Say you’re currently in a meeting with a current or prospective client and everything seems to be going well. You’re just about to wrap up the meeting and are thinking of the best way to go ahead and seal the deal. Just when you’re about to get your thoughts together, the other party says ‘Can you just send me a capability statement?’
Before agreeing, it’s important for you to have a good idea of why your current or prospective client would require a capability statement in the first place. Without having an understanding, you run the risk of sending the client a generic piece of document that may not differentiate you from the competition.
Questions to ask prior to providing the capability statement
Here are three questions you can ask your client prior to providing the capability statement. By asking these questions, you can ensure that the capability statement you’re providing to your customer is of the utmost value.
- Could you please provide me more information pertaining to the business context? For example, the reason as to why you’re doing this / what outcomes you’re planning on achieving?
- Would you be able to tell me more about the project that you’re working on?
- What do you feel like are the three most important things for me to get right on the project?
Once you’ve got all three answers to your questions, you can then go ahead and put together a capability statement that would be useful to your client.
Your capability statement can contain the following:
- Testimonials and case studies of clients that faced similar issues. By doing so, you’ll be able to provide concrete evidence of how you’ve helped other clients and hence, how you can help them.
- Tailored information based on the client’s needs and their business. While of course you can still talk to the capabilities of your business in a generic context, you’ll be able to tailor certain answers to suit your clients more.
- Include management profiles of individuals that you feel like your client would be dealing with. Make sure that it’s tailored to their project and ensure that these individuals have skills that you feel like your client would be looking for.
Remember to ensure that your capability statement is also simple and professional. Use sharp visual design and ensure that it reflect your business’s brand. It should also be easy to distribute – just in case your client would like to circulate it around and it should have bulleted points and short sentences for visual scanning.
Getting started with your capability statement
As seen from the above, it might be tempting to provide your client with a generic capability statement. Even though there’s nothing wrong with doing so, it’s much more useful for the client if you’re able to tailor it according to their needs.
By doing so, you will not only be able to ensure relevance, but you can also be assured that your client will take the time to read it and share it with the necessary stakeholders.