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Amid all the cool things in marketing today we often forget how influential a good or bad RFP response can be. I recently had to review 30+ RFPs for a client, and I was asked by another client to teach their sales people to write better RFP executive summaries. Here’s what I learned:

10 most common mistakes

1. About us vs. the prospect: Too often executive summaries are summaries of the selling company’s capabilities. Big mistake number one. Effective executive summaries are about the prospect– not you. How you’re going to solve their problem. Advice on how to burn down their obstacles. How much money they are going to save. New ways for them to be innovative in their industries.

2. Proposal summary vs. a business case: Despite is name an executive summary is not a summary of the proposal, but a succinct demonstration of the understanding of the prospect’s needs and the bottom line outcomes you can deliver against those needs.

3. Opening with blah blah platitudes vs. guts and convictions: Executives read just the first two paragraphs, yet the first two paragraphs of most executive summaries are filled with space-wasting platitudes like: “Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with our proposal in response to your RFP to support XYZ Company’s business needs. We are prepared to put this experience to work for XYZ Corporation with a dedicated support team. ” Blah. Blah Blah. While the RFP writers, usually procurement of purchasing managers, may read the entire document, decision makers generally only pay attention to the first two paragraphs. This means that the critical information should be in those paragraphs, and platitudes should be omitted.
4. Verbal runoff and information overload: One of the most common mistakes is including too much information that is irrelevant to the prospect and/or too much pat, bland information that every vendor cites. A good executive summary should focus only on that information that is relevant to this particular prospect.

5. What’s at stake? Many RFPs go nowhere, losing out to inertia or other business priorities. One of the purposes of the executive summary is to convey what’s at stake, and why acting will provide business value beyond simply reduced costs.

6. General to industry vs. personal to prospect: General remarks and capabilities information are boring to reader and make you sound bland. Answer right off, “What’s in it for the prospect company?” and avoid generalities. The prospect only cares about the specific value you’re bringing to his or her organization - not general trends, not about the exhaustive list of your company’s capabilities.

7. Educating vs. selling: The executive summary is not an education document or a relationship development tool; it is a sales closer. “Here’s the problem. Here’s the business value only we can provide.”

8. Bland writing inadvertently conveys lack of real interest: Researchers have proven that decision makers make more judgments about a company based on how it communicates than many of the actual messages. I’ve put several companies’ RFP summaries through the LIWC software analysis and found that the company comes across as detached from the recommendations (not passionate about the ideas) and not as completely honest as the company actually is.

To be viewed as a trusted, innovative, potential partner passionate about helping the prospect succeed, adopt a tone and style that is direct; focused on the most relevant information to the prospect; uses more active verbs, shorter sentences fewer adjectives, more bullets, more descriptive subheads, and a more liberal use of the first person - I, we, us.

9. Too many pages: We all fall into the trap of thinking that a summary needs to be at least two to three pages to really convey our value. Limiting an executive summary to one-page — two at the max — forces you to convey the meat of the matter in a succinct way. When Jack Welch was CEO of GE he required his direct reports to submit one-page management updates every month. That’s right, just one page. Being succinct makes you think and boil it down to what matters.

10. Where can I find more? Use hyperlinks in the executive summary, linking content and recommendations to descriptions in the detailed RFP document. Too often we make it hard for people to jump to what interests them. If people are interested in one of your ideas, make it easy for them to read more about that interest.

One of the biggest mistakes in selling is not making easy for a customer to make a decision.

That’s some of the advice from Mahan Khalsa, vp of the Franklin Covey Sales Performance Group, in an interview in this month’s Sales & Marketing Management.

I found two points especially interesting.

1. The sales reps job is no longer getting information — or simply developing relationships; it’s about providing intelligence and insight to the prospect. (I’d add that most of marketing should be focused on this today.)

2. Most sales presentations don’t make it easy for the client to buy. We forget to address: what does the client need to believe, intellectually and emotionally, to comfortably and confidently make the decision?

Khalsa’s advice:

• Start with the end in mind. Within the first few slides the client should know what decision you want them to make.
• Identify the 3 -5 beliefs that the decision makers need to check off to make the decision, then organize what you say to address those beliefs.
• Gain a decision on each belief after address it vs. waiting until the end for Q&A. When the beliefs supporting the decision have been successfully addressed, the final decision is much easier.

When I called Andersen Windows today to make an appointment to get an estimate for replacement windows the sales representative asked me if my husband would be home for the appointment. “I don’t know. But one of us will juggle our work schedules to be home at that time.”

“So your husband will be there?” she asked, pushing it. “We’ll give you a $100 discount if your husband is there with you.”

What?! I’m so offended by Andersen’s approach. Am I the weak little Missus with no buying and decision power? (On the other hand, it might be that we women ask the good questions and bargain tough — and Andersen’s market research has found that the guys are pushovers.)

Nonetheless, the sales angle has backfired. I’ve shared this story with several people today, and now with you. Word of mouth at work.

I went through crazy hoops buying my first house as a young single woman 26 years ago. ( A network television affiliate even came out to do a spot because I was such a novelty.) House decision sexism was bad then. Today it’s unforgivable — especially as part of the sales process of a well known brand like Andersen.

One way to quickly grab attention and set your organization apart is to use openers that challenge assumptions or offer contrarian points of view. Openers that smack people in the face and make them think, “gee this company is kind of interesting; let’s pay attention to this one.”

Here are some examples we’ve been helping clients use to distinguish their RFP executive summaries, open sales meetings and make executive presentations more interesting.

• “We don’t believe in quality control.” (If you create the right operational process you build in quality, drive out costs.)

• “All the products in this category are commodities.” (The value comes from new types of service around the products.)

• “Customer service should be eliminated or cut way back.” (Companies should invest more in creating a great customer experience, eliminating problems that jam customer service organizations.)

• “Customers don’t want a relationship with companies. “ (They just want your product or service to consistently deliver as promised.)

• “Successfully building this new airport isn’t about engineering. It’s about relationships.” (Changing the context of an RFP so the decision making committee looked at an underdog engineering firm in a new way. The firm won the bid.)

• “The most creative marketers are scientists.” (The right data helps you target, trigger and activate.)

Want your sales reps to be out talking with prospects more? Give them something interesting to talk about. I’m finding that sales organizations are embracing conversational marketing — talking about ideas, advice, points of view — faster than marketing, PR or advertising. Why? They’re on the front lines every day and see the value of having fresh ideas that get a prospect saying, “That’s interesting. Tell me more.”

Check out this conversation with Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology for more on the topic.