All businesses looking to win new work are confronted with the dreaded PQQ. If you have failed in the past, never succeeded in progressing through to the next round then new opportunities can be looked upon negatively. How many times have you overheard or thought to yourself 'not another PQQ' and 'What's the point, we never win anyway'. If this is currently the attitude and experience of your business you need to read further for tips that aim to transform your success rate.

Attitude

PQQ are real opportunities for your business and are the lifeline to continued success. Therefore, when you receive your next PQQ change you attitude and think positive thoughts such as 'Another opportunity' or 'this will be the next win'. It's amazing what a refreshing difference it makes.

Plan

When you first receive them, do you look at the deadline, put them down and remember them the night before submission. This is a common issue that is not caused by a lack of interest in the opportunity but more a lack of time. This means that planning is vital in submitting successful bids. The actions you should follow are to read the PQQ and then plan your schedule to ensure you maximise you time which allows you to complete your bids over a period of time and not at the last minute.

Prepare

When reviewing a PQQ you need to start to prepare asking yourself; how you are going to complete your responses to the questions? What documentation is required? These should always be aligned with the requirements of the client responsible for the PQQ, because if you fail to address this you will fail at this first hurdle. During preparation you need to ensure that all documents for you proposal are available, if not can you get copies of them in the time frame. Consider this as the bed rock for your proposal.

Present

How many times have you heard Presentation, Presentation, Presentation is the key? This like all other elements is vital in achieving success. This may be the first time the client as seen your written work. You may have a great face to face relationship but can they promote your organisation internally or pursued internal colleagues that you are a great business when the response to a PQQ is presented poorly. Imagine yourself promoting a friend as being great to work with and he turns up for an office job in jeans. Even though he can do the job and is a great person the interviewers might not be so impressed and further more your reputation is damaged. Presentation is another one of the key elements to success, so take the time to achieve this. Before you submit ask yourself the questions 'Does this meet your own high standards?'

Pursue

When you have been unsuccessful did you ask the client for any feedback? When we are rejected people take this personally and not professionally. Tell me those negative thoughts don't reappear such as 'I knew so and so didn't like me', 'I'm tired of losing these' and 'All that effort for nothing'. Look upon these as opportunities for your organisation to improve, so dare to pursue feedback from the client and get the vital feedback for your business to learn from.

Never forget that producing a winning PQQ is a profession in itself and should always be approached in this manner. In summary, figure 1 demonstrates the 3600 approached described, each element has equal importance and needs to be treated as such.

Crucially PQQ's should form part of your overall business development strands and are one potential revenue stream, which your business needs to embrace with open arms.