or opportunity intelligence. The opportunity manager (or capture manager) along with management determines whether to advance, defer, or end the pursuit. The decision hinges on whether you have the capability or can obtain the resources to pursue and subsequently capture an opportunity that meets your business objectives.”
But why make one decision when you can make three?
“Consider splitting the bid decision into at least three distinct milestones: pursuit, bid, and bid validation. A positive pursuit decision initiates preparation of the capture/opportunity plan. A positive bid decision initiates preparation of the proposal plan. A positive bid validation decision initiates the final proposal kickoff meeting and the full proposal preparation process.”
In all seriousness, I agree with this.
The first part of the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle.
Any stage gate process, such as the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle, includes decision criteria at each gate. If you determine early on that you would never win the opportunity, why waste resources on it?
And, in a true Shipley fashion the first two decisions, and possibly even the third, occur BEFORE the actual Request for Proposal is released.
But for some people, this is just plain wrong.
The “Bid Everything” method
For some people, the Shipley, SMA, Sant, and other practitioners are restrictive. Why work on an opportunity years before the RFP is released?
For these people, it makes more sense to concentrate your resources and evaluate the final RFP.
Not that much evaluation is needed, since every RFP falls into one of two categories.
We are the incumbent provider. If this is the case, then we HAVE to bid so that we don’t lose ground.
We are not the incumbent provider. If this is the case, then we HAVE to bid so that we gain ground.
It’s all pretty simple. And for those who claim that chasing lost causes lowers our probability of win, well, they’re just giving up too early.
Hey, our customer just released an RFP for a new system. I had no idea that they were going to release an RFP this year. Well, we’ve been the incumbent for years, and the people using our software seem to like us. I think. I don’t know the person who actually released the RFP, but my cousin’s brother-in-law knows him. As long as we come in with the lowest price, we’re certain to win this!
And it’s even better when your bid decision has full executive support…as in “I support the fact that you had better win this. And I will show up two hours before the submission time to help you by rewriting everything and changing the price.”
Luckily they’re not ALL like that…
Are you stretched?
But if you are stretched and need proposal help, book a free meeting with Bredemarket at https://bredemarket.com/mark/.
In a private Facebook share, Rahsheen Porter quoted from Cal Newport:
“We know these platforms are bad for us, so why are they still so widely used? They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.
“But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths.”
The algorithms only show you what they think will cause you to maximally engage. Even in the days of FriendFeed, I never saw content from the extremely active Turkish and Italian communities. Why should I? I saw what FriendFeed wanted me to see.
But I’m thankful that Facebook shows me Rahsheen’s content.
And I am also thankful for those who understood the “Go See Cal” post title.
And finally, I am thankful to the residents and former residents of south Arlington, Virginia who detected the inside joke in the picture above. (Hint: the hoodie was originally gray.)
There are groups and communities for every interest, including AI art.
Through Danie Wylie, who I originally met when she revealed her misgivings about HiveLLM, I eventually joined a private Discord server (Promptly Collective Hub) devoted to AI art. Regardless of the reasons that the members create (in my case, primarily to augment Bredemarket’s self-promotional messaging), the common thread is enjoyment in using the tools, and learning how to use them better.
My next mission, should I choose to accept it, is to read the “Realism” guide and work through the workbook I downloaded from the server. While the use of the term “realism” with AI art may sound jarring, the purpose is to have the viewer suspend disbelief (like the Velveteen Rabbit) and treat the image(s) as something that really happened.
Just like the movies: I hate to break it to you, but Frankenstein’s monster was a guy in a suit wearing makeup.
Anyway, the server itself is private, but if you go to the public “Promptly Ai Collective” page on Facebook at the https://www.facebook.com/dysfunctionalfairytale URL you can learn how to join it.
If the subject of identity proofing is remote, how do you supervise it? Here’s what NIST says:
“The camera(s) a CSP [Credential Service Provider] employs to monitor the actions taken by a remote applicant during the identity proofing session should be positioned in such a way that the upper body, hands, and face of the applicant are visible at all times. Additionally, the components of the remote identity proofing station (including such things as keyboard, fingerprint capture device, signature pad, and scanner, as applicable) should be arranged such that all interactions with these devices is within the field of view. This may require more than one camera to view both the applicant and the room itself.”
On Wednesday, in the process of explaining how B2B product marketers must address multiple “hungry people” (target audiences), I described the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But buffets are not confined to Las Vegas.
I have not visited Spartanburg, South Carolina in decades. When my family was making regular drives from Virginia to Alabama, it was years before I learned how to spell “AFIS.” Yet I know that it has at least one good buffet serving multiple types of hungry people.
Not hungry for food.
Hungry for biometric software.
And no, I’m not talking about DataWorks Plus. They’re in Greenville.
But if you head east to Spartanburg, you’ll arrive at the headquarters of Integrated Biometrics, the company that just launched the IB360° software for partners and integrators.
But if you look at the IB360 web page, you’ll see that the various partners and integrators have different needs for software solutions. For example, here’s Integrated Biometrics’ messaging for hardware integrators:
“If you build with devices like fingerprint scanners or facial recognition cameras, IB360° helps you showcase your hardware’s full potential. Integrate quickly with modular licensing, create recurring revenue, and reduce reliance on external suppliers. Address multiple use cases with automated syncing and tight integration with Integrated Biometrics’ sensors.”
But software integerators and systems integrators have different needs than hardware integrators. You can view these on the web page.
Or you can download the appropriate brochure for your needs from the “Documents & Downloads” section at the bottom of the page.
Bredemarket 