Art of the artefact

Bid management professionals quite rightly focus their proposal development efforts on architecting the optimal solution to a buyer’s approach to market. But even in enterprise environments, decision makers are surprisingly vulnerable to presentation. And we overlook this at our peril.

Invest in substance. But don’t neglect style.

In the same way that we form snap, often subliminal judgments of people from first impressions, so our receptiveness to proposals is influenced by the packaging.

A lesson from Seattle

Tech giant Amazon famously outlawed the use of PowerPoint in board level decision-making in favour of the good old fashioned written memo. Why? Because executives were being swayed by slick visuals and engaging storylines rather than attending to the underlying data and analysis.

Which is instructive. If you want to inform a rigorous decision, write a long, logically structured memo. (Several times, actually.) If you want to persuade an audience, craft a presentation.

The medium is the message

So observed communications theorist Marshal McLuhan, his point being that the nature of media (social, broadcast, or otherwise) has a greater social impact that the content it carries.

Scaling this down to a bid context, our choices of materials, formats, and styles communicate meaningful information about our organisation and our offering.

Expensive finishes suggest a premium product. Colour connotes creativity. Landscape feels right-brained and portrait says buttoned down.

And that’s before we start exploring the full gamut of multimedia experience design possibilities and the unlimited potential for ‘bid theatre’.

Tender package for an early childhood education bid

Don’t just roll it in glitter

Of course, no amount of polishing can retrieve a major contract bid that is fundamentally unsound. Where the solution is poor, the credentials weak, or the pricing out of range.

But many an otherwise solid proposal has been eclipsed by a rival bid with superior presentation. Which is a shame, because wrapping bid content in design language that complements and strengthens the overall proposition is not hard.

So next time you’re wrangling technical bid input from finance, legal or engineering, remember that psychology counts too. People sign contracts. And in some instances, our artefact-ions speak louder than words.