request for proposal | BIXI

request for proposal | BIXI

changing the narrative

BIXI

Note the clean graphics, and the clear elucidation of what the document is intended to do. This is a good start. You want to read this document.

Changing the narrative is worth millions

Requests for Proposals. These are often the dullest documents that you will ever come across. But a little creative intelligence can go a long way to improving responses to them. Case in point: Bixi.

Bixi (bicyle-taxi) is a bike-share system developed in Montreal by the PBSC (Public Bike Share Company). It was so good that Time magazine named it the 19th best invention of 2008, right behind the Mars rover. Good company.

But although Bixi was miles ahead of the competition – and demonstrably so – we weren’t landing the orders that we believed we should have won. The only way to win new orders was through responses to Requests for Proposals. So I started taking a look at ours. We couldn’t change the bike system – and there was no reason to – so we had to think about changing the narrative.

Changing the narrative – Step 1

Restructure the response to the RFP so that we could tell the essential story in 10 pages or less, and throw the rest of the details into Appendices. Most responses to RFPs are tedious to the point of delirium because they’re overstuffed with details upfront. We had to make the response to the RFP resemble Bixi itself: appealing and easy to understand.

Changing the narrative – Step 2

We had to quickly and easily demonstrate how innovative Bixi was. This was the era of Web 2.0. So I invented a new way of naming bike-share systems. I called 1.0 bike-share systems the ones where you rented a bike from a bicycle shop. I said that 2.0 bike-share systems were like those in Paris and London — huge, ugly permanent installations that required connectivity to municipal electrical grids to be able to function.

I called Bixi the only 3.0 bike share system, featuring plug n’ play bike docks, portability, no permanent electrical connections (powered by solar panels), good urban design, etc.

Changing the narrative – Step 3

We had to reverse the order and style of presentation. We had been saying that Bixi was a wonderful system because of these wonderful features, please buy us.

I thought we should go broader. I decided to start the pitch with:

Any 3.0 bike-share system should have the following characteristics, and went on to list all the features that distinguished Bixi from the competition..

Bixi - Business plan

The results

Bixi - The results

Show me the money

Wait for it. For the next 2 years, virtually every RFP for bike shares had a copy and paste of the criteria I had outlined on the first page. 

And since only Bixi could satisfy these criteria, we won London (named the Boris bike because Boris Johnson was mayor at the time), initial order 5,500 bikes, second order a couple of months later for another 5,000.

Followed by:

  • New York
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Melbourne
  • Toronto

and so on.

Tens of millions of dollars in new revenue for the PBSC.

Bixi didn’t change at all.  The story we found — and the way we told it — did.

Let’s meet!
Book a free Business Narrative Audit

The Narrative Audit

When I’m reviewing a client’s overall narrative, I like to ask for these things:

  • A recent marketing piece, either B2B or B2C
  • A recent new business pitch
  • A piece of internal communication, anything from an invitation to an off-site company event or an HR communication
  • A Mission Statement
  • Copies of a couple of emails from different staff

Gather this stuff together (or most of it) and let’s get to work!

Alan writing on the machine