Andrew Houston has provided an impressive 30-point checklist primarily directed to residential contractors, to increase their marketing and sales success — and therefore, profitability. He makes this important point: “A 20 per cent increase in your quote-to-win ratio will double your profits.” In other words, getting it right and strategically focusing on the right potential clients will dramatically reduce your marketing/business development costs and improve your overall bottom line.
While Houston’s material has been designed for contractors serving homeowners and the like, the basic principles apply to architects, engineers and contractors seeking ICI work, both in the public and private sector.
In these circumstances you would of course need to modify the checklist points, but the concept of a checklist — to make sure you’ve covered the basics and have thought through and reviewed key elements in your “go/no-go” rulebook (and you should certainly have a process for this) and that you’ve completed the other necessary prerequisites for submitting a RFP and, if you are invited to a final stage interview (which you should, almost always, under these guidelines), you do well there.
Houston didn’t put this checklist behind a paywall, so I’m linking to it here. If you are a a residential contractor and think some of the points don’t apply to you, be careful — the success of this sort of idea is in its completeness. If you are in the ICI space and need to modify it, consider its scale and depth and decide if you can introduce a similar discipline level to your marketing and business development initiatives.
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