VPVI-49:Leveraging the Power of Vision for Marketing Success

Jennifer Payne, DOWL

Leveraging the Power of Vision for Marketing Success

In the last four years, DOWL has transformed its go/no go process to include business development,

proposal tracking, and selection statistics to better inform and drive the firms marketing dollars to

wins.

Session Type: Customer Success Story

Session Code: VPVI-49

CE Credit Type: NASBA

CE Credit Value: 1

Track Filter: Vantagepoint/Vision

Audience Job Function: Business Development, Management/Executive, Marketing

Audience Technical Level: Intermediate (3-6 years), Advanced (7+ years), All Levels

Relevant Products: Vantagepoint/Vision

Speaker: Jen Payne | DOWL,

LLC

Jennifer PayneChief Marketing Officer

Brian FarrellCorporate Services Specialist

About DOWL

Who are we?475 Employees

Where is DOWL?

23 Offices in 7 Western States

What We Do

Vision Superusers (Since 2008)

Accounting Project

Management

Marketing/CRM

Qualifications

Opportunities

BD Campaigns

Project Planning (micro-user)

DOWL Marketing

200-300

Q-Based Proposals

a Year16 Marketers

Sharing what we have done…One firm’s journey

Still

learning

Not a linear story Still have places to

go

Our Problem

Our Problem2015: Quality issues. Low hit rate. Lackluster performance.

Dissatisfied

Clients

Too Many

Write-offs

Working Harder,

Not Smarter

Our Solution

2016- 2021 Strategic PlanFocus on quality

Operational Excellence (OPEX)

Leveraging Vision for Success

STEP 1: Opportunities Database

Marketing DataCanary in the Coal Mine

Getting the Most Out of Data

Opportunities

Opportunities

Opportunities Database Marketers only

Track RFPs (Lead, Pursuit, Pending, or Win/Loss)

Client

Project number

Practice/Sub-practice area

PM

Marketer

Stage

Due date

Database Fields

Marketing reports

Hit rates

Revenue wins

Reports

STEP 2: Rigorous and Mandatory Go/No GoCapturing the information in Opportunities

Go/No GoWe All Have One

Operational Excellence (OPEX)

Go/No Go Procedure (Since 2017)Win Potential Yes No

Did we know the RFP was coming out and begin pursuit efforts?

Do we have a positive relationship with the client?

Do we have a good chance at winning (greater than 50%)?

Do you want to go for this project?

Can we differentiate ourselves from our competitors?

Do we have a competitive project champion/PM who is excited about the

project?

Do we have a team (including vetted subconsultants) and three recent,

relevant past projects that meet the minimum RFP/RFQ requirements?

Is the project work a current core competency or existing sector?

Is there adequate time to prepare proposal? (RFP was posted less than 72

hours prior to PM approval)?

2016 Go/No Go Hit Rates 47%

25%

13%

9s 8s 7s*All data out of Vision

STEP 3: Business DevelopmentMaking Vision work for us

Get Ahead of the Opportunity

BD Our ProblemGrowing firm with no unified system

No unified

BD

database

Not ahead

of RFPs

Marketing not

engaged

BD Our Solution

Vision BD Database.

Transformed “Marketing Campaigns” into “BD Campaigns”

Five marketers supported the (then) five Practice Areas with their BD meeting.

Made it the fire-of-the-day

Growing firm with no unified system

BD CampaignsGetting the Most Out of Data

BD Campaigns

BD Database Project Managers and Marketers Track BD efforts

1. Pre-RFP

2. Wish-List Clients

3. Out-of-Seat Marketing)

Mandatory Fields

Action Items

Scheduled Actions

BD Reports Generate action-oriented reports Sorted by:

1. Sub-practice area

2. Priority

3. Project Manager

STEP 4: Research and EducationLook at our data and share the results

Average Cost of PMs/Marketers

48

$71.70/hour

Cost of Proposal Effort by G/NG Score

Q-Based

Proposals

Number of

Hours

Cost of Proposal

Efforts

Total Proposals 28,602 $2,059,344

Unknown 5,004 $358,787

6 and below 1,430 $102,531

7s 1,386 $ 99,376

8s 7,091 $508,425

9s 13,691 $981,645 *All data out of Vision

Cost to Win $100K of Work by G/NG Score

Q-Based

Proposals

Cost to Win

$100,000

7s $1,988

8s $6,238

9s $4,641

50

*All data out of Vision

G/NG Hit Rates

47%50%

25%

30%

13%

30%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2017 2018

9s 8s 7s *All data out of Vision

A Deeper Look at Go/No Go

Most of the time 7/8 are going to lose

Sometimes it’s good to go for a 7/8

1. Transformational project

2. Senior leadership and senior marketer involved

3. Mitigating factors

What we learned

Go/No Go Procedure (Late 2018 Change)

Win Potential Yes No

Did we know the RFP was coming out and begin pursuit efforts?

Do we have a positive relationship with the client?

Do we have a good chance at winning (greater than 50%)

Do you want to go for this project?

Can we differentiate ourselves from our competitors?

Do we have a competitive project champion/PM who is excited about the Project?

Do we have a team (including vetted subconsultants) and three recent, relevant

past projects that meet the minimum RFP/RFQ requirements?

Is the project work a current Core competency or existing sector?

Is there adequate time to prepare proposal? (RFP was posted less than 72 hours

prior to PM approval)?

Win Potential: Total the number of Yes answers for 1.

9 = Go

7-8 = No Go unless approved

0-6 = No Go

YES Score:

__/9

Questions added to Vision (From Go/No Go)

Questions added to Vision (From Go/No Go)

The Success: Working Smarter Not HarderNumber of Qualifications-based Proposals

336

281

246

The Success: More Dollars in the DoorQ-based, Prime Project Proposals

$22

$42

$69

The Success: Hit Rate ImprovementThe Upward Climb

15% increase

Still…Our 9s were also less than 50%

50 48 46

0

20

40

60

80

100

January March May

*All data out of Vision

STEP 5: EvaluateWhy are our 9s dipping? What Go/No Go questions are losers?

Why Do We Lose 9s?

Why Do We Lose 9s?

Top Reasons We Lose 9sWhy we lose when we think we should win?

Competition

We can’t differentiate ourselves from our competition

Client Relationship

We misjudge our relationship with clients

Unintended Consequences

Because we changed go/no go, PMs were fudging the numbers

Loss Correlation (Go/No Go Questions)

Go/No Go Loss Questions

Did we know the RFP was coming out?

Do we have a good relationship with the client?

And when we lose it’s one of these…

2020 Goals

Improve Go/No Go process

Pipeline - Capture all revenue sources in

Opportunities

Final Thoughts

Use Vision to track and monitor success

Constantly evaluate/re-evaluate what you’re doing

Do change what you’re doing based on new data

It’s a Process