A new year means a new opportunity to take a look at what you did wrong and what you did right in previous year. As you think about your capture management efforts for last year, jot down some resolutions that might help to improve your success rate in the coming year. Creating a repeatable and scalable capture management process often starts by resolving to install better habits.
Take the time to prioritize the following seven resolutions to push your prospects through the pipeline to an award.
1. Schedule Customer Meetings, Regularly
The more often you meet with a government agency, the better you understand what goes on behind the scenes. Meeting the customer allows you to stay on top of any issues that affect existing contracts and to develop the networking relationships that are critical to winning new bids.
2. Review and Re-Work Your Process
Look at your existing capture plan through the filter of all of the knowledge you gained last year. This can give you a new perspective and purpose, and may help you update opportunities as you move into the new year. The more you know, the more carefully you can shape future deals to meet customer needs.
3. Make Time for Friends and Foes
Diligently meet up with both your teammates and competitors to get a better understanding of your customers. Your competitors can offer unique insights into how they perceive the customer. Regular meetings will enable your teammates to stay up-to-date on continuing capture activities. Communication is a big part of any successful capture management process.
4. Control the Shape of the Deal
When you let a customer shape the deal, you simply respond to an RFP and much of the resulting proposal lingers on procurement functions, not business value. If you work with agencies to create a comprehensive service plan that identifies the value added for the customer and delivers a comprehensive solution, you are competing to control the shape.
5. Always Look for New Opportunities
When you don’t have a continuous stream of new opportunities in your pipeline, you might not reach capture goals. You also might miss out on opportunities that are a good fit for your company. By keeping your research current, you ensure your company has every opportunity to gain more government business.
6. Keep Your CaptureExec Pipeline Software Current
Your CaptureExec pipeline software helps you track and assess different opportunities. With it, you create repeatable processes that lead to better capture management. But the software only works to your benefit when you enter new information. Failure to update and maintain your database means your reports and entries won’t help you.
7. Loop in Company Leaders
Some companies give capture management teams a remarkable amount of autonomy. But even if management doesn’t demand constant updates, you should always loop them in. After all, management decides where to allocate spending to meet strategic goals. The more they know about every deal, the more informed their decision-making process will be about which capture prospects to pursue.
Final Thought
If you can commit to these seven resolutions, you can help streamline your capture management. Follow industry best practices and ensure that your process is the best it can be. Prioritize networking, always audit your capture strategy and process, invest time in data, and communicate clearly to nurture prospects from the tracking stage through to an award.
