I got a call about 6 weeks ago from a close friend of mine who used to be a top adviser when I was CEO at ACCESS.  Federico was a great compliment to what I did, and so we worked closely on managing large clients.  After the purchase he moved on to a billion dollar company in Manhattan that is doing an impressive job of building a legal technologies specialty.  He called about an RFP that he was trying to win…

And so we put our heads together on what WILL BE a winning solution.  I obviously can’t tell you what Federico and I put together.  But I can put you in touch with the sensei who helped me put some structure to my wild thoughts about the RFP process.

Meet Tom Searcy….

Tom was the co-author of the wildly successful book, Whale Hunting, and a week ago I got his latest masterpiece, RFP’s Suck.  It’s the best I’ve read yet on this subject of handling RFP’s.  Frankly, it’s just about the best book ever on how to land HUGE deals like a sales ninja-sniper (that’s a new life form I just created).

And I don’t do book reviews on The DEW View, so I will just let you know that if you have at least $29 in your wallet, you need to hop on Amazon.com and grab a copy.  You’ll see what I am talking about.  You literally won’t be able to sleep for a week with the tools that Tom lays out for you to CRUSH down big deals.

And “NO” before you get cynical with me, Tom is not paying me to get all “teary eyed” about his book.  I am passionate about all things “No BS That Help Me Land Big Deals” (that’s the only category in my current play book).  You should be too if you want to see your business grow in a big way in a short time.

(DISCLAIMER:  I will admit that after I saw what Tom was up to, I hired the same gurus at Channel V Media who published his book to help me with my book coming out sometime.   I will tell you more about that process as I start putting together more plans.)

But back to Tom’s book…. Here are some highlights that I will share with you to get you salivating.  Feel free to add your own “Best of Searcy” highlights in the comments below:

page 6 - most RFPs have little to do with the opportunity offered in the official document….. (learn how to “read between the BS lines)

page 15 - all RFPs are flawed, written by people way too busy to be writing them… (if you answer just what is “written” you are missing out on what is most important)

page 31 – an RFP open meeting can be a trap… (discover hidden secrets with a teamed approach to intelligence gathering)

page 44 - buyers don’t share everything they are looking for in a new vendor… (find out how buyers chose who lands the deal)

page 60 – implementing “fear fighters” to win over reluctant buyers… (build a matrix of possibilities that give you the advantage over any “angle” that threatens your success)

page 70 – saying what you mean in language the buyers understands… (transform industry buzzwords into key words that your buyer really understands)

page 81 – be the “bad boy” of RFPs and disrupt the process… (tactics for “real time” changing the rules of the RFP process)

page 100 – building an Executive Summary for executives to read “executively”… (differentiating your opening shots with valuable information that close the deal from the start)

page 112 - the DOs and DON’Ts of the entire RFP process… (#13 — Do remember that your RFP is an argument, not a writing assignment!)

page 120 – Eight “real live” RFPs examples presented and reviewed by Tom and his team… (“read-it-to-believe-it” type stuff)

At just under 150 pages, you will literally read this book in a short 45 minute lunch break.

The point isn’t really Tom and how he K.O.s the RFP process.  The point is YOU!  Giving you the tools to be wildly successful regardless of your current size…

Think about this with me for a minute.  Allow yourself to “dream big” for a minute……  What could you do (personally, professionally, emotionally….) if you landed a deal 200 times bigger than your average deal?  What would you attempt to conquer next?  How would you “give back” to your industry, your community, and your family?

You can dream big and live even bigger by taking the time to learn how to master HUGE deals that involve RFPs.  I wish I would have had this book a few years ago…

What do you think?

Which prospects are you running into?

I have been back into road running recently and since there are no sidewalks to use like I had in Virginia, I run on the edge of the road toward on-coming traffic.  It creates an interesting dynamic when encountering cars.

There are several ways that cars address a runner:

Some cars drive as close as they can to me.  It’s there lane and they drive with “the right” to be there…  Some cars completely move out of the lane to let me know that I am safe to keep running…  AND…  Some cars slow down or almost stop not sure whether to speed by or what I am doing…

There isn’t really another option.  Which is really kind of how it is in the sales world:

Some prospects drive you as hard as they can in the hopes that they will get a better deal…  Some prospects really want nothing to do with you in the hopes that you might go away…  AND…  Some prospects slow down the procurement process so that they can feel in control…

This is about your current prospects for a minute.  Can you think of another type missing?  This pretty much covers any prospect you will ever meet.

The fact is: if you know who you are running into, you can be better prepared to stay alive.  You don’t want to play chicken with a prospect who is determined to run you off the road…

———–

UPDATE:  If you have not already signed up for the BrightTALK webinar tomorrow (Wednesday) that I am hosting, you don’t want to miss out…

I had a great conversation on Wednesday with Tom Searcy, CEO of Hunting Big Sales and we were talking about Sales Matters (which is on “delayed launch”) and how I kept turning down writing a book even though it keeps coming back up.

Tom really got “up in my business” when I used the excuse that writing a book was too “establishment”.  After telling me to get my head out of my ass he reminded me that people need to connect at their own speed and comfort-level — that my speed of sharing might actually be hurting me…

Very true!

In being extreme, I totally forgot why I do what I do.  Which is to motivate the top sales executives all over the world with no-nonsense talk about high-performance…

To connect you have to allow your audience to see your world through their eyes — and that always takes more time than if we were doing this ourselves (which makes senses).

It’s a great lesson to keep top of mind when you are connecting with a potential client.

Ask yourself:

1. Does _______ understand why I am here?
2. What does _______ think my intentions to be?
3. Will _______ be better after purchasing from me?  (….why?)

Create your own filter for getting to the bottom of these questions.  Use your own style, BUT clearly understand that if you are not connecting with your prospects, you will NOT get the results that you are looking for.

It just doesn’t work out that way.

————

By the way: Tom is coming out with another book in the next 90 days that you don’t want to miss — especially if you have to land RFPs to generate revenue.  In the meantime, take a look here at some of Tom’s FREE e-books.

John F. Kennedy said that: “Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought”.

And my experience in making “big deals” mirrors that statement exactly…

Myths are a part of every culture going back to the earliest of times when pictures of wild beasts were carved into the sides of caves (great imagery, right?).  The neuro-anthropological side of me would say that myths are a leadership mechanism for “controlling the masses”, but that’s a silly discussion for a rainy day with lots of coffee.  The truth is that myths are created and shared by all of us every day as a means of understanding what is going on around us.

Think about some popular myths with me:

• The concept that good eventually always wins out over bad…
• The idea that success happens if you just keep working hard…
• The belief that people really need your idea which will change their world…
• The strategy that great products are so amazing that people just have to buy them…
• The logic that the larger the business plan, the better it is…

There are quite a few other myths out there as well that executives face head-to-head on a daily basis.  They are semi-believable but totally wrong.  And here is the interesting thing behind myths:

People get pissed when you try to debunk their perception of reality.  (DEWism)

Seriously.  Cynicism, skepticism, and a million other emotional-cisms kick in and people get upset.  ”How dare” you try to tell someone that what they have believed in for  years is actually quite wrong.  This probably applies to you.  If you do anything that is at all “different” and “controversial”, you have to expect that you will spend the majority of your time CONVINCING rather than IMPLEMENTING.  That’s right – getting people to believe is a complete “Dream Drain“.  To pull it off and still be sane, you need to have the right motivation.

You need to be prepared right now to fight for your cause — not the honor and credibility of “being right”.

Here is an interesting observation in Reality Check from Scott Berkun who wrote The Myths of Innovation about the toughest challenge that people with new ideas face:

One of the most crushing challenges for an innovator was the reality of how bored the rest of the world was by their ideas.  Finding support, whether emotional, financial, or intellectual, for a big new idea is very hard and depends on skills that have nothing to do with intellectual prowess or creative ability.  That’s a killer for many would-be geniuses: They have to spend way more time persuading and convincing others than they spend inventing, and they don’t have the skills or emotional endurance for it.

To survive (for your passion to keep burning), your attitude needs to be “thank me later” rather than “tell me I’m right, right now”.

Focus on the bigger vision is  the best approach to tackling this opposition to forward progress.

• You may have to come to grips with the understanding that you may NEVER be recognized as being the “leader” or “creator” of an idea or movement while you are alive….
• You may need to step-down personally as the “leader” and find the right “spokesman” for your vision so that you get your story told in the best possible way to the right audience…
• You may think that everything you are doing to make the world a better place has not come back in a way to provide you the recognition or social standing of which your idea is worthy…

That’s OK! People can “Thank You Later…”

As long as your ego is manageable  — at least enough to allow you to sacrifice immediate gratification for the good of the cause or the idea that you are passionate about — you have the greatest odds of surviving the war on MYTHS…  It’s really the best chance you have.