Buyer Empathy as a Competitive Advantage

In my career as a seller and deliverer of technology and professional services, I’ve found that few things competitively separate services firms more than empathy – especially when it comes to competing for new business. Unlike with a commodity product, a successful technology solution, or services, sale most often requires the seller to convince the buyer that the seller deeply understands the environment and the underlying business problem. Furthermore, sellers must convince the buyer of their ability to work together in order to solve said problem.

It’s true that a proven and structured approach, a record of relevant past performance, competitive pricing, and highly experienced personnel are the key differentiators in an evaluation; however, it’s rarely the case that a seller stands alone in their ability to provide all four. When sellers check all the same requirements boxes, and absent a significant delta in price, buyers must move on to other criteria. Chief among these criteria is “Does this vendor understand me, my problem, our challenges, and our organizational culture?”

While it’s standard practice to highlight competitive advantages in a response, a seller can’t just say “I understand you, your challenges, your culture” without backing it up. Successful proposals not only address the key requirements, but they also convince the client that the seller clearly understands the buyer’s exact situation and constraints. This is where empathy comes in. But how does one convey empathy in a proposal? First, let’s get clear on what we mean by empathy. Empathy is defined as:

“The ability to take on another’s perspective, to understand, feel, and respond to their experience.”

In the context of a technology or complex services sale, it’s the ability to prove to the buyer, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you understand them; and that you will then leverage this understanding to achieve the objectives defined in the RFP. Now that we understand what empathy is in the context of selling, the big question is how to convey it. Here are three methods that I use to convey empathy in a response:

Effectively Articulating an Understanding of the Prospect’s Needs (Research)
Using the Proposal as an Educational Tool (Lessons Learned)
Addressing Unstated Needs and Concerns (Reading Between the Lines)

Effectively Articulating an Understanding of the Needs

Most RFx documents will provide background on the situation and business problem driving the solicitation. At a minimum, these need to be well articulated in a seller’s response. But in many cases, sellers will simply cut and paste background information from the RFx. Most RFx documents will contain only cursory background information giving industrious sellers and opportunity to show that they understand the situation well beyond what has been provided in the RFx. Effective sellers research the buying organization in detail to gain answers to questions such as:

What are the underlying drivers of the business problem?
What attempts has the buyer made previously, if any, to address the problem?
What is happening beyond the buying organization (e.g. at the corporate or government-wide level) that might be relevant and impactful?
What head- and/or tailwinds might the buying and broader organization be facing?
What strategic initiatives have been articulated, at the buyer or broader organization level, that are relevant to the solicitation?

Effective selling organizations weave the information found in this research into different areas of the response from the Cover Letter to the Executive Summary to a formal “Our Understanding…” section. And this is also the point where it might make sense to engage the help of a subject matter expert in the buyer’s area – perhaps someone who has retired from a similar role.

Using the Response as an Opportunity to Educate

Every seller knows that, at a minimum, the response must address every requirement listed in the RFx. Successful sellers go beyond just “answering the mail”, taking an opportunity to further establish their knowledge and expertise by providing information beyond what is dictated by the list of requirements. While many buyers will define an overall page limit for a given response, there are many ways to weave this education into the content while staying within those limits. One of the best ways to do this is to create a list of “lessons learned” from similar contracts with like buyer organizations, and weaving these lessons into the response. Buyers need to know that you’ve solved this type of business problem before – and for whom. Buyers also appreciate, but often do not directly ask for, hearing about the lessons you’ve learned that will make their particular effort go more smoothly and/or raise the prospect of success. This is also an opportunity to present ideas and suggestions that might veer – slightly – away from what was asked for in the RFx. I’ve never met a buyer who was not interested in hearing more about past performance; and have often been told that it was a valued part of a response.

Identifying and Addressing the Unstated Needs

Most RFxs do an effective job at outlining the buyer’s needs and requirements. But in many cases, unstated needs and concerns exist that will ultimately influence the evaluation. For example, some RFx documents will ask for information on project controls and risk management processes but not directly state that one of the biggest concerns is project success. Successful sellers will recognize this and weave in how they plan to identify and manage risks early-on. They will also provide data on their success rates with similar efforts. By reading between the lines, sellers can identify those hidden concerns, then address them accordingly throughout the response. An RFx will rarely tell you that “This aspect is the most important one to the buyer” but a savvy reader can quickly ascertain that. Sellers should ask the questions (of themselves):

What is this buyer really asking for?
What is the single most important requirement?
What is their biggest concern with this effort?

In summary… Illustrating empathy, alone, will rarely (if ever) win a contract. However, combining an empathetic response, with a competitive approach, experience, and price, is a recipe for success. Effective sellers allocate the time to research the opportunity beyond what is in the RFx and apply their intuition and experience in crafting a response that will meet both the buyer’s stated as well as unstated needs.