The woes of a video pitch
As the ongoing saga of social distancing and local lockdowns continues to impact almost every part of our lives, many of us are now finding ourselves in a very strange and surreal world, one which just 9 months ago we couldn’t have dreamed of. Like it or not most...
Marketing, webinars and the gorilla experiment
One of our biggest limitations as a species is that once we focus in on something we often become blind to other things going on around us. This was beautifully proven more than two decades ago by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons with their ‘invisible gorilla’...
Ready for when the dam bursts?
For Bid Managers and Bid Teams, lockdown has been a blessed relief from the 100mph, 10 bids on the go, deadlines every day that we’re used to. Time to rest and prepare for the ‘new normal’. But, what if that ‘new normal’ is worse than the old normal? A huge number of...
Businesses are failing their customers and their account managers
The last few months have been somewhat testing for us all, but as we begin to see the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel our collective thoughts are turning to how we re-build from here. I would contend that right now there is nothing more important in...
Isolation, Evaluation and Innovation
Last week I jumped in on a conversation on LinkedIn about whether it was appropriate for people and companies to be sending out ‘business as usual’ messages while the coronavirus unfolds around us. The general consensus seemed to be something along the lines of ‘stop...
Falling at the final hurdle
Last week, after two transatlantic flights in three days and in slightly jet-lagged fashion, I dashed off a hasty LinkedIn update / rant on the general lack of business writing training in the sales profession. Here’s a direct quote: “Given that almost all high-value...
The Innovation Window – how to inject creativity and impact into bids and proposals
Responding to bids and tenders can sometimes feel like being in the eye of the storm. Kick-off meetings, conference calls, clarification questions and frantic, last-minute content assembly all combine to pile on the pressure while the submission deadline draws ever...
Welcome to the Presentation Campus
It’s been a ridiculously busy year here at Sales Engine and our best yet. We’ve brought some big new customer names on board while deepening our engagement with our existing ones, launched both our new website and our new contract management software ContractIQ,...
The Case For Human Interaction
Data is ubiquitous, inescapable. It's the new oil. Its value and importance dominates discussion on business forums and entire economies have been built on it. Open LinkedIn, Twitter or virtually any website nowadays and the likelihood is that you'll be confronted...
Lunch, Sleep and a Functioning Sense of Proportion is for Wimps, Apparently
Anyone who’s involved in the world of bids and tenders knows it can be a highly pressurised environment. The stakes can be huge, particularly around ‘must-win’ opportunities and with a looming, and sometimes frankly unreasonable, deadline imposed by the customer there...