Secrets behind being a successful business analyst
Business Analyst, a designation that helps in determining the initial steps to drive the business towards digitalization or automation. Business analysts help the business to guide them in improving their current processes, procedures, products, services, or software by leveraging the latest technologies. It’s a job to create a business case for any provisioned improvement in business by defining the benefits of a planned upgrade along with the risk which may occur during the planned upgrade. A business analyst acts as a bridge between a business/client and the technical team.
I have been into the IT Business for the last 13 years and got a wonderful opportunity to talk to more than 500+ clients to convert their digitization goal into reality. I am writing this blog entirely based on my experience of helping clients to onboard them on their digital journey. I was involved in designing technical stacks and doing end to end conversations with clients to understand their nature of business and scope of improvement. I would like to share my experience of the secret behind achieving success in this field of “Business Analyst”.
A good business analyst, first of all, must be a good human psychologist. Believe me, if you can read the mind and face of your client then you will probably win the first battle in comparison to your competitors. The journey of a successful “Business Analyst” starts from this step. You have to be prompt and quick with your answers to win your client’s attention. Remember that if you are not serving your client timely then someone else will do for sure. Frequent and meaningful communication is the key to keep the client engaged with you.
Client conversion becomes more difficult when you are communicating with clients via emails and proposals. Most of the initial conversation starts via emails not via calls, so you have to be more effective and educative while drafting emails or proposals. Your email should add some value to the client’s vision and also showcase the future projections. You can be more effective in email or proposal writing by following the practices mentioned below. I have listed the following practices based on my experience along with the help of my mentor Mr. Puneet Rao.
1. Client Profiling: The majority of business analysts do not take this as an important step but this is the base pillar. You must understand your client’s business before drafting the proposal/email. You should first understand the client’s business culture to adjust your language accordingly. For example, If your client is an entrepreneur then he will be more looking for a solution and its related expenses on priority, so your message should highlight this promptly along with the benefits of the proposed solution. If your client is dealing in the financial domain then he must be interested in reading about data security, data encryption, etc. Client profiling can be done by searching for the client’s LinkedIn profile, business website, news about similar industries, etc.
2. Competitor Analysis: The client loves to pay attention when you talk about his business success. Everyone wants his business to gain new heights and keen to know the benefit from upgrade which they are willing to do. If you talk while considering the client’s business growth and add value to their planned upgrade then you will be always on top of your client’s thoughts in comparison to your competitors. Businesses/clients also love to hear about what their competitors or would-be competitors are doing. Along with competitor analysis, an idea that may bring a unique factor to their solution will be a great eye-catcher. You can achieve this by doing some industry-based research and preparing the “WOW” factor list to propose and win the attention of the client.
3. Address the business case first: Your first four to five lines make the overall impact of your proposal. Clients love to read about your understanding of their business problem and the unique solution you propose rather than talking about your years of experience or your company’s experience only. Company and employee experience matters as far as it adds value to the client’s vision. So always share your project understanding and vision/expertise to solve the problem on priority to gain some brownie points.
4. Proudly Share your research: Don’t start writing immediately after reading the requirements. Sit, relax, and think about your unique selling point. Show your research proudly which you did to bring uniqueness to the solution. For example, if a client wants to add a CHATBOT to his call center website then you can gain the client’s attention by talking about the fact analysis of approx % of operational expenses he might save after adding CHATBOT. Always talk about the overall CAPEX (Capital Expense) and OPEX (Operational Expense) which your client can save by that planned upgrade.
5. Identify “Shows-Topper” features: A detailed feature list is required to define the scope of work but there can always be a “Shows-Topper” feature which can bring that “WOW” factor. Remember to highlight the “Shows-Topper” feature and its benefits in the overall solution. Your proposal should cater to CXO’s, COO’s of the business to influence their decision in your favor. They should understand and realize the benefits of working with you.
6. Show Relevant work: Relevant work can drive quick attention as well as a comfort and trust factor. Always include the relevant work you did before but never share that entire business case of that work. This may go negative for you because the client may not trust you as you might share his business case with someone else (possible competitor) in the future. So be a little cautious while sharing previous work details.
7. Ask relevant questions: Clients love to hear relevant questions. This gives them a feeling that you went through the requirement thoroughly and thought it from ground level. Remember to ask the questions only which may impact the scope drastically. A long list of usual/basic questions can also drive the client crazy and he might drop your proposal into the trash.
8. Break the Scrolling: A proposal with full of words cannot gain client attention for long. You have to work on breaking the rhythm by adding breakpoints in your proposal. Breakpoints can be added by including relevant images, quotes, or bullet points. Try to have 1–2 breakpoints on every page of your proposal to keep the client attentive till your last word of the proposal. This might seem irrelevant that you need to add a breakpoint to keep the client engaged, but this is true. Most clients never read the entire proposal in once, and they just traverse through your proposal and if they found something interesting then only they read it completely. So breakpoints prevent them from continuously scrolling and hold them to things that you want to highlight. These breaks are only to break the scrolling and not intended to break the overall rhythm of the document.
9. Identify Client’s nature: You can sense the client’s mind by looking at the requirements. Usually, if the client mentions fewer details in the initial message than he is quick on time and will not spend too much time reading lengthy proposals. So you have to create a short proposal with bullet points. If a client’s initial requirement is too technical then your proposal must contain a technology stack along with its benefit to win the client’s attention.
10. Keep it quick: You might find this like a JOKE because if someone will follow the above points then how can it be quick. Yes, I agree but you should engage the client quickly and ensure to have your name in the first 5 responses he gets. Remember that clients might receive 10,20,30 proposals and it will not be practically possible to talk to everyone or check every document. So the first impact is very necessary. You can probably draft your initial email considering point no 1 and 9 and buy define time from the client to revert with your detailed response. This will ensure that the client knows you when he receives your next email.
Apart from following the above points, you should ensure that your entire email/proposal must be like a story. Don’t add too much-scattered information in the email. For example, if you are talking about the business benefits then talk about that only, do not include or mix up other points in the same section.
The above steps can be combined in any shape to draft an eye-catchy proposal but there is still something very important to consider which is “READ IT TWICE”. Believe me, when you are writing in the rhythm you might not write in the best compact way. Reading it again will be beneficial to shorten the message and check the overall message it conveys. You should always try to reduce your initial message by 10–15% to make it more compact and highlight the sections which need client attention.
Finally, check the spellings and grammar to make sure your message conveys your thoughts clearly and easily.
Remember that there is no line drawn for a successful proposal as every client’s thought process might be different but if you will follow the above points in general then it may increase your winning chances.
Good luck, happy exploring, and winning.
