The deal you lose in October was decided in July. Not the proposal. The relationship.
The June 9 room kept circling one question.
On June 9 we walked through the four pre-RFP moves: co-creation, early access, committee coverage, pre-trust. The frameworks landed. Heads nodded. Then, in the back half, the same question kept coming up in different words: we know this, so why doesn't it happen?
The honest answer is uncomfortable. These moves don't fail because firms misunderstand them. They fail because nobody owns them on a normal week. There is always a live deal to staff, a deliverable due Friday, a fire that pays this quarter. The pre-RFP work has no deadline, so it loses every calendar fight to the work that does. That is the whole problem. The deals you should win get decided in the weeks you were too busy to make a single warm move.
Knowing the four moves is not the work. Running them on an ordinary Tuesday is the work.
The 60-day plan: turn four moves into one weekly habit.
You don't need a new system. You need the pre-RFP moves to survive a busy week. Here is the version the room left with.
Pick three accounts. Not your whole book. Three accounts you'd genuinely want to win in Q4, where you are not yet in the conversation. Write them down. This list is the entire program.
Block one hour, same time, every week. Treat it like a client meeting, because it is one. In that hour you run one move per account:
- Co-creation: send one piece of thinking that helps them shape the problem, not pitch your firm.
- Early access: ask for one informal conversation before there's any formal process. A reaction, not a proposal.
- Committee coverage: name one more person on the buying committee you don't yet know, and find the warm path to them.
- Pre-trust: make one introduction or offer one honest read with nothing attached. Keep no score.
Track one number. Not activity. Coverage. For each of the three accounts, how many of the seven to twelve people who will eventually vote do you have a real relationship with? Watch that number climb. When it crosses half the committee, you are no longer hoping. You are positioned.
That's it. Three accounts, one hour a week, one number. It fits inside a real job, which is the only reason it will actually happen.
Summer is the unlock, not the slowdown.
Here's what makes the timing almost unfair. The 60-day window for fall deals opens right now, in the season your competitors treat as downtime. While they wait for everyone to be back from summer, the calendars you've been trying to reach are finally open. The board member answers. The CFO takes the coffee. The line-of-business owner has an hour they didn't have in May.
That's next month's theme, and the through-line for the whole quarter: the summer nobody's watching is when the warm relationships get built. The firms that win in the fall aren't the ones who hustle hardest in September. They're the ones who used July, while the field went quiet.
Sit With This
Ten minutes, today. Open your pipeline and pick one account you want to win in Q4 but aren't in yet. Write the names of everyone who will touch that decision. Star the ones you actually have a relationship with. Look at the gap. Then book the first hour of your 60-day plan on the calendar before you close this page. The plan that isn't scheduled is the plan that loses to Friday's deliverable.
Featured Session — Replay
Winning the Deal Before the RFP · LinkedIn Live with David Nour
Missed June 9? Watch it before you start. The full session on the four pre-RFP moves, with the receipts. It's the why behind the 60-day plan above. Forty minutes, worth the hour you're about to block.
Coming in July
The Summer Nobody's Watching
While others slow down, you can build momentum. Next month we go deep on the season most firms waste: how the quiet months become your strongest quarter through alumni outreach, dormant-relationship reactivation, and the warm calendar that only opens in summer.
Save the Date: Relationship Economics® Summit 2026
October 12–14, 2026 · Pursell Farms, AL · 5th Anniversary
Five years in, RES is still the room where the most intentional leaders choose to spend their time. Not a conference. Not a networking event. The centerpiece this year is Lead NXT, an immersive leadership journey for the high-potential people your firm is getting ready to promote, and for the senior leaders investing in the next generation. Our goal: fully booked by August. We're tracking ahead. Don't be the leader who waited.
Register or Nominate → · Senior Executive Symposium → · Explore RES →
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The fall pipeline you want is being decided right now. Somewhere in your market this week, a committee is having the first quiet conversation about a problem that becomes an RFP in September. Someone will be in that conversation. The only question is whether it's you. Pick the three accounts. Block the hour. We'll see you there.
— Nour + the AVNIR Team
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