By endgame, most pieces have been won or lost and the opponents are striving to put themselves in the most advantageous position from which to bring the contest to a close. What remains can be an intricate cat-and-mouse game where individual moves will mean the difference between a win, a loss, or a draw. By endgame, the drama has largely been played out, especially if one player has a decided imbalance in material or position, though it is still possible to lose in endgame even when players have a strong position coming into it. The same is true in business development, where well-positioned bidders sometimes lose because of the poor quality of their proposals or presentations.
It is conceivable, but unlikely, for players who enter endgame in a disadvantageous position to pull off a miraculous victory. Miracles do occur, but as Damon Runyon once argued, the race may not always be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet. Most chess games are not won in endgame; they are won much earlier—in the positioning during opening game and in the strategic flow and tactical achievements of middle game. As national chess master James Eade argues, “Just as middlegame planning flows logically from the opening, the endgame logically develops from the middlegame. In many cases, you can even anticipate the endgame as early as in the opening, where one side plays for an advantage in pawn structure that the player can truly exploit only in the endgame.”⁶
In business development, endgame begins when the customer releases the RFP or similar bid request document. In opening game, you tried to condition the market; in middle game, you tried to condition the customer. In endgame, you are trying to condition the deal. The proposals are due on a specific date. Many of the key people in the customer’s organization may no longer be available to meet with you (so you can’t influence them further—at least not in person). There are formal procedures to follow, and the customer will evaluate the proposals and narrow the field to the suppliers he or she will seriously consider. The customer may then ask the short-listed suppliers to present their offers.
Business development endgame tactics are well known, which is why you should play endgame like a machine. Endgame (see Figure 4-5) is about flawless and consistent execution; however, in the real world, endgames are often very poorly played. In our experience, only a few companies execute their proposals and presentations with consistently high quality. Although the stakes are high, there is often a large gap between what companies know they should do and what they actually do. The companies that can close the gap are differentiating themselves behaviorally.
FIGURE 4-5. Endgame. In endgame, the key to victory is to avoid making mistakes. You should play opening game like a book, middle game like a magician, and endgame like a machine.
It should come as no surprise that the game is largely won before endgame begins. In fact, in our experience the three phases of the game contribute much differently to the outcome—in chess as in business development. Opening game is important because it can position a company favorably in its marketplace and create a favorable bias in customers’ minds. Our research shows that it contributes about 20 percent to the win. Roughly one-fifth of your energy in business development should be devoted to opening game strategies. Middle game is where the action is. What occurs there contributes to about 70 percent of a company’s probability of winning. Clearly, this is a provocative statement, and we will have much more to say about it through the rest of the book. Endgame contributes only about 10 percent to the win, but it’s an important 10 percent. By the time endgame arrives, most of the battle has been fought and won, but it is still possible to lose in endgame if you play poorly.
In 710 A.D., Omayyad caliph Walid I ibn Abdalmalik is said to have killed a chess player who deliberately played badly against him so the caliph would win. Sales managers today probably won’t have to kill any of their adversaries for being too unsportsmanlike and allowing them to win contracts too easily. The stakes are too high and the opportunities too few for anything other than all-out, hellbent-for-leather competition. Every year thousands of B2B companies compete for trillions of dollars in contract awards from other businesses or from local, state, or federal agencies. Except for such tangible and easily specifiable commodities as pencils, coffee mugs, and motor oil, most of these contracts are awarded based on competitive bids and proposals. Indeed, the proposal has become so ubiquitous in business life as to warrant a special place in the way most B2B companies organize and staff their business development operations. The large sophisticated aerospace and defense contractors have centers staffed by proposal managers, writers, editors, coordinators, graphic artists, and production specialists. Even smaller companies often have proposal specialists in departments that support the salespeople during endgame. Companies also spend millions of dollars annually to educate their salespeople on how to write proposals and millions more hiring consultants to help them craft their “must-win” bids. For endgame to be played like a machine, people must have the skill, the will, the resources, and the time to execute flawlessly.
What often makes the difference in winning or losing is the extent to which companies can behaviorally differentiate themselves during the crucial parts of the business development process—in opening game, middle game, and endgame. In this chapter, we introduced the chess metaphor as a way to think about the phases of business development. In the chapters that follow, we explore how to use behavioral differentiation in each of these phases.
1. If you are in a B2B company, what is your business development cycle? In your experience, does it have the kinds of phases we’ve described? If not, what is your business development cycle like? Map it out.
2. How effective is your company at opening game? How well positioned in the market are you? Do you do a good job of creating bias in your favor? If not, what more could you be doing?
3. In our experience, most competitions are won or lost before the RFP is released. This crucial period is called middle game, and it accounts for about 70 percent of a company’s win potential. How capable is your company at middle game? Specifically, do you always get started as soon as you learn of an opportunity? Do you actively and thoughtfully pursue opportunities as early as possible? By the time middle game ends, are you usually well positioned to win?
4. Endgame begins when the RFP is released. Most of endgame centers on your proposals and presentations. How capable is your company at these? Do you flawlessly execute your proposals and presentations? Do you typically gain points or lose them during this phase?
5. Think about the breadth of your business development activities—from planning and marketing through selling and opportunity management and finally to proposal management, presentations, and negotiations. Where are your strong and weak points? What can you do to overcome your weaknesses? Further, what can you do during each phase to behaviorally differentiate yourself from your competitors?
*For the sake of simplicity, we are focusing on B2B commerce and will not elaborate on B2G (business-to-government). We acknowledge that many businesses sell their products and services to local, state, federal, and foreign governments, which are among the largest customers in the world. However, the business development process we describe applies equally well to both B2B and B2G forms of commerce. Governments typically have much more formal purchasing requirements and regulations, but opening, middle, and endgame are characteristic of the business development process whether you sell to another business or to a government agency. You should try to use behavioral differentiation regardless of the type of customer you are serving.