The Winning Bid, 2nd Edition

08

The case for case studies

THIS CHAPTER COVERS:

•  Choosing the right case studies

•  How to present case studies in your bid

•  What if? (Making the best of what you’ve got)

•  References

Arguably, your past experience and successes are among your strongest sales tools, yet time after time they are underused in bids and proposals, or left out altogether. Often, a suite of generic case studies is attached as appendices to a bid or, apart from a long list of past and current clients, no reference is made to experience at all.

If you take this approach, you are expecting buyers to trust you without giving them any evidence on which to base that trust. Don’t forget, buyers are doing as much as they can to avoid risk. If you don’t help them ...