Jon and B.J.'s Proposal Blog
Posted by Jon under Word play & writing | 
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There are some talented people out there… One of our friends from APMP very kindly emailed us a poem that she wrote whilst at the conference last week. With her kind permission, I thought I’d share it here. I’m sure all of us who were in New Orleans will relate to her thoughts; other readers who watched aghast as Katrina hit last year will also no doubt find it thought-provoking and powerful.
Posted by BJ under APMP & accreditation, Musings | 3 Comments
Our presentation here at the APMP conference in New Orleans – ‘Two Proposal Managers Walk Into A War Room’ – proved to be a popular one, if the number of people who chose to attend this session from among the several others offered at the same time is an indicator. The room was, quite literally, packed (We collected 180+ feedback forms…and the room was set up for 100 people. And someone showed us a picture of people sitting and standing outside the doors as well!)
This is, of course, most flattering. It also suggests the ideas and concepts resonated with the conference participants. For those of you who couldn’t be with us, Jon and I put together a ‘collection’ of sorts of some of our favorite ‘war stories’. Each of the war stories illustrated an important proposal concept – the importance of understanding your audience, tailoring your message to staying ahead of the competition, planning and several others.
And interspersed among these were ‘The Top Ten Signs That You Might Be a Proposal Professional’. These were done in the style of Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian famous for his ‘You Might Be a Redneck’ routine. An example of out ‘Top Ten Signs’ is, ‘If you’ve ever maxed out a credit card…buying pizza…you might be a proposal professional. The comments after would suggest that our #1 Sign was the favorite with the people in attendance. (And of course, I’d be happy to share that with you…just send me an e-mail and I’ll put it in my reply to you. ;-)
The session was great fun to develop and present. And if the laughter throughout, the very flattering feedback – ‘Always entertaining, enlightening and refreshing,’ ‘Give these guys more time.’, ‘Always the best presentation of the conference.’, etc. – is any indication, the participants greatly enjoyed it as well.
So Jon, what shall we present NEXT year?
Posted by Jon under APMP & accreditation, Proposal training | Add your comment
The first full day of APMP, and the schedules have been packed as usual. My favourite session of the day was Martin Andelman’s slot, opening the conference. One particular slide struck a real chord. Martin bemoaned the fact that “Every company has spent time and money to get better at selling in person”, but that they seem to lack the same focus and effort at improving the way they sell in writing.
If I were a sales director, I’d certainly have proposal skills up near the top of the training syllabus for my team. Yet many proposal teams always seem to battle to secure funding:
“Have we run that course on ‘Keeping Your Desk Tidy’ yet for all the sales people? No? OK, well we obviously need to do that before we run the writing ‘Winning Proposals’ session.”
(Typical sales director / sales training manager)
It was also great to hear news of APMP’s continuing growth: membership is significantly up on last year. I was particularly proud of the UK APMP chapter, which has broken through the 200 members barrier for the first time. And 400+ people have attained qualifications to date via the APMP professional accreditation programme, led so impressively by Cathy Day.
Most of all, I’ve relished chatting to peers from other organisations. Conversations today have covered building new proposal centres in Canada, bringing together proposal teams after a merger, and the challenges of training an expanding proposal team. It’s truly refreshing to have a relaxed and open forum in which to share experiences and ideas with so many other proposal folks.
And then there was the small matter of our own presentation, “Two Proposal Managers Walked Into A War Room”. I think this defined the term “packed house” – I never would have thought that we’d have been able to cram 180 people into a room designed for 100 (and, presumably, neither did the venue’s fire marshals!). I’ll let BJ update you on the session itself in a later post.
Favourite comment of the day came from Sandy, who was helping us to devour the pack of Starbucks chocolate-coated cherries on our stand. “You realise they’re good for you?” she asked. We looked puzzled. “They contain fruit.” I can now indulge my new-found addiction to my heart’s content.
Posted by BJ under APMP & accreditation | 3 Comments
News update from here in New Orleans at the APMP conference -
Congratulations go to Jon for having been recognized by the board of APMP and given a ‘fellowship’. Jon is now among a very select few to have received this award (I think there are around 10 or so fellows* at this point.) This really is quite an honor and it is very cool that Jon has received this. When you next see Jon, do congratulate him.
*An interesting observation on Jon’s part is that all of the fellows, as far as we know, are indeed that, fellows, as in, men. I’m going to check and see if that’s true. We find this very interesting as the organization is not lacking for female representation and there are certainly a couple of women we can think of that we see as worthy of this distinction.
On a side note – I do hope this doesn’t mean we have to hence forth refer to Jon as ‘sir’ – and that Jon doesn’t start using terms like ‘hence forth’ and ‘my good man’. And, while he was obviously surprised, and truly flattered, by having been selected, I also think he was a bit disappointed that the awarding of this honor didn’t involve a sword being tapped on both shoulder and such.)
Posted by Jon under APMP & accreditation | 1 Comment
It’s the first night of the APMP conference here in New Orleans. The event is the flagship forum for proposal professionals worldwide, with over 450 people here this year. BJ and I will be filing reports from the frontline every day, keeping you up-to-date with some of the cool stuff that’s going on.
My favourite comment so far? Marsha stopped by our stall in the exhibition area:
“Someone just asked me what is my biggest challenge regarding proposals.
Easy, I told them: where to stash the bodies of the salespeople after I’ve killed them.”
She was joking (I hope!).
And for any readers who are here at the event, our first hot tip: the crab cheescake at the Palace Café (just across the street from the conference venue). APMP may be a busy event, but it’s a fun one too! Do stop by at the stand to say hi.
Posted by Jon under Processes & best practice | Add your comment
For me, one of the most important processes in the proposal lifecycle is Pre-Proposal Planning. We coined this phrase a few years back, to capture those activities that a proposal team should undertake prior to receipt of the customer’s RFP. I want to make sure that by the time that RFP arrives, our team is ready to rock and roll; that we’ve captured all of the necessary information about the customer’s needs and our competitive landscape; that we’ve influenced and conditioned the customer to expect us to win.
Chatting about this with one of our team members recently, I hit on an analogy. Rather like the baseball anecdote that BJ shared back on 16th April (which means nothing to me, being British: anyone for cricket, anyone?), it’s based on sport. (Actually, that might make it appeal to many salespeople).
Imagine your favourite sporting team, about to play in the biggest game of the year. For BJ, it could be the Yankees on the eve of a World Series; for me, Liverpool coming up to a European Cup soccer final.
The coach gathers the players together, 24 hours before the big match. “I’ve just checked my diary, and noticed we’ve got a match tomorrow. Anyone free – hope no-one’s planned a day out with the family? Tell you what, let’s meet up in the parking lot outside the stadium – say half-an-hour before the game starts? Not sure who’ll be on the team – we can have a chat about that once we get there. And don’t forget to make sure your kit is washed and ironed…. Oh, and anyone read the newspapers recently? I guess we ought to check which team we’re playing against.”
That feels an awful lot like many proposal teams approaching a big deal. Of course, the top-notch sports team would have planned immaculately: studied the opponents in detail, trained endlessly, chosen their best team, trained, practised their tactics, organised the logistics and so on.
It should be no different for a professional proposal team! Of course, the level of preparation should be commensurate with the size of the deal. But that’s no different to the sports club (where the youth side will probably go through the same routine as the top team, albeit abbreviated, and the coaches won’t necessarily be quite as good).
Posted by BJ under Musings | Add your comment
Received this from Marelene in St. Louis (she’ll be in New Orleans as well!).
Now, let me first stress that I am not the type that typically cares to receive ‘junk’ mail, let alone pass it along and ‘inflict it’ on others. However, every once in a while I get one that is both relevant and worth thinking about and passing along. So, here ’tis. Enjoy. (And try not to think about it TOO much…as it will probably just annoy you. ;-)
Cannibals in the workplace
A big corporation recently hired several cannibals in the interest of cultural diversity. You are all part of our team now,” said the HR rep during the welcoming briefing. “You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don’t eat any of the other employees.”
The cannibals promised they would not. Four weeks later, their boss remarked, “You’re all working very hard and I’m satisfied with you. However, one of our shipping clerks has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to him?” The cannibals all shook their heads no.After the boss left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, “Which one of you idiots ate the shipping clerk?”
A hand rose hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals continued, “You fool — for 4 weeks we’ve been eating managers and no one noticed a thing. But noooooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something!
