Dealing with procurement is a more daunting challenge than ever before. Here's a brief exercise to do to help you as you think about your general procurement/auction/RFP response strategy.

First, what is your average win rate when you are responding reactively to RFPs or auctions? There are certainly many different scenarios: you are simply column fodder filling out a grid; you are a legitimate competitor; you are the incumbent and are driving the opportunity... In many cases you are one of several respondents and hoping to get to the finalist stage. Some of you have this exact data in your CRM and those of you who don't can make an educated guess.

________%

Second, what is your win rate when you have the ability to make a traditional presentation to the decision maker? For those of you who use the IMPAX Process presentation flow of Them-Us-Fit-Action, what is your hit rate?

________%

No doubt the second number is much higher than the first one. The difference between the two is the opportunity to get off the grid and get in front of the decision maker. Now the question is, "what does it take to go from responding to an RFP to driving presentations to decision makers?" We've got to identify the real decision maker, do our research and ask for a presentation in a compelling way. If we do this, our hit rate will go up!