Arrogance is undesirable. But when business development (BD), sales and bid team operatives blur the distinction between confidence and arrogance, the result can be commercially lethal.

Here's the unspoken message an arrogant attitude on the part of a BD team or executive, a sales team or salesperson, or bid team members, projects to the prospect, client or customer:

“We know what you want/need already. We have little need to spend a lot of time listening to you or drilling deeply into your problems or issues (and we possibly don’t know how to). We’ve dealt with lots of organisations just like yours. It goes without saying that our product/service is the superior option. I’ll certainly be happy to elaborate on all the reasons why – but really . . . you should already know!

“And further, Mr/Ms Prospect/Client, it is unlikely we will ever have a conversation in which we are/I am willing to demonstrate sufficient humility to disclose the fact that there’s anything we/I don’t already know.”

This is unfortunate - because BDs and other individuals in prospect/client interfacing roles should actually consider themselves, first and foremost, information-gatherers.

Arrogance Kills Bidding Skills

In short, arrogance kills listening skills.

And where there is no listening, there is no learning.

And where there is no learning, there is no means of determining the most meaningful way to differentiate your offering for the client or customer in question. Without meaningful differentiation, you are a commodity. When you are a commodity, you compete on little else but price.

Displays of arrogance in the pre-sales/”discovery” stage are bad enough, but when they make their way into a Request for Proposal response, that bidder or bidding consortium has a real problem. And unfortunately, in a great many instances, they do make their way into the final bid.

It works like this: 

Where an arrogant attitude has prevailed during the pre-sales process, very little “discovery” will have taken place, and so very little valuable information will have been gathered for use in the bid production process. So there’s a dearth of good customer or client-focused material to work with. It’s the reason so many bids are full of shallow, seller-centric, promotional fluff. It’s a vicious cycle.

And the biggest problem of all is that those who most need to learn from a message like this, are the most likely to think it doesn’t apply to them.



Do you recognise this problem – not in your own people, of course, but in other organisations . . . ?!