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The bid presentation – do you need to shift your mindset?

As AI becomes more widely adopted in both bidding and procurement, the person-to-person presentation stage of the bid will be even more vital. 

This is where the evaluators get answers to really important questions:

Can I work with them?

Are they ready to get going?

Can I trust them?

Do they inspire me?

Do they know their stuff?

Are they a cohesive team?

In my experience as a coach and trainer, many organisations simply don't think in the right way about presentations. Here are four examples of where some go wrong:

1. Self-centredness - Putting ourselves at the centre of the story rather than the client

It's so easy to do. After all, they've asked us to present about our organisation, right? So, we describe our credentials, our solution our people and our methodologies. The client's needs, aspirations and challenges may get a little airtime, but this is a story where we are the hero. But it's the wrong way round. The client, and the value that they will get from us, must be the star of the show and the words 'you' and 'your' should be heard much more often than 'we', 'us' and 'our'. (Unless the 'we' is the client in partnership with us.)

2. Mistaken identity - seeing the slides as the most important part of the presentation

I still see this so often – and it doesn't help that the term for a PowerPoint deck is 'the presentation'.
I vividly remember as a proposal team lead being regularly asked to 'put together the deck' as a starting point for the sales team. It seemed as if they couldn't get started unless they had something to pull apart. And worse, they then spent hours, tinkering with words in point 9 font – words that nobody was likely to read (see 3 below).
Little attention was given to what was to be actually said on the day – it was a case of 'talking round the slides'. We've all seen people present this way and it's pretty dire and also utterly avoidable.We need to work out what's going to be said, and how we're going to say it,first, because the evaluators are much more interested in the experience in the room. Then we work out if a visual would help to explain the point. If so, we use one.If not, we speak without much in the way of visuals – we can create our own through facial expression and gestures.

3. Assault – bashing the audience's brains

This is a biggie. The conscious mind can only process a small amount of information at one time and – crucially – can't read and listen simultaneously. Movie and documentary makers get this. Internet content providers get this. Normal people get this when they're having everyday conversations. But when it comes to bid presentations (or any presentations, in fact) this knowledge often flies out of the out of the window. We besiege our audiences with masses of information at once and compel them to choose between reading, listening, flipping between the two or switching off. Spoiler: they frequently choose the final option.

Some of this comes down to convention but some of it relates to point 1 above – we're thinking about ourselves, not the audience. We haven't got time to rehearse what we're going to say, so we rely on our visuals as prompts, regardless of the terrible impact it's having on our audiences' brains. Or, we decide that the slides should do a poor double-act as a leave-behind to save us the effort of creating a separate pitch book or follow-up document that would wow the client.

And there's more. There are so many ways that we can command the audience's attention – through structure, visual and verbal storytelling, movement and repetition, to name but a few.But do we use these? Certainly not as much as we should.

4. Persuasiveness vacuum – a major fail

Why are we presenting?Because we want to influence the client's thinking and behaviour.But how much effort do we put into doing that?How many of us base our approaches on scientific evidence? For example, research suggests that the more complex a sale, the more likely the buyer will use emotion and unconscious processes in their decision-making. It also tells us how to tap into this effectively. And there are studies that show how use of simple charismatic techniques can significantly increase persuasiveness. There's also scientific evidence on how to optimise everything from timings to language.We need to put this knowledge into practice – it works.


How we can help...

We offer unique courses that will change your team's mindset about presentations and give them some powerful tactics to use and share. We've worked with teams in sectors from management consultancy and financial services to technology and construction and the feedback's always amazing – even from seasoned professsionals with many years of presenting experience.(We not infrequently hear the phrase 'quantum leap'.) These courses (which are very different from traditional presentation skills training) are great for salespeople, bid professionals and, indeed, anyone who simply wants to present with much more impact. Typically, we work directly with organisations, but I'd love to know if any of you would be interested in public courses where you can send one or two people. Very happy to chat about what SP can offer here.


To find out more about the key skills and tools necessary to develop powerful, compelling presentations contact our experts on 0800 009 6800 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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