Your spouse knows why you're losing bids (even if you don't)
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By
Nic Coppings
A common mistake even the smartest subject matter expert makes is not taking the time to listen to the customer and understand their concerns, writes BD practitioner Nic Coppings.
After losing a must-win opportunity, Michael, the chief growth officer at a mid-tier firm, finally understood what had gone wrong. The customer feedback stung: "Your team kept telling us how you'd fix our problem, but we never felt you fully understood what we were actually up against."
Michael's team was brilliant, but they had a fatal flaw: They couldn't read people. Michael had the same problem at home.
When his wife excitedly brought up a difficult client situation, Michael half-listened and then interupted with, "Here's what I would have done," before she could finish her story.
"What's wrong?" he asked when she went quiet.
"Nothing," she whispered, her excitement completely gone.
She had wanted to share her victory and feel supported after a stressful day. Instead, she felt dismissed by someone who wasn't listening and had no context about the situation.
Your growth team faces the same issue, and it's limiting the customer intelligence you desperately need to win.
Why Your Smartest People Can't Read a Room
Carnegie Institute research indicates that 85% of career success comes from well-developed soft skills, yet our education system rewards the fastest hand, and the loudest voice. So, we condition our students to be brilliant (and quick) problem solvers but rarely provide them with the people skills needed to fully understand the problem to be solved.
Picture a subject matter expert in a customer meeting. When the customer mentions budget constraints, they immediately launch into discussing a potentially "cheaper" solution. What did they miss while talking? The customers frustrated sigh, the glance at their watch, the subtle shift in body language that signals this isn't really about money—it's about political pressure from leadership they can't openly discuss.
Our education system values solving equations, but not emotions. That’s why they fail at the human side of business.
The Expert Trap That's Killing Your Customer Intelligence
Most CGOs believe their teams already have decent relationship skills.
The denial is staggering. While 61% of businesses rate their customers as "very satisfied" with their experience, only 23% of consumers share the same sentiment. Research shows that offering solutions prematurely fails to address the underlying emotional or psychological roots of problems, which are often the true impediments to resolution.
When customers share concerns, your team immediately jumps to solutions. "Here's how we'd solve that," they interrupt. The conversation shuts down. Your team walks away feeling they dazzled the customer with their solution. The truth is they're more impressed by your competitor who asks, "Help me understand what you're up against here."
Think about your last team meeting where someone complained about a difficult customer. Did anyone ask what made them difficult, or did the team immediately start offering solutions about what they would do?
The fastest way to end a conversation is to solve a problem nobody asked you to solve.
While You Pitch Solutions, Competitors Are Shaping Requirements
Picture this: Your business development manager delivers a well-rehearsed 13-slide capability briefing. Your competitor brings a single question: "What the impact of that program on your mission?" Guess who leaves with more actionable intelligence?
Your team believes they are gathering good intelligence. But while they interograte the customer with a laundry list of items needed to get through their next gate review, a competitor is digging deeper and learning about how congressional pressure, budget reallocations, and performance metrics are shaping the acquisition strategy and program. The difference isn't technical capability—it's their Human Intelligence Quotient.
The result? Game-changing intelligence goes uncaptured, and you continue to lose to competitors who make customers feel understood rather than lectured.
While you're busy being technically interesting, your competitors are busy being interested—and that's why they're winning.
The One Skill That Trumps Technical Excellence
As Maya Angelou observed, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
This isn't just inspirational wisdom—it's a competitive intelligence strategy. In markets where capabilities are commoditized, the team that makes the customer feel heard and supported often wins.
Real competitive intelligence emerges when customers feel safe enough to share what they're truly facing and not just the sanitized high-level version they share with everyone.
Your technical superiority means nothing if customers don't trust you enough to discuss their real problems.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Your Growth Target
How many competitive deals have you lost because of inferior intelligence? Because your technically superior team focused on solutions rather than human connection?
As a growth officer, your success depends on achieving growth goals that require skills your team has never been taught. In competitive markets, the real intelligence edge belongs to the teams the customer trusts—because they are the first person the customer calls, they collaborate on solutions and share intel they won't share with others.
Research shows that 82% of government decision-makers believe winning relationships are a key factor in awarding contracts, yet most teams treat relationship-building as an afterthought.
The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in developing these skills; rather, it is whether you can afford not to.
Nic Coppings, Senior Partner at Hi-Q Group, has spent over 20 years discovering why technically brilliant teams keep losing to "inferior" competitors. The answer isn't technical capability—it's Human Intelligence Quotient. While your engineers pitch solutions, your competitors build Winning Relationships®, that unlock game-changing customer intelligence. In markets where relationships drive 82% of contract awards, technical superiority means nothing if customers don't feel understood enough to share their real problems. Hi-Q Group's training programs transform customer engagement, and drive growth. Ready to stop guessing and start winning? Learn how Hi-Q Group can transform your growth. Schedule a time to chat here. Because when customers feel truly heard, they share the intel that wins billion-dollar contracts.
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