Sophisticated players in the B2B and services marketing arena speak of drilling for the ‘Dominant Buying Motive (DBM)’ . . . a concept that could be valuably applied to process of understanding the specific motivations of the hiring party.

I very deliberately use the word “drilling”. A DBM is often not as clearly reflected in a client’s brief as might be expected. One of the most prevalent reasons for this, is that – whether a tender, a set of purchasing specifications, a recruitment or any other form of “procurement” brief – the requirements, in their truest sense, may not be as cut-and-dried as the written specs convey.

Why?

The written criteria are based on the best expression of logic, but the driving force behind them is far more emotive – and the client might not:

(a) be conscious of that underlying emotion / motivation,
(b) be able to articulate it, and/or
(c) not be willing to declare it openly.

However, none of these three factors erodes the strength of that unarticulated emotion that lies aback of the articulated logic and its influence in the decision.

Emotion-Driven Action, Logic-Based Justification

The other side of the exact same coin is that – as in marketing and sales psychology in general – a buyer may be primarily motivated by emotional factors but justify his or her buying decision (and his or her articulation of that justification) with logical factors.

How that plays out in the formulation of a recruitment brief, very specifically, is that the more tangible specifications are – whether consciously or subconconsciously – informed by emotive factors, but expressed and discussed in terms of quantitative, objective descriptors and measures. And as it is with the vendor in any high-stakes corporate sector procurement, so it is with the candidate investing the time and intellectual effort in drilling out the real underlying DBM in a talent hire. That is, those parties avail themselves of crystal-clear insight into the hot buttons and the key trigger points of the decisionmakers.

As inarguably important as ‘organisational culture’ is, an agreed definition and a ‘gold standard’ measurement practice is up for greater debate.

Clarity on the definition applied to “culture”, however, is critical to any meaningful claims made about a manager’s or executive’s degree of competence in fostering a healthy one.

Also to be considered, is that there are two different perspectives to bring to the “culture” discussion: Internal and external. While a healthy culture within the walls and operations of the organisation (“internal”) creates a better chance of a positive collective customer experience (“external”) and a correspondingly positive influence on general marketplace performance, both sides of the equation call for clear definition and demonstration.

Too Performance-Pivotal to be Dealt With Lightly

It’s an aspect of organisational and executive / managerial performance too pivotal to be dismissed in non-specific, non-substantiated, platitudinal terms.

So where does the discussion and the data fit in an executive’s or senior manager’s Curricula Vitae?

What is it that needs conveyed about the culture of the CV owner’s current company / employer?

What are the forms of measurement or substantiation of any claims made regarding that applicant’s role in the state of the culture in the company or department that individual currently leads?

Again, it starts with clarity:

• What degree of priority will the target (i.e. board, management, HR parties) place on determining the applicant’s competence and/or contribution to the creation of the organisational culture (whatever that may be) at the applicant’s current company / workplace?
• How deep into the complexity of the topic would the target’s hiring decisionmakers likely want to delve? Would they wish to see it covered in subjective terms like “structured vs flexible”, “internally vs externally driven” and “process vs focused”? Or by objective measurements e.g. employee engagement and company climate surveys, customer surveys and broader marketplace performance audits, business element scorecards and other forms of formal “pulse checks”?
• If the more subjective descriptors and discussion is opted for, how will claims be substantiated? If the objective, quantitative approach is opted for, how far – within the confines of a CV – does one go in demonstrating that these results have materially influenced the various aspects of company and marketplace performance?

Know the Target & Know Thyself

Knowing the target, and “knowing thyself” in relation to that, are equally important imperatives.

Both the CV owner and his or her CV writer must be as researched as possible about the relevant mindset, perspectives and priorities of the hiring parties and any other influential readers of the Curricula Vitae. With those insights to hand, the CV can be closely tailored to align the strengths of the executive or managerial candidate with the specific desires and expectations held by even the most intellectually sophisticated and discerning parties on the hiring side of the equation.

In general marketing copy, a seasoned copywriter will tell you that the correct and strategically responsible approach to the “short copy vs long copy” debate is:

The correct length for any marketing piece (without a specified word count or when limited by format) is “as long as it needs to be”.

It should not be longer: It should make its point impactfully and using only the word count that is required to do so. (The exception to this rule is the Direct Marketing copywriter, who uses repetition and re-phrasing as part of the well-recognised DM formula.)

It should not be shorter: Any communications piece that has, as its primary imperative, the requirement of compelling the reader to a course of action (including the selection of a CV owner as the best candidate for a position) should never stop short of ensuring that objective, purely to conform to some arbitrary minimum length expectation. The piece must include all the information essential to achieve its intended purpose.

If a page or word count has been stipulated, the information must be prioritised and compacted to nonetheless achieve the strategic inclusion of all the required key data / points. This is the responsibility of a skilled writer. (That said, any imposed word count that makes this task literally impossible is, at best, unrealistic, and at worst, irresponsible, on the part of whomever is making the unworkable stipulation.)

In the case of an executive’s bio or resume, more often than not, the challenge is indeed to convey an abundance of relevant and “tasty” information within a length-limited or semi-length-limited format. The key is prioritisation and planning. And, in turn, the key to effective prioritisation and planning is the well-researched, intricate understanding of the targeted position and the selection committee or other readership.

With prioritisation informed decisions can, for example, be made as to whether to use valuable word count allowance to include a greater listing of experiences versus substantiating and providing case examples to support other, higher-priority inclusions. This highlights the fact that a savvy CV production is not one that should be left to your “common garden” writer.

An executive resume – or indeed, any CV – is a high-stakes piece. Every inclusion and every word employed to articulate every inclusion should be strategically selected – both for impact and for achievement of the ultimate objective.

There are two prevailing schools of thought when it comes to the tone and content of a managerial resume.

A Tale of Two Content Types & Styles

The first school has it that this career-critical document should be as succinct, as direct, and as to the point as possible. Don’t try to “sell yourself”; leave out the subjective content, the members of this branch of thinking say. Just provide the facts and objective information and let these speak for themselves. “Trying too hard” raises a red flag, the purveyors of this school of thought claim. And as for C-Suite and other executive CVs, they’re adamant that publicity, industry reputation and general word-of-mouth are more impactful than subjective claims made in any form of “bio”.

The second, more “gung ho” school of thought sees a CV as a sales proposal, and the owner of the CV as the product. A good sales proposal, these proponents say (extending the logic of effective advertising principles) evokes emotion and desire, making the subject of said “ad” a “must-have” proposition.

A Superior, 1 + 1 = 12 Equation

While these two perspectives might seem directly opposed, a truly savvy CV won’t actually treat them as exclusive at all.

While any resume that is customised for a specific target position or other objective is indeed a form of personal sales document, an effective, strategic sales proposal lays out the features of the product of service it is endeavoring to sell and explains the benefits of those features.

It is in taking this process one critical step further in the pursuit of the ultimate customisation of a position-specific resume, that there is the opportunity to combine both schools of thought . . . to produce a 1 + 1 = 12 equation. Let’s refer to this combination as the third, or “elevated” school of thought.

To explain in the briefest possible manner:

The facts, stats and hard core, black-and-white data (the qualifications, skills, experience and track record i.e. the “features”) represent the “objective” content of a biographical production of this nature. This is the content on which the recruiters, senior management or board can rely for the components of the decision they wish to base primarily on rational thinking and general logic.

Enter the second school of thought i.e. the promotion of the “benefits” these “features” have brought to the subject’s previous employers and enterprises. (This content may fall into either the objective or the subjective category. The “objective” being that which provides substantiation of any claims made, and the “subjective” being that copy that tends towards the promotional and emotive in tone.)

The Next-Level Managerial or Executive CV

The third – i.e. the elevated – school of thought provides the opportunity to create a genuinely optimized, compelling, next-level biographical piece. This is the domain of the writer who investigates, analyses and fully comprehends the needs, opportunities and driving forces of the hiring enterprise, along with the various facets of its environment and its culture – and then cleverly aligns the features of the subject’s CV with the benefits they represent within that very specific framework.

Thus, it’s not a question of “objective versus subjective” content but rather the strategic use of the objective to create a target-specific, compelling subjective. In fact, if that is achieved, even the subjective is, arguably, only subjective to the extent that the content of the CV has not already effectively demonstrated what can be expected of the CV owner in the environment he or she is being hired into.

As a strategist, it is my opinion, my observation, and my experience, that the ability to think logically underpins any successful strategy.

So in this segment, I’d like to challenge the logic of a practice that has become the norm for corporates, in the production of big-ticket bids.

That is:  The “WAR ROOM”.

What. A. Nonsense. What an absolute nonsense. What an illogical, counterproductive nonsense to create an environment that fosters maximum interruptions and distractions, for the execution of a task that requires maximum concentration and focus: The task to which I am referring is, of course, writing. And not just any old writing either. Strategic writing, no less.

Writing is a task for the INDIVIDUAL. Yes, liaison with the authors of other submission sections is required, BUT this represents the minority percentage of the time that should be dedicated to authoring activities – and the necessary interaction is something that could be easily conducted by phone or by popping into someone else’s office, or by meeting them in a meeting room, for the specific amount of time necessary.

The majority of the response-authoring time is still spent in the actual writing function. Or, at least, it should be.

The root of the issue lies in the fact that a clear-cut, comprehensive, documented-in-detail bid strategy hasn’t been produced prior to setting the writing team loose on the task.

If a detailed strategy document – preferably supplemented with a Writer’s Guide for each major section of the response – were to hand, for each section author, there would be very little need for discussion from that point onwards. And that is because the theme, content and direction for specific answers, would be laid out in front of the relevant authors, in – quite literally – black and white.

Writing Is A Task for the Individual

While the development of strategy is a group activity (and frequently, the more inputs the better), the task of writing submission sections is one distinctly for the individual.

Writing in general, if you’re going to do it well, requires focus and concentration. So how much more focus and concentration does strategic, bid-winning writing, therefore justify?

It’s NOT a group task. It’s one best done in silence and solitude; not one done in the crossflow of conversations (a percentage of which aren’t even related to the bid), mobile phone calls, and other constant, interruptive goings-on.

Take any big-name author you can name – whatever the genre . . . fiction, nonfiction, business, academic . . . whatever. Can you imagine any one of these writing greats tapping away at the kitchen table with spouses, kids or friends etc carrying on conversations all around them?

Of course not. And if the writing greats perform their craft alone and in peace, why would anyone else – most especially, for example, a subject matter expert who probably doesn’t write as a day job – think a silent, focused environment is optional for them?

You may well argue that your bid teams pull it off.

My question to you is:

How much would the quality of your writing be improved, how fewer rounds of editing would your submission need to go through, and how much would your productivity rate be increased, if the writing function was treated as one worthy of the utmost seriousness, focus and concentration?

I can answer that for you:

The answer is the job would get done in about half the time.

However, the quality of the written output would still depend on the existence and quality of a written bid strategy document. Which is another topic . . . because rarely does such a thing exist. Or not what I would call a credible bid strategy blueprint, anyway.

But if one did exist, along with a Writer’s Guide for each section author, and if that section author was given a quiet, undisturbed environment, the greatly increased quality of output would match the greatly increased performance in productivity.

Your bid strategy is only ever going to be as good as the information you feed into your bid strategy formulation process.

So it goes without saying that you want to make sure the information and insights gathered in by your Business Development operatives – as your frontline, primary research gatherers – are as accurate and as “real” as possible.

On which note . . . . in the same manner as clients will often be cagey or omit key information in tender debriefs, they’ll often be not quite as upfront in pre-probity meetings as you’d like to think or hope.

So it’s incumbent upon your “BDs”, to make sure they make a savvy judgement about the accuracy of the inputs they’re getting from the prospect’s personnel.

Here are some critical cues that your fellow meeting participant isn’t being completely on the level with you.

• Evasiveness (a la classic politician-style behaviour):

Typical signs are long responses to a question, but no actual direct answer.

For example, the procuring organisation might not be certain that they’re really going to actually award a contract at the end of the tender process. Maybe they haven’t got their funding secured yet – but don’t want to disclose that, because that would certainly discourage any bidders that don’t wish to waste time or budget bidding for a project or contract that might be an illusion.

A prospect being questioned in this scenario might, for example, go into all manner of sideline issues.

• Exclusionary qualifiers:

For example, “fundamentally”, “not really”.

These all amount to a desire to give an indirect answer or an indirect denial.

They beg for a follow-up question. And you should ensure you ask one – gently, but savvily nonetheless. You’re going to be investing major resources if you decide to go for this bid, and you want to be doing it on a foundation of true and accurate information.

• Dressing up the lie:

“Tell you the truth.” “Frankly.” “Honestly.” “To be honest with you.”

You know them. By the way, sometimes these can be simply habitual for someone . . . maybe you do this yourself. Be careful with it. The question may well be asked, Aren’t you always telling the truth? Aren’t you always being honest? So why bother with making a special point of it with the particular statement you’re about to make this time?

• Offering too much information (especially if some of the information is irrelevant) in answer to a specific question:

This can (depending upon the context) be indicative of a desire to smoke over the facts. It can also be a ploy to manage your perception and convince you of a greater degree of honesty than is actually the case.

This tactic is closely related to the evasiveness tactic.

• Attempting to be over-convincing:

This is the opposite of evasiveness. It’s basically an attempt to ensure believability.

The skill with this tactic is to work out whether your prospect is over-compensating, or just passionate about the issue you’ve raised . . . which makes it particularly important to have your antenna up throughout the conversation leading up to that point.

THEY’RE ALL DIVERSIONARY

In a sense, all of these are diversionary tactics . . . and any combination of them can be employed.

A particularly key point of awareness for a BD in a situation in which they suspect their fellow meeting participants aren’t being straightforward, is to take the prospects’ language literally. For example, “wouldn’t” does NOT equate to “won’t” or “haven’t” or “didn’t”. What these are, are protesting statements without an actual denial.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of listening through the filter of your own emotions or your own logic, or your own ethical standards, and to try to make sense of what you’re being told, from that perspective. And that’s a very easy way to allow yourself to be misled.

Two Massive Red Flags

Two massive red flags that you’re inadvertently threatening to uncover information the prospect doesn’t want uncovered, are:

• An aggressive or overly defensive response (i.e. attacking the questioner . . . not a good sign), and
• Turning the question back on the asker, in a particularly animated way.

Of course, any of these could be habits in their own right. BUT . . . too many in quick succession, form what is known as a “cluster” . . . a combination of tell-tale signs that definitely spell cause for concern.

Also in the outright dishonesty category is a verbal / non-verbal disconnect. A simplistic example: A prospect nods his head while giving a “No” answer verbally. That’s a cue that the brain is so confused with trying to disguise or protect their ingenuine position, that it can’t keep up.

Closely related to that – in the arena of body language – is a new, sudden physical movement at the point where the body connects with the floor or the seat e.g. bouncing the foot or shifting in the chair. Investigators say this is a big one.

Similarly, sudden grooming gestures, such as fixing a tie, or running the hand across the hair, glancing at a watch, moving the hands to the face. This is a typical, unconscious response when someone flicks into the“fight or flight” mode of the autonomic nervous system.

The Eyes Are Indeed the Windows of the Soul

Still on body language, remember the adage, “the eyes are the windows of the soul”.

Looking up to the right, means they’re visually picturing or constructing something that’s never actually happened. But looking up to the left, means they’re remembering something. However, that applies only if they’re right-handed. In the case of a left-handed prospect, the opposite will apply . . . so be careful with that one, especially since you may have no idea whether your prospect is a right or a left-hander.

And still on eyes, shifty eyes usually indicate dishonesty. Here’s the big clue with a shifty-eyed meeting participant:  Does he or she look straight back at you after completing a statement? If so, he or she is typically trying to see whether you buy what’s just been said.

Of course, on the phone, you lose the nonverbal cues. But you can, for example, still hear a chair moving or paper shuffling, or a keyboard being tapped, when a question leaves the other party feeling awkward and fiddling unconsciously while trying to think up an unnatural answer.

Aside from being aware of these cues per se, and the likelihood that they’re being employed more often than you’d like to think, your most critical communication strategy is not to allow your mind to fast-forward to your next intended question or statement. As soon as you fall into that trap, you stop yourself picking up all the cues being projected in the answering of your current question.

A WORD OF CAUTION

Mastering this is the field of the expert. It’s easy to learn these general principles and then make the mistake of applying them universally, in an overly simplistic manner.

There’s a wad of variables to take into account:

• Is something entirely normal behaviour for the individual you’re conversing with (versus does their communication modus operandi suddenly change . . .
  especially in mid-conversation)?

If you know someone and you’ve got a baseline understanding of them, you know how that individual typically communicates and conducts themselves . . . “THEN” any variance on this is a reasonably reliable flag.

• Is someone demonstrating “closed” body language (arms crossed, for example) purely because they’re cold? Make an indirect observation that helps you confirm or deny that.

• Is someone jiggling their foot simply because they actually are a jiggler? If it appears to be a response to a statement or a question that made them uncomfortable, move on to a more comfortable topic . . . and then move back towards the less comfortable one. Does the jiggling stop and then resume?

When someone is stressed, the body emanates that stress . . . generally. Compulsive, pathological liars can, of course, be a totally different kettle of fish. They take a whole elevated level of smarts to deal with. Let’s hope we don’t encounter too many of those in the organisations of our prospective clients.

BUT if you DO ever encounter someone you suspect falls into that category, here are three key cues  to look for:

• Indirect answers.

Yes, it’s a typical ploy that some people use to get out of a tight spot. But compulsive liars turn the indirect answer into an art form.

• Repeated vagueness in statements.

People who lie will typically avoid being detailed; they know there is too much to have to remember in a future conversation.

Attention Incumbents: Strategies for Mining Out Valuable Client Feedback

Bid submissions are often peppered with kitschy self-descriptions of the bidder as a “business partner” to the client or customer organisation.

How to make that concept more than lip service once the bid is won (and thus keep the business when the contract is up for renewal and a new market call is on the horizon)?

The key is to build in client feedback mechanisms and instill both your business development and your service delivery teams with an “always seeking client feedback” mindset.

Here are some tips:

• Show genuine, selfless concern – all the time, for no reason other than that you care.Don’t make sales calls. Make service calls. Use these to determine what extra value you can be delivering as part of your current contract and cost base – and make sure you take the opportunity to extract as much feedback about your organisation’s / product’s current performance as possible.

Show them how much you care . . . without giving them an invoice for it or expecting a sale out of it every time.

• Every six or so months, conduct a formal and multi-level feedback exercise.Seek permission to extend your feedback efforts to all stakeholder groups, and work collaboratively with the client on a strategy and instrument for extracting the feedback.

Be clear with all parties as to the reason you want these insights, and precisely what you are going to do with them – and (equally precisely) how (in genuine terms) you intend to use this information for the benefit of the client or customer organisation.

• Make sure that any survey instrument you might use is not formulated in the manner of the almost-always self-centric conventional questionnaire.These are usually highly transparent in being an exercise in the interests first and foremost of the supplier/service provider, rather than in the interests of the client / customer and its stakeholder groups.

Keep in mind the fundamental objective: To identify exactly what each group needs and wants, and to determine how well you are delivering on those expectations/needs/desires.

Then drill down into the minutiae of the various components of the topic.

Keep a constant check that you’re not letting the questions come across as loaded or self-serving.

• Design any questionnaires in such a way that the responses are actionable. This will likely involve following any qualitative/open questions with quantitative/closed questions for confirmation of the intent of the respondent when answering a subjective question.While (for the sake of minimising the respondent’s time commitment and thus maximising participation), you will want to have a heavier weighting of quantitative/closed questions than qualitative/open questions, ensure you nonetheless have sufficient options in any multiple choice type approach, to allow for a reasonable range of answers.

It may or may not be appropriate to incentivise participation, although in formal customer survey programs (especially in the B2C environment), this is often considered almost essential for a reasonable degree of participation.Over to you. I’ll refrain from making recommendations on this potentially controversial element of the process when applied to the B2B environment.

However, if you DO take this approach, make sure you (a) set a deadline for responses to receive rewards, and (b) offer a prize to every respondent who submits a response within that timeframe, with the best level of prizes going to the first responses in.

10 Reasons the A Team for B Team Bait-and-Switch is A Flawed Strategy

There are reasons beyond the obvious that you really don’t want to be one of those tenderers that engages in the flawed strategy of surreptitiously swapping out delivery team members for those of a lesser calibre, post-bid.

But let’s start with the “above the surface” reasons:

1. Depending upon how far down the food chain you’ve reached for your substitute team members, you’re taking a performance-based risk on multiple fronts – from those in hard core commercial areas right through to safety issues.
2. You’re demonstrating either an inability to plan and forward-schedule work and projects, or an inherent untrustworthiness. Or both. Going forward, that untrustworthiness and/or incompetence will see your general credibility compromised in the eyes of the client.

Now let’s look at the more insidious, “below the surface” ramifications of swapping out ‘A Team’ members with ‘B Team’ members.

1. Actually, if we are honest here and with specific reference to the civil infrastructure sector, it’s not unheard of that it’s worse than a ‘B Team’ for ‘A Team’ swap-out. Some contractors have been known to roll out the F Troop. There’s no way that strategy, or any part thereof, can ever be excused by the client or project owner, to whom it will now be clear that you should never have submitted a bid in the first place.
2. That eroded trust factor will cast suspicion over your honesty in, for example, variations. So – whether you’ve been honest or not – if you’ve gone as far as presenting the C Team, the D Squad or F Troop – you’ll be on the back foot, in terms of the client’s attitude towards you – in any negotiations that need to be had during the project or contract.
3. If this project or service delivery doesn’t go swimmingly well, a default conclusion by the project owner or client will be that the lesser calibre of team members likely contributed significantly to a compromised or non-optimum outturn.
4. In the mind of the client, if you’ve pulled this stunt once, you’ll likely do it again. That doesn’t augur well for your chances in future contracts for which you may want to bid.
5. Used in accordance with a savvy strategy, testimonials are powerful inclusions in submissions. Thus, every testimonial you are able to collect from a completed delivery, or even a delivery in progress, is of immense value. What sort of a testimonial are you going to get from a client with a sour taste in his or her mouth over a disingenuous move like substituting key personnel?
6. Sin begets sin. Once moral standards are compromised in one area of a project, the bar gets lowered in others. Often, it becomes a systemic problem for the business as a whole.
7. The “uneven wheel” syndrome: Bringing in personnel of a lower calibre / qualification / experience level than the remaining original members of the team, stands to cause disgruntlement in those members, and potentially, to destabilise the dynamics within the delivery team as a whole.
8. If an individual is elevated “above their pay grade” and into a project that they’re not truly up to, when that individual leaves your employ and your project is included on the CV his new employer submits for future bids, a savvy tender evaluator – who’s been around for a while – is going to look at the calibre of individual you put on projects you win.

Don’t underestimate that last point

The individual who found himself or herself “over-recognised” by inclusion on a project that he or she shouldn’t have been, is going to herald that entry on their CV prominently. And you were, of course, their employer at the time.