When it comes to engaging experts for primary research, there are different formats you can choose...
As a consultant, you frequently have to prepare proposals to win projects. And because you operate in such a competitive space, it’s vital that you set yourself apart. To achieve this, you need to effectively communicate your capabilities on how you can help your client complete their project, positioning yourself as the best partner.
An impactful way many of our customers distinguish themselves during proposal meetings is by gaining expert insight to supplement their proposal. And that’s what we’ll explore in this blog post – how engaging experts can help you win more projects.
Gauge project feasibility
When creating a proposal, one of the first things you need to consider is how you’re going to tackle the project in the most feasible and effective way and communicate this to your client. Engaging experts for on-the-ground know-how is a powerful way to do this.
For example, a healthcare marketing company was creating a business pitch to win the bid for a marketing and advertising project on prostate cancer. To help them gain a deeper understanding of the field and treatment, they asked us to connect them with oncologists and urologists experienced in treating prostate cancer patients. With this specialist knowledge in hand, the agency was able to design a pitch detailing how their marketing strategy, supported with expert insight, could help their client complete the project effectively.
Get your foot in the door early
Early positioning is crucial to winning bids and gaining an advantage over your competitors. You might think that the process of engaging experts will slow you down but if you work with the right vendor, that doesn’t have to be the case.
Take this healthcare communications agency, for example. While preparing their proposal, they needed to engage with neurologists who treat Alzheimer’s disease and asked us to connect them with the best minds in the field. Within a day, our AI search technology found the specialists the agency needed, and our platform triggered the connection between them and the experts. The agency was able to prepare its proposal supplemented with expert insight swiftly.
Gain deep industry insight
As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and where better to get that knowledge than from those who specialize in the field you need information on?
There are many reasons why engaging experts for their specialist insight can help bolster your proposal. For instance, experts can give you unique insight into a topic so you can go into any proposal meeting with better knowledge. Equipped with this expert knowledge, you can demonstrate to your clients the quality and type of insights you can obtain for them and/or the kind of experts your clients can gain insights from and give them confidence that you’re the right people for the job.
For instance, a consultancy developing a proposal asked us to connect them with US-based hematologists and oncologists accomplished in treating blood cancers. The experts also needed to hold director positions at clinics dealing with cancer-related diseases. Once our AI tech found the experts and connected them with the consultancy, they were able to bolster their proposal with deep industry knowledge obtained from the specialists.
Give your proposal that edge
When you have several consultancies vying for the same project, it’s crucial that you find a way to stand out. An effective way of doing this is by connecting with experts who can give you a unique or alternative perspective that your client may not have considered.
One way of ensuring this is by engaging with a diverse range of experts. However, this is difficult if you’re using a vendor that relies on a limited or fixed database of experts. Most vendors rely on experts registering to their database. The downfall of this method is that many self-proclaimed experts aren’t the best in their fields and the same experts end up in rotation, limiting the diversity of thoughts, experience, and ideas.
One of the benefits of our AI search technology is that it’s constantly scouring the internet to find the best experts, globally, by focusing on a range of criteria including experience, communication ability, influence, and commercial insight. Fine-tuned to the customer’s weighted criteria, we mathematically model each of these attributes to decipher who’s best suited to advise on a project. This ensures our customers are always connected to the right experts at the right time, always.
Prepare yourself for the next phase
When you do win the project, you can go back to the same experts (and new ones) for deeper insight. This cuts out time-wasting and encourages relationship-building with the experts.
For example, a healthcare company asked us to connect them with pricing, market access, and reimbursement experts who are familiar with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market to discuss launch plans for high-cost innovative drugs. We found them the experts and they were able to get the insight they needed. A few weeks later, the customer came back to us asking to engage with the same market access specialists to gain further insight into the launch of the drugs and their approval in MENA.
Because of this continuity, the customer was able to work effectively and efficiently and give their client what they needed for the project.
So, there you have it, a list of how engaging experts can help you win more proposals. Although it’s not comprehensive, it gives you an idea of the powerful ways connecting with experts can help. Including, helping you stand out from your competitors, giving you industry-specific knowledge, gauging a project’s feasibility, helping you get your foot in the door early, and getting you set up for the project after winning the bid.
