That feeling when you win a client pitch

We recently secured a framework contract to provide creative services and training to a global automotive brand🕺💃🍾🎉.

Three things I learnt during the bidding process 

1. Make a plan and stick to it, while also staying flexible and pivot when required
2. Be patient and sleep on any response you send
3. Ask for advice from peers, colleagues and friends 

Planing

Spend time to draft a plan and run the numbers, triple check everything with the pitching team and be 100% you can deliver the proposed deliverables with your quotation. Because China is still a buyers market price is always an issue, so I found it a great practice after advice from a trusted professional to figure out my negotiation steps in advance, so I was making clear moves and responding not reacting. At each stage, we consulted the plan and the current status then decided on how to continue. 

Patience 

A counteroffer or request can arrive at any time and sometimes rocks your current boat of concentration which can be disruptive and gobbles up valuable attention, so I find it useful to have a process for writing responses.

My 16 step process for responding to emails - how I think clearly and avoid hiccups

1. I copy the email out of Mail into a new note in Evernote
2. Make the text big and read the email a few times to get a clear understanding of the request
3. I then draft my thoughts as bullets and half sentences 
4. I take a break and do something else 
5. I then draft my response 
6. Sleep on it or give it a few hours of headspace 
7. Write a second draft
8. I spell check my responses
9. Get a second opinion 
10. Do a final draft
11. Check back to the strategy
12. Format the email
13. Reread it 
14. Attach any supporting files
15. Final read through
16. Send

This is a granular break down of the steps I go through, I have intentionally built a slow process so my response is well structured and I am not reacting. The book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman helped finalise this process.

Asking for insights

As we entered the final stages of the bidding process, I reached out to some people in my network whom I felt had experience in a similar position and asked for any insights or experiences they could share. Via Wechat I asked questions, and they generously shared insights which were incredibly useful as a way to fill in more of the map for the final steps. When asking for help, I relish all the input and often find the most valuable insights come from the side comments and last things people say - these parting words often stay with me and become more relevant as the final moves unfold.

Outcome

Securing this framework contract is excellent for us as a creative agency as we can now make our plan for the coming 2 years and see how we can build from this experience and sign more framework contracts in the future.

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