Why Most AI-Powered RFP Responses Fail with Antoine Drapeau

[00:00:00] Antoine: So then I can come in the call with a client. I know who they are. I have a strong opinion on where they are today. But I also can say, "By the way, I've talked with X, Y, and Z, and they have that problem. I suspect you're calling me because of this. Am I right or wrong?" And then you spawn the conversation.
The client will either say No, you're wrong." Good. Then tell me what. If the client say, "You're right on," my credibility is off the roof and we can stop with all of the fluff and just go straight into, "All right. What is your problem? How can I actually help you?"
[00:00:33] Mike: My name's Mike Lander, and you're listening to Higgle, the B2B Sales Club Podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales RFPs, negotiations, and difficult procurement discussions from sales leaders, brand leaders, and procurement leaders.
Please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released.
Antoine, thanks ever so much for joining me on Higgle, the B2B Sales Club Podcast. Great to have you as a guest.
[00:01:01] Antoine: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited.
[00:01:03] Mike: And we met through one of your colleagues and friends. We did. Who was also on the show. Yeah, through Alice, and, and
[00:01:08] Antoine: Alice just- Yeah, exactly ... changed jobs.
She's now VP of something. She's awesome. I really like her.
[00:01:13] Mike: She's brilliant. Yeah. She's amazing. I'll, I'll drop her a note afterwards, actually. Definitely. So Antoine, for the audience, first of all, uh, who are you, what do you do, and your favorite song, and why?
[00:01:22] Antoine: So the most stressful part of the whole podcast is my favorite song, so I'll keep that there.
So my name is Antoine, account executive. I work for Verndale. I'm based in Montreal, Canada. That's why I have a beautiful accent when I speak in English.
[00:01:35] Mike: You do.
[00:01:35] Antoine: What do I do? I do sales, and I do sales for a digital agency called Verndale, and we work on super complex digital and e-commerce initiative with our business.
And now the stressful part, my favorite song. Music is so important in my life. It's, like, the most important thing after my wife and my kids, obviously. So to find- Exactly ... one song- It's
[00:01:55] Mike: funny. A lot of people, virtually every guest, everyone says, "Music's really, really important to me." Mm-hmm. And it can be because it's on every day, or because it's...
I see you've got some vinyl in the background as well. Mm-hmm. So yeah, what is your favorite song and why?
[00:02:10] Antoine: Music is so tied to emotion. It's so tied to memories. It is. It's tied to everything, so that's why it's super important. In my case, I think I'm gonna go with a classic, with November Rain from Guns N Roses.
Why? Ah. 'Cause I'm playing guitar, and I wanted to play guitar because the first time I saw Slash going at the- Yeah ... end of video, going on the piano and just doing- ... his solo. Yeah, yeah. I was like, "I wanna be that guy. I wanna be that guy." Exactly. And that's the reason why I started guitar. So that's my song.
[00:02:36] Mike: So presumably, you've got two parallel careers. You're a Slash impersonator and you're also a sales leader in the agency
[00:02:43] Antoine: world. Yeah. The fact that I'm bald right now, it makes it a little bit harder- ... to impersonate Slash. It's tricky. So I have to put
[00:02:49] Mike: the hat. Get the hat and you'll be fine. Hat and a wig.
You'll be okay. Don't worry. So we're gonna talk about, the overall topic is how to leverage AI to improve RFP responses and pitch processes, uh, whilst maintaining human insight, judgment, and craft. So the kind of opening question's around how buyers are using AI and LLMs to become more informed, and what are the implications for sellers?
[00:03:13] Antoine: You know, everything changed in sales, everything changed, like, drastically in the last year. But the year before, it changed from the year before, and we can go past five years. Everything is changing at a pace that is hard to follow. Right now, what I'm seeing is buyers are coming into conversation with way more information than they had before.
Five years ago, buyers were coming like, "Hey, I have this problem. How can I fix it?" Now, buyers are coming in the call saying, "Here's what I want. Here's the solution I'm looking for. How can you help me build that solution?" So buyers are getting way more informed than they ever were, but all of that information mostly come from LLM, mostly come from the ChatGPT, the Claude, et cetera, of this world, so they have more information.
[00:03:58] Mike: Is that what you think, or is that what you're hearing from clients? And I ask because I think my biased assumption is LLMs now actually are providing an awful lot of shortlisting and buyer insights. I don't know that for true, but I suspect it is, and I see some data saying it's starting to take over.
But are you hearing buyers say when you ask them, "Yeah, actually, did a lot of research. You came up, asked a lot of questions, and that's how I came to you."
[00:04:24] Antoine: Yes and no, and let me explain. I never find a buyer who was super clear like, "Hey, all of my information, I got it from ChatGPT." That never happened, probably never will.
No, no. Yeah, probably never will. No. Hopefully not. Yeah, hopefully not. But it's really my two cents 'cause when I'm speaking with clients, what I'm seeing right now with buyers, they have way less nuances than they had before, and usually, they're coming with a solution, but they-- When we're refa- resurfacing all of the gaps of the solution and all of the pitfall that they might fall into, I always have the big eyes like, "Oh, I didn't know that."
And that just tells me, "Okay, so you got all your information through ChatGPT, through LLMs."
[00:05:04] Mike: But that's really interesting, I think, because... So I obviously, like all of us, I use ChatGPT, Claude a lot. Mm-hmm. Like, I don't know, four or five hours a day. Same. As a copilot, you know, an assistant. And I asked it a question the other day.
I said, "Is this broadly true? The LLMs, the output is determined based upon what comes next, is based upon what came before." And it said, "Yeah, as a nuance, as a high level, yes." Obviously, lots of complications, lots of depths behind that. But broadly, what comes next is broadly based on what came before. So I like your point about the pitfalls because if it hasn't worked out where all the pitfalls are, and it's informed the buyer about the broad problem you're trying to solve, the sub-level of questions below that it's peeled back the layers of the onion, and then it's also said, "And the kind of organizations you want to be talking to are X, Y, and Z," that's a great opportunity for a seller.
To break through and talk to our prospect in a discovery way about the hidden depths which the LLM may not have picked up on.
[00:06:06] Antoine: 100%. Is that where you're going with this? You are straight on it. That's exactly the value that we can bring, 'cause it's really easy in those days as seller to fall into the order taker kind of role, where the buyer come in saying, "Hey, here's my solution.
How do you price it?" It's way easier. If I'm lazy, it's way less work for me just to say, "With what you're asking me, that's gonna be a million. All right, here, here's the SO of the moon- Yeah ... just sign it." But I bring zero value doing that. Like, literally zero value. Exactly. And the customer and the buyer in six months will be like, "Wait, why haven't you tell me that this won't work because of X, Y, and Z, et cetera?"
So I do really do believe, 'cause I'm like you, I use ChatGPT and Claude, like, six or seven hours a day. It's literally everything that I do, I use ChatGPT. But I- Yeah. Our assistant. 100%. But you have to treat it as an assistant, an assistant who- Yeah ... will do the boring work for you. So let me give you a super clear example.
When I'm having a first discussion, a first discovery with a client, I'm gonna use AI a lot upstream. And what I'm going to do with that, I'm going to understand the buyer way more than I never could before. Instead of doing, like, eight hours of research, I can in five minutes be more informed than I could never have been prior to all the deal of that.
And
[00:07:21] Mike: just give me... As we go through this, let's just kind of pick apart the examples- Sure ... for people because, again, I think we make assumptions that everyone's doing this, but often people are missing opportunity. So when you do research, have you built some ChatGPT projects, or have you used Claude code to develop a particular skill that you keep on rerunning?
How do you do your research using AI?
[00:07:46] Antoine: Super good question, and the answer is multi-threaded, to be honest. I don't do only ChatGPT or only Claude. I use each and every single one depending on the need. So when I do research, and let me be super specific, when I do research before a call with a customer, I'll start with ChatGPT.
ChatGPT, the first thing I'll do is, and I built a GPT for that 'cause I'm not going to rewrite the same thing 10,000 times, not worth it. Exactly.
[00:08:10] Mike: So you built some instructions, you built a ChatGPT project, and you put the instructions into the project, and you also gave it some context documents as well probably, and then each time it gets better and better and better, and you don't have to repeat stuff.
[00:08:23] Antoine: 100%, and you name it, the context file that you're gonna put in the GPT or the project is where the magic happens. So I have a context file on what is my business, what can we actually do, what is the value proposition that I have, and I have some points that I'm looking for and some problems that I'm seeing, and I'm feeding that document.
But there's problems that I'm usually seeing with customer, so then when I ask ChatGPT, "Go on the web, make all of the research for me on the business. Go find all of the information, what's the industry, but go find the news, go find the acquisition that they've done." So I have a list of things that I'm looking for, but always do that research through the lens of the context file that I gave you, so it does the research as if was me.
So that's the first part that I'm doing.
[00:09:08] Mike: And again, on that point, because there is no point in asking broad questions to any of the LLMs, 'cause it will give you very... It won't know what to look for. Like having an intern. If you gave the intern a very broad question, "Go and research the industry this client sits in," well, you get all sorts back.
So you have to tell it, "But only through the lens of the kind of problems that we can solve 'cause we do these kinds of things for these kinds of clients." Otherwise, I mean, and that may come back with, "Actually, can't really see a fit here, Antoine." 100%. And then you go, "Okay." Then maybe on the call it's like, "Done quite a lot of research.
Not really quite sure where the fit is, but maybe I've missed something."
[00:09:44] Antoine: 100%, and I really prefer to lose fast than to just lose my time or lose their time. Same
[00:09:49] Mike: here. Why would you drag it out? 100%. What's the point?
[00:09:51] Antoine: And you have to use all of the context that it's giving you for the rest of my team as well to, to get them up to speed.
But to your point, when I'm going in the call with the customer, if it's a fit, good, I know how to drive my call. If it's not a fit, I... Good, I also know how to drive my call, and I can help the client realize that I'm not the fit and help them find the right solution.
[00:10:10] Mike: So as a trusted advisor, our job as salespeople is to help our clients solve their problems, even if that means it's not with our solution.
[00:10:19] Antoine: 100%, and if I say to a client, "I'm sorry, I'm not the right fit for this project here," the next time that they're gonna call me and I'm gonna say, "I'm the right fit," I already have way more credibility than anyone else. You do. So-
[00:10:33] Mike: Exactly. They're far more likely to trust you Definitely. I was always taught that, always told, "Don't try and extend yourself into areas that you're not 100% capable in."
Better to advise the client that, "I've got someone you can go and talk to. Go and talk to James, go and talk to Emma. They can help." So that's kind of research definitely is an AI tool. What, what else do you do in sales using AI?
[00:10:54] Antoine: We have a tool internally called Glean. Have you ever heard of Glean? No. It's the best thing that's ever happened to the humanity.
Trust me. It's the best thing ever. Okay. G-L-E-E-N, Glean. G-L-E-A-N, Glean. Okay. So it's an AI tool, and- Yeah. That's 'cause I can't spell, Antoine. But I can pronounce, so we're even. Ah, that's good. Yeah, yeah. So, and this is not an infomercial for Glean. I don't want to talk way too much about- No, no ... about it, but it- They're not sponsoring the show, everyone.
It's not a setup Not at all. So what is Glean? I'm just a fan. Glean is a tool that will connect... It's an AI tool that will use all of the different LLMs, all of the different models, and you can choose which model you want, and the power of Glean is it connects to all of your internal system, and it has all of the history.
It index everything, the Slack message, the Outlook, SharePoint, name it, everything, the transcript of the call, everything. So before I go into a discovery call with a client, first I use ChatGPT to surface public information on, on the client. But then I go in Glean, and I say, "All right. I'm talking with a distributor of electric parts.
Glean, find me all of the discovery call we had with distributor in electric calls, and s- resurface all of the pain points that they had." It will go through all of the documentation, all of the transcript, everything, and then it will give me, in 30 seconds, a list of like, "Here's the 10 points that every single one of them, they had So then I can come in the call with a client.
I know who they are. I have a strong opinion on where they are today, but I also can say, "By the way, I've talked with X, Y, and Z, and they have that problem. I suspect you're calling me because of this. Am I right or wrong?" And then you spawn the conversation. The client will either say- Exactly ... "No, you're wrong."
Good. Then tell me what. If the client say, "You're right on," my credibility is off the roof, and we can stop with all of the fluff and just go straight into, "All right. What is your problem? How can I actually help you?" 'Cause my job is to resurface all the gaps and all the problems that the client don't know, 'cause they don't know what they don't know.
We've been in the business for 27 years. We've done that literally more than 1,000 times. We've done multiple projects. So, and the client on the other side of the table, it's probably their one, their first, second, third big project like that. We've done this 1,000 times. It's my role not to be an order taker, but to actually add value and to help the buyer better understand their own problem, and I can do that by searching the web, by searching what are all the conversation I had with previous client before.
Glean is the tool that can help us do that.
[00:13:27] Mike: And obviously, so everyone knows, it's all anonymized. So basically, Antoine's getting all that information, anonymizing it, pulling together themes, which is what we do as sellers. We work within a sector. That gives us sector knowledge, which is often tacit, but now is explicit within the AI environment, and it allows us to bring out broad themes.
I think what you're saying, Antoine, is AI, for very good sellers, AI helps us be even better. 100%.
[00:13:51] Antoine: And for the best sellers, AI will help you do things faster, do thing quicker, and be informed and up to speed faster than you could have ever been before.
[00:14:01] Mike: And by the way, just on that point, just before I forget it, if you're not a great seller and you accept what it says, and then you use that with a client, that's gonna get you nowhere or into very deep water So you can't just trust what it says.
You have to apply your judgment and your insights and your experience, and you have to ask it the right things. And then-- 'cause you'll often find, I'm sure you do, I'll go, "No, that's not right. You need to think about this, this, and this. Here's some more context." And it goes, "Oh, okay." You know, and it will improve the output the more insight and the more challenge you give it.
Do you find that?
[00:14:37] Antoine: You could not be more right. That is 100% true. There's a teacher here in Quebec, that teacher is working with young adults, and that was on the news today, this morning. They gave them an homework saying, "Here's the homework, and I want you to ask ChatGPT to do the homework for you." That's the homework.
Right. Then they've all done it. Then the s- Oh, this will be good. The second homework was, "Now look at what ChatGPT does and, uh, tell me everything that is wrong in that answer." And the whole goal of that was just to... You have to train your muscle on just not get the information and get fed it. This is not TikTok.
This is not doom scrolling. This is job we're talking about. So that gives you information, and you have to put your critical mass and your critical knowledge and all of your instincts to it to say, "Oh, I think that's wrong," or, "Oh, I haven't thought of that. Let's dig deeper in this." Why may that be wrong?
Exactly. 100%. And if you only use ChatGPT, for example, you receive an RFP from a buyer. If you use ChatGPT or Claude just to give a response with more polished words and you take the brief and you just rewrite it with Claude and ChatGPT, let me just tell you right away, you're gonna f**king lose it.
You're gonna lose it. That's it. And your credibility will be down the drain.
[00:15:48] Mike: And the buyer will spot it a mile
[00:15:51] Antoine: off.
[00:15:51] Mike: 100%. I just spent literally... So again, so the audience is clear, so I have paid for LLM. I've turned model training off. I've put safeguards in place so that I can put documents in from clients into a private ChatGPT project, so there's no leakage of, of data.
But it'll still take me a day to review that, to write something, to comment on a client's proposal, to do all of that work, the heavy lifting, because that's the value add. It may actually take me, and it does, the same amount of time As it does normally, only I'll go deeper in certain areas. I'll spot nuances, things that I may have missed because I'm human.
So it's more comprehensive. But I have to train it, and I have to give it all my context
[00:16:31] Antoine: in a secure way. And this is a super important point that you're bringing here right now, the security part of it. We're working with banks, we're working with financial institute, with insurance company. Security is the number one priority.
So as the buyer listening, ask the agency on the other side, ask the person who is selling you something, ask them what are they using. Because every... 100% of the people are using ChatGPT, Claude, et cetera. If they are on the free version, it- Boom ... huge, huge security issue. It's a massive problem. Yeah. If you go on Enterprise, for example, if you take ChatGPT Enterprise, you have your own sandbox.
All of the data stays there and is not shared with the rest of ChatGPT. This is mandatory. If you are working with client, do not put the RFP document if you're using the free version. You're like, "Oh yeah, I'm saving money." No, you're putting yourself at risk- ... and you're putting the business- Your company
100% at risk. Do not do that.
[00:17:27] Mike: Exactly. Precisely. So, um, we've covered a few tools now on how AI can make sellers better. Practical tips responding to RFPs in a way that adds value, as opposed to just being an order taker. Just remind people, you touched on it before, but what are the win themes? How do you go about winning an RFP using AI as an assistant, rather than just asking it to fill in the proposal using a Q&A bank, sending it off, and then the buyer goes, "You look like every other seller I've ever met"?
So how do you basically stand out? What are your tactics, tips for people?
[00:17:59] Antoine: One thing I realized a few months ago is- All of the buyers are using ChatGPT to fill in their RFP, and then all of the agency are using ChatGPT to respond to a ChatGPT RFP. And then the buyer will take ChatGPT to take all of the response to summarize them in a document that is actually readable.
I think you see the loop here that is absolutely no value at all. We're killing trees just to have that same circle. So I really do believe AI helps us get up to speed way faster. We have to understand. '
[00:18:29] Mike: Cause it will, by the way. So on that point, again, just to pause for people listening, RFP's gone out.
It's gone out to hopefully no more than seven, hopefully five potential vendors. The suppliers have filled in the proposal, answered all the questions, sent it back. So we will in procurement now, I think something like over 75% of procurement professionals are using AI within a secure environment to mark the homework.
It will be auto-scoring all of your proposals against the criteria and the RFP. So you have to come out on top of that scoring. So you have to also, in your secure environment within the enterprise version, you have to build a proposal homework marker where you put your proposal into your environment, you compare it against the RFP, and it, like a mini version of me, basically says, "What mark will you get for this proposal against these requirements?"
And if you're below about probably 60%, you may not go from the seven to the three. The only purpose of the proposal against the RFP is to get you in the room with the client, which is the shortlist of three. So you have to get a high score on the document you submit. So how are you doing that, Antoine?
How are you making sure that you're in the top three, not in the bottom four?
[00:19:45] Antoine: What you just mentioned is 100% what keeps me up at night currently, and I really do see a trend specific for exactly your point. Way more of the RFPs that I'm seeing now, and I'm seeing it's kind of a trend, people are asking for a really strict response format instead of before- They are
just like, "Hey"- And
[00:20:04] Mike: there's a reason for
[00:20:04] Antoine: that. 100%. There's a reason for that. And the reason is exactly what you said, 'cause they need- Correct ... to have everyone in the same format, so when they're gonna feed the- So you can compare. 100%. So the issue with that is it's super easy to be lost in a sea of sameness.
Everybody will resp- If you use ChatGPT to respond to that, you're just going to fall in this exact same place as everyone else.
[00:20:28] Mike: Because going back to what we said, which is if the answer that comes next, the output that comes next, is based on what has come before very broadly at a macro level, then if everyone's doing the same and not providing it with extra context and detail and capability statements and case studies and God knows what, then you will look like the next person that's responding.
So you have to stand out. So how do you now stand out? How do you get past the... To me, the qualification is I kind of expect all of you to answer the questions, or else you wouldn't be in my list of five or seven What I need to know now is why you? Simply, that's what I need to know. Why you rather than the next supplier?
So how do you focus on that?
[00:21:10] Antoine: We do that by if they have, like, an Excel sheet with all of the question, we're gonna use ChatGPT to answer that 'cause that is the easy portion. Everybody will do it. If you don't use ChatGPT or LLM or whatever to do that, you're losing your time 'cause there's no value to that.
It's yes, no, we can do, or we cannot. That's easy. Where we add value is our point of view. We have to always start an RFP response and whatever, even a call, with a strong point of view. This is what we know about you. This is what the project you are asking us. Now, this is our point of view. We think you're right on X, Y, and Z.
Those are the gaps that we believe that you haven't seen. If the goal of my RFSP response is for the buyer to actually better understand their own problem, if I'm just answering their question, I'm gonna go in the garbage bin. That's the only place I'm going. I need to show like, "Hey, you called me, you know I can do the job, full stop.
But you called six others that you know that they can do the job. So why us? Because that's our point of... Because here's our strong point of view. Here's how we want to help you, and here's the gaps that you haven't seen that are not mentioned in your RFP, but that you, we are going to get together, and here how we are going to manage them."
So if you don't add value, and if you are just responding to the question, you're lost. And don't get me wrong, you have to respond to the question, but if you only do that, don't even lose your time responding.
[00:22:36] Mike: I was taught years ago that that was called necessary but not sufficient. It is necessary that you answer all the questions, but it is not sufficient to win.
[00:22:45] Antoine: Love that. I love that. That's exactly it.
[00:22:47] Mike: So let's move on to the last question, which is building relationships with procurement teams in advance to better understand their perspective. So, and I don't have... If someone says to me, "Oh, can you send me the scientific data report on this?" I don't have it. But what I do know is this.
If an RFP comes out, I can say this with some authority, having written a lot of them, if an RFP comes out and it goes out to, let's say it's seven potential providers. Of those seven, one is normally the incumbent. Two more are those that we know very well. For some reason, we've either worked with them before, or we know one of the people there and they've moved, or one of my close colleagues in another organization has worked with them and they've got amazing credentials.
So now you've got the incumbent plus two more. There's three. The other four get made up of all sorts. It could be a referral. It could be we met you at a conference. It could be that I found you on ChatGPT. As long as the incumbent's done a great job and they've gone out for governance reasons, the incumbent wins something like 60 odd percent of the time.
So the other six have a 40% share of the win. The next two, they're gonna win probably 15% of the time each. So now You've got three bidders that are covering 90% probability of winning. If you're in the bottom four, you've got a 2.5% chance of winning, and that's because someone else has shaped the RFP.
Someone has helped them write the RFP. So now go into why is it important to build relationships with procurement in advance of the RFP, and how do you do that? Did that make sense? Oh,
[00:24:18] Antoine: unfortunately, way too much. So Good. You know, let, let's be, uh, brutally honest here. There's a lot of salespeople that believe that procurement are either dead inside or they're just there, they're just a gatekeeper, which that- We're the devil
100%. And there's some people who are actually helping that stereotype, as there are salespeople who are actually helping the stereotype of salespeople as well, let's be clear. But if that's the way you think about procurement people, you will always be in the bottom four. You will always be. You have to create that relationship beforehand.
[00:24:52] Mike: And you might win 1 in 20, maybe, and the 1 in 20 that you win will convince you that you should keep bidding for the other 19 that you lose.
[00:24:59] Antoine: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:59] Mike: And so it goes on. Yeah,
[00:25:01] Antoine: 100%. And the way that we can get out of that unfortunate loop is to get the relationship with the procurement. This is super hard, 'cause you have to find the right timing to have the conversation with procurement.
If I just call a business that I never called before and call the procurement, obviously that will bring me nowhere. Correct. But when I'm starting the discussion, when there's a discovery call with the business, with the client, and they're... We actually see that there's something there, there's a project that might go there, it's actually good to start a conversation with procurement, first, to create the relationship, but also to understand what is the procurement role in that specific RFP.
'Cause the procurement role is to, broadly, they need to provide a service or a product for the business, and they need to protect the business. I just sum up their job.
[00:25:45] Mike: Manage risk, get the best commercial offer that we can, drive innovation and quality in the supply chain, work with reputable suppliers.
All those good things is what I'm trying to do, and I'm running a process. It's not my money I'm running a process for the person whose money it is
[00:26:01] Antoine: 100%. But my job is to sell. My job is to be able, not to convince, 'cause I truly believe that if you need to convince someone, you're not in the right place right now.
Yeah, I would agree. My job is still to sell. So we don't have two conflicting roles. No, we actually have complementary roles. So to build a relationship before the RFP comes out, and then we're stuck in the, in a process that we need to follow, obviously, to have that relationship before will actually help me as a buyer know my way, way easier.
Who are the decision maker? How can I make it? How can I make their job easier when I'm going to respond to the RFP? Just knowing, "Hey, by the way, we're gonna use it and we're gonna score it automatically." Perfect. So I'm going to make sure that my response is in the format that you want. Is it okay if I ask this, this, this?
Ask question. Just go build that relationship so you can... If you're doing a good job as a salesperson, you are gonna set yourself in an advisory role for the business. Do the exact same for procurement, 'cause procurement is part of the business. It's not the gatekeeper. It's someone who will help you win, or if you're not being good, who will help you not win as well.
So create that relationship, not in the goal of selling more, but in the goal of that's the right thing to do to be able, 'cause we're building a relationship between two, two businesses. That's ultimately what we're doing, and that relationship will pass- In a multi-threaded way 100%.
[00:27:24] Mike: Multi-threaded selling, good old-fashioned multi-threaded selling and influencing.
And when I say someone else has written that RFP, I don't mean clearly someone's listening. Oh, well, that means there's, you know, very strong bias and governance has been broken and bl... I'm like, no. What that means is Antoine's taken the time to educate me in an appropriate way, not over a Michelin star meal, because that's vastly inappropriate.
But you've sent me thought leadership, you've bought me a coffee maybe, we've had a discussion. We've had several discussions over several years or months, and that will have no doubt influenced the way I think about the RFP, and that should influence it because if you've done your job properly, you've helped me understand where the tank traps are in solving this problem.
You've helped me understand how to select the right kind of supplier. Simple thing. If they have no criteria, 'cause they're not sure what the criteria are to select, you know, saying what we find typically in clients of your situation with these kinds of problems, typically they would use these five criteria to select their supplier.
Nothing wrong in doing that. Can be really helpful, and it can give you an edge We're talking about edges here
[00:28:29] Antoine: 100%
[00:28:30] Mike: How do you give yourself an edge?
[00:28:31] Antoine: And if I, just talking about the edge, I want to point out something that you told me in a previous conversation we had before. And I never have thought of that, and that is brilliant.
You told me that there is events in the world specifically for procurement people. So- There are ... I should, as a salesperson, I should attend those events. Not my goal to sell. I'm not gonna sell anything to procurement people. That's absolutely not the goal. My goal is to create relationship, but my goal is mainly to hear what they are hearing, to understand what are their problems, what are their pain point, so it will be easier for me when I'll have an RFP with one of those people.
I'll better understand the shoes that they have on. It will be easier for me to find my way and help get my way, make their job easier, so it will help me sell better in their business. So to create relationship even before there is a project. That's your idea. Exactly. So I'm giving you 100% of the credit, and I'll clearly do that.
Ah, thank you. And that will give me a strong edge in all of the RFP response I will do and all the procurement person I'm gonna deal with in the future.
[00:29:35] Mike: Brilliant. Antoine, it's been amazing. So if I was just, like, kind of like... Well, what are your takeaways? If you were listening to the show And you were thinking, you know, "Well, what practical things can I take away from this?"
What are your couple of points that you would advise any commercial leader to think about?
[00:29:51] Antoine: I'll do the takeaway specifically for, in the salesperson point of view, 'cause that's who I am and that's what I can control. Yeah. I do believe, specifically for RFP response, a strong response will improve the buyer understanding of their own problem.
So for everything that we said, do not use AI just to write beautiful words, just to take the RFP and put it in more written, beautiful written words. That's at absolutely no value. So that is one thing. Another takeaway I really believe, people should start using AI for upstream knowledge, to get knowledge prior to the first conversation.
That's where you add value. At the time where we're just sitting down in a discovery call, just, "Tell me about yourself," those times are gone. Those times are way gone. You have to come in like, "Hey, I'm the salesperson, you're the buyer. Here's what I know about you. Here's all the research I've done about you.
Here's the credibility I'm gonna build, but here's how I think I can help you." So to you, and AI can help you get there way faster than we ever could. So I think those would be my two main takeaways, and obviously, human judgment is now more valuable than it has ever been in the world, and this is how you're gonna differentiate yourself, by using your judgment and your expertise, and not just relying on AI.
[00:31:09] Mike: Brilliant. Antoine, it's been amazing. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:31:12] Antoine: On LinkedIn. That's actually the only social media I'm using, so on LinkedIn, just find Antoine Drapeau. There's not a lot. If you can find how to spell that on LinkedIn, that's the place. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:31:23] Mike: Thank you ever so much, Antoine.
[00:31:24] Antoine: Thank you. Thanks
[00:31:24] Mike: for listening to Higgle, the B2B Sales Club Podcast series. With your host, Mike Lander. Please subscribe so that you'll catch all the next
episodes.