How This Business Development Manager Turned Peer Resistance into Winning Government Tenders

OK. Then Pierre needed my support and I went. All right? Um, so, um, One of the activities exactly when I joined as uh the regional sales and marketing manager, uh, is to do a, um, I mean, before I joined, there was no Activity happened in the tender business. Exactly. So, uh, tender business, I realized by working 6 months into, into the territory that government procures a very large quantity of, you know, uh, this my product every year, and we are not having, I mean, we do not have the brand approvals in their departments. And uh so I, how I realized this thing is I reached out to different uh freelancers by market intelligence, by speaking to the competitors, by, you know, I understood that there are a lot of uh bidding and bids are happening, different tenders are happening, but, uh, our team is not focused towards that. And uh I had it in, you know, discussion with the, with the team which was working on the field and uh they kind of, you know, resisted this idea of, you know, doing the brand approval in across all the departments because it is kind of a lot of work. uh, you have to find out who's the right person, you have to make. All the technical criteria ready. Then you have to make sure that the application is made correct and uh you are submitting the entire documentation. So a lot of uh you know, technicalities were involved and they were not uh uh you know, they were not OK with that and uh so what I did um. Um, I, uh, took, uh, I mean, I explained them what it could get all of us, and, uh, also I, because these were the guys who were working with the channel partners, I incentivized their, uh, I mean, I spoke to the owner of the channel partners, so if they are getting, uh, I mean, involving, getting involved in this, uh, brand approval process and, uh. Um, increasing our participation in the tenders and, uh, getting more tenders, they would, uh, be, uh, their efforts would be rewarded and, uh, that kind of work. Uh, but not with all of them around. 30% of my team said, OK, fine, they would work for the tenders and uh that started the entire, you know, thing of participating, you know, collaborating with the uh government departments and uh they also learned a lot of, um, you know, technical uh uh information regarding the product and, uh, yeah, so that helped.

So, uh, uh, did, about what?

So, on the specifically, I explained them, you know, what, how big is this market and how, you know, their, um, yearly quotas will be filled by just, you know, uh, giving extra attention to this business. Secondly, when I incentivized, uh, their, uh, I mean, I spoke to the owners of the channel partners and I incentivized their efforts. Then they were. You know, they were, uh, reluctant, I mean, sorry, they were, uh, affirmative to work in this, uh, area, basically, uh, and once they started working in this field, they start, they saw a lot of potential in this field, and then they, it was kind of, uh, it, they were self-driven after that. For me, I have to just show them where the, you know, the where the river lies, and you have to go to the river in a sense.

Uh, because I knew that this, uh, activity is a lot of, there is a, there are a lot of activities involved. If you have to actually participate in one of the, uh, tendering process, you have to do a lot of backward, backside work. For example, first activity starts from, you know, you, your brand has to be registered with that department. And to register your brand in that department, you have to find out who's the right person, then who, what activities, uh, I mean, what documents are needed to, uh, submit in that department, and, uh, then there will be a technical committee meeting, and you have to give a presentation about your product, then they would be questioning you, and after that, only the brand gets approved. And once there are not many competitors who were present in, you know, this, uh, tendering activity because everyone thinks that it is, you know, a lot of work. And, uh, so once you register your, uh, I mean, register your brand, then you have to just participate in the bidding process. And, uh, for that, it is, after that, the things are easier, but the initial work is a lot, so that was the reason, basically.