Sometimes, as part of a tender process, you may be asked to pitch or present your bid and offer to the buyers and their evaluation panel. Incorporating presentation stages within a procurement process is more common in the creative industries such as advertising agencies or similar.
If you are required to pitch your offer during a presentation or demonstration, how can you best prepare yourself?
Ensure your pitch is:
- Clear – the win themes and value your business is offering to the client are communicated in a way that audience readily understands.
- Compelling – genuinely stimulates interest in the audience/panel. What techniques can you use to do this? What aspects of their requirement or your solution will really strike a cord? Avoid distractions, stick to what has been asked of you.
- Customer focussed – at the heart of your bid and also your presentation, should be the understanding of the customers needs and how your business will meet those needs. Make it about them! Show them you understand what is important to them, both in this procurement and also as an organisation.
- Concise – keep the slides, content and discussions direct and relevant.
- Crafted with a purpose – use the customer’s objectives and your relevant win themes to clearly deliver the purpose behind your offer or solution.
- Has a clear start and end point – a great way to start is to introduce your team, noting why they are attending and what they bring to the pitch. The end point should offer the panel/audience the opportunity to discuss any areas of the offer in more detail, perhaps by incorporating a Q&A session (if that hasn’t already been done).
Make sure to check out the scoring and weighting for the pitch and prepare accordingly – going that extra mile to have a polished presentation and supporting information if required.
On the day when presenting our top tips are:
- Maintain eye contact while presenting and smile.
- Use gestures and facial expressions. Don’t be monotone!
- Be prepared: Practice makes perfect.
- Be confident – practice will help with this, knowing your pitch inside out will ensure you come across as confident and engage with the buyer. It’s absolutely fine to have notes and refer to what is on screen but the more you know the content by heart the better.
- Enjoy it! Again, practice will help with this, but a positive enjoyable pitch will be felt across the room, improving the overall perception of your organisation and offer.
Stick to the script:
If the buyer has set out a structure for the presentation, which often they will, stick to what has been asked of you. This isn’t the time to ‘sell’ your business and services, it’s an opportunity to be responsive and show how your organisation will meet their needs and be a great partner. Ensure you use whatever time you have been given to give detailed concise answers to their questions and you can always leave them with additional marketing information such as a brochure about your business.