Posted by Jon under Musings | 
Whilst we’re sharing dentist analogies, as BJ’s done in his two most recent posts…
Picture yourself sitting in the chair for a check-up. Your dentist poke and prods, reciting a litany of codes to his or her assistant. And then, at the end of it, comes the judgement: “All fine”. Cue floods of relief: but you’ve still just had to endure several minutes with no clue whatsoever as to whether the running commentary has meant that your teeth were in great condition – or that they were all going to need to be pulled out.
I think, talking to salespeople and content contributors, that they feel similarly about many bid processes. It’s as if the bid function has created a black art, full of meetings with obscure names (”Let’s convene a green-with-yellow-spots team”) and designed to keep everyone other than the Proposal Manager in the dark as to progress with the document.
Communication is key to ensuring confidence, here. And confidence breeds creativity, and a stronger will to win. Keeping our teams informed as to how well things are going – and de-mystifying what can seem a complex, fraught process, is surely a key to success.
Posted by BJ under APMP & accreditation, Proposal Guys news |
At the upcoming APMP Bid & Proposal Con 2012, to be held in Dallas May 22nd-25th, I’ll present several sessions. One of the sessions I’ll present is, “The Proposal Whisperer – Training Sales and Subject Matter Experts and Rehabilitating Proposal Professionals”. This session is an encore presentation of a session I presented at the APMP Noreasters’ annual Symposium, where it was one of the most well attended, entertaining and talked presentations at that conference. Part of the reason for that was my co-presenter was my dog Jack, whom I’ve mentioned in several previous posts, and he’ll be my co-presenter for the session in Dallas as well.
During this session I present the concepts and techniques I use when training and working with Jack. Concepts like respecting attention spans, playing to strengths, positive reinforcement and understanding motivators. Jack and I will demonstrate how we put these concepts into practice as he and I go through the many commands and tricks he understands and performs. We’ll even demonstrate how we learn a new command together and teach the participants how then can teach their own dog, or perhaps a co-worker, a trick or two.
Jack and I hope to see you in Dallas and that if you do attend the conference you’ll join us for our session. Woof!
Posted by BJ under Processes & best practice |
In a recent post I mentioned my having changed dentists (the one I’ve been seeing for years retired) and her using technologies and methods that are new to me.
One such method this new dentist uses is a scoring system for the health of my gums. Some of you will no doubt be familiar with a dentist probing “pockets” around each tooth. A pocket is an indicator of how healthy gums are, with a healthy pocket being very shallow and problem areas being deeper. My previous dentist would do this and then typically tell me I need to floss more often or pay better attention to a particular area of my mouth.
When I first visited her about 3 months ago this new dentist did such a probing and associated scoring. She then showed me the scores for each tooth and I was able to understand, tooth by tooth, where there were areas to which I needed to pay better attention. Having this information didn’t really cause me to change my dental habits. I was still pretty casual as to my flossing, or I was until my next visit.
I recently went to this dentist for my 3 month cleaning. She once again did a probing of the pockets. Then, on a spreadsheet she printed out, I was able to see, once again tooth by tooth, which of my scores had improved and by how much (these were in green), which scores had remained the same and which scores had gone down and by how much (these were, as you’d expect, in red). I was able to see both where I‘d improved and where things had worsened.
Seeing that I had made improvements (my score had gone up on about 6 of my teeth) and where I’d slipped a bit (my scores were lower on 3 teeth) was very motivating. I am much better about flossing and using my electric toothbrush. I’m working towards improving all of my scores and not having any of them in the red on my next visit.
I’ve no doubt you can see where I’m going with this as it relates to the work we do, right? Knowing the level of quality you’re submitting, knowing where improvements have been made, and where they need to be made, is motivating and causes people to strive to make improvements. I know this from my experiences with clients for whom we conduct periodic assessments and provide scores on proposal quality and capabilities. Those teams are always eager to learn the results of an assessment and use that information to formulate improvement initiatives.
If you’re already assessing and scoring both the quality of your proposals and your capabilities, then you know how beneficial this is and you are to be commended. If you aren’t conducting assessments and getting scores to help you know how you’re doing and what needs to be improved, you really should consider doing so. Hey, it got me to start flossing on a regular basis!
Posted by BJ under Processes & best practice |
I recently changed dentists (the one I’ve been seeing for years retired) and this new dentist uses the very latest in technology. One of the tools she uses is a an optical camera that allows her to show me, via a monitor in front of me, the tooth or area of my mouth to which she is referring as she explains what needs to be done. In this way I can see the same thing she is seeing and, rather than imagining what she means when she says, “I don’t like the looks of this older filling,” I can see it as well. Seeing the image on the monitor is so much more powerful than her describing what she is seeing.
It’s the same with graphics. Showing a product along with specs is certainly more powerful, and will be retained remain in the reader’s memory longer, than a written description. A process is much easier to follow when it is depicted as a flow chart rather than described. As Mike Parkinson over at 24 Hour Company has said during many a presentation, graphics, especially photos, provide realism and credibility and people retain the information much longer.
And as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Using an optical camera my dentist let the image provide me the information I needed. Graphics will do the same within your proposal.
Posted by BJ under Musings |
I suspect one of the many traits of a true proposal professional is a higher sensitivity to the use of words. Most of us will cringe when we hear someone say, “He (or she) is a good writer” or even worse, “I write good.” (I’m cringing just as I write that line.)
Other times the use of a word will be proper but not the best possible choice. One of these is the use of ‘right’ when ‘correct’ would be much more helpful. This happened recently when I was asking someone to confirm directions. I asked, “I should make a left here?” and they responded, “Right”. You can imagine my confusion (and I had an immediate flashback to that famous Abbot and Costello routine. I suspect that was before your time, Jon, and perhaps not as well known in the UK.)
Then there are those occasions where someone doesn’t get it quite right. I had three separate instances of this recently, all at the gathering (which perhaps says something about the folks with whom I was hanging out. :-)
The first of these was an individual relating his trip on a cruise ship. HE said he enjoyed it very much, with the exception of the multiple “mustards”. When I first heard this I thought he was referring to the condiment. After hearing him use the term repeatedly it turns out he was referring to the several “musters” of the passengers to get safety instructions, ship orientation, etc.
The second of these ‘not quite right’s was my overhearing someone stating, with great frustration in their voice, “I’m about at the end of my line.” (This caused me to picture them at the end of a fishing line or at the last stop on the train.)
The final such incidence was the person who described their manager as having a “Heckyl and Jeckyl” type personality. Again, it may elude Jon but many of our readers will recall that these two were cartoon characters (and not the dual personality character from R.L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)
I might have corrected these individuals, had I thought I could do so without laughing, and besides, it does make for a most interesting conversation.
This does highlight the need to do a “correct word usage” review of our responses before they go out. Otherwise we might be referring to a sage when we really mean to be speaking about the other kinds of prophets. :-)
Posted by Jon under Musings |
So many proposal teams are engaged by their sales colleagues to respond to RFPs. Their skill, their energy, is deployed reactively, against the clock, at a point in the bid process where the opportunity to influence the client is already significantly diminished.
So much more rewarding to be the proposal manager I was working alongside last week. Her sales team had identified an opportunity to capture a substantial piece of business – but the RFP wouldn’t be issued for a year. An initial meeting had been scheduled with the client; would she care to be involved, and could she offer any advice?
We chatted through some of the key questions they might want to ask, to understand (at a high level, at this stage) the customer’s key drivers for contemplating change; their view of the ideal solution; the competitive landscape (especially, their perspectives on the incumbent); the procurement approach they were likely to follow.
We talked about the potential for pro-active documents well in advance of the RFx, to try to short-circuit the process or (at least) influenced the client’s requirements and spec. I encouraged her to jot down key words and phrases used by the customer during the discussion: to start to live and breathe their environment. And I urged her to fade largely into the background in that first meeting – not to tread on the salesperson’s toes!
By the end of the discussion, I was itching to get more involved: to work on the campaign from start to successful finish. How much better it is for proposal folks to engage with sales in this way – rather than last minute – and how much greater the value we can add!
Posted by BJ under Musings |
Believing that I have a fairly good command of the English language (even if not spelling, right Jon?), I was quite surprised when I recently learned that a term I’ve always thought to be a proper English word in fact is not.
Upon checking in various dictionaries I found that the non-word ‘gullible’ either isn’t listed at all or is said to be a slang term.
Quite surprising.
