We talk a lot about saying "no" to bad ideas, but the hardest part of strategy is saying "no" to great ideas.
One of the challenges we often face is being strict with ourselves and ‘killing our darlings’ – letting go of opportunities that we love and being intentionally strategic about the opportunities we go for.
e.g. Yesterday, we killed two opportunities we would have LOVED to go for.
One of them was a project helping government adopt new technology. It was a wicked problem that we had experience solving and we loved that it would create lasting positive impact. However, we didn’t have the resources during the timelines of this project.
Passing on a project because of timing isn't failure; it's operational discipline.
The other opportunity was one where we would support entrepreneurs and help them adopt new technology and scale – the type of work we always want to go for; the type that we are all personally motivated by. However, we knew that we were not going to be financially competitive because the programme we designed that we felt would be actually impactful would require the entirety of the customer’s budget. We could have proposed a simplified cost-cutting version where we just ran some generic workshops, but we did not want to. This was a strategic decision as we had decided before that our value proposition and the impact we wanted to create means having one-to-one hands-on tactical support for the entrepreneurs where we don’t just advise but do the doing with them.
Your business model must protect your core value proposition, even when it costs you short-term revenue.
As a team, we found ourselves fall into the trap of going after every shiny opportunity. While that was beneficial for us earlier on when we were testing our value proposition, now that we have our value proposition, we have learned that we need to be more strategic and focused.
We now have an established workflow where one of the team has to come up with a ‘bid strategy’ before we even touch the pen and get ready to write the bid. This is then discussed with the rest of the team to make a go/no-go decision. We have found this helped us to pause and reflect, become more strategic rather than reactive.
The key questions that we answer with the strategy are:
- What are the blockers?
This is where we save the most time. Too many times we’ve found a little too late that there are commercial, location, language, accreditation or other requirements that would just render us ineligible. There is a decision here depending on what the requirement is – do we still want to go for it and fulfill that requirement upon contract award (e.g. upgrading insurance cover), or do we ‘kill’ this? - What is the buyer actually looking for?
This is not just about the explicit ‘requirements’ listed. Do we understand WHY the buyer is doing this procurement? What outcomes and benefits are they looking for? - Why are we perfect for this opportunity?
This is NOT about “how we meet the requirements” – this is about why we are the best fit for both the customer and the scope of work, as well as how we would go above and beyond the explicit requirements - What’s in it for us?
This is the question that usually stops us in our tracks and forces us to be more intentional and strategic. This is where we ask ourselves – are we doing this for cashflow? For case studies? Because we love it? Because we’re experimenting with something new? - What are the gaps, considerations and constraints?
Are there any commercial or delivery constraints? E.g. timelines, budget, etc. Is there anything that worries you? (this could be a gut feeling from how the documents are worded or certain emphasis, etc.)
With this, we have ‘killed’ so many more opportunities. However, we have also invested more time and effort in the opportunities we have decided to pursue, which has led to better results.
Does this mean that we no longer go after long-shots? Not at all! It just means that when we do, we are going in with our eyes wide open and being intentional about it.
This framework has been so useful to us that we have built it into a tool – Zooid – an AI-supported workflow tool that helps us (and now other teams!) to find relevant opportunities, make more informed go/no-go decisions, craft winning bid strategies, and accelerate bid drafting.