Pre-written content is a cornerstone of any successful proposal operation – and implementing an effective knowledge base can be a real “quick win” if you’re trying to bring about a step-change improvement to your proposal capabilities.

Richard Jenkins, one of our colleagues, joined a Pragmatech-hosted panel on the topic at last month’s APMP worldwide conference. As part of his preparation, Richard asked me to scribble down my own thoughts on do’s and don’t’s of implementing pre-written content libraries, based on our experience of helping various teams in this area.

Here’s the list I came up with – not particularly polished, but sometimes the spontaneous answers are the most interesting ones!

SIX DO’S

1. DO… Think carefully about what content to include - e.g. analyse Frequently Asked Questions; prioritise! Develop some clear targets/metrics (e.g. xxx records in place by xxx, xx% of answers in a typical proposal to be available - to then be tailored to this specific opportunity - from the knowledge base).

2. DO… Make sure you communicate clearly to content owners - what’s needed from them, when, benefits to them/others of doing this, plus ideally some coaching/training/guidelines in advance so that they understand what makes for effective content development. Listen to them, too, so that your timing doesn’t conflict with their busiest periods. It’s also key to communicate with the bosses of these subject matter experts, to secure active commitment from on high.

3. DO… Use the purchase of a good pre-written content tool as a “compelling event” to drive contributors to produce content by a certain date. (In extremis, threaten to “name and shame” them if they don’t contribute - e.g. include a blank record in the database with their contact details).

4. DO… Think “tomorrow”, not just “today”. That is, plan from day one to keep the content up-to-date on an on-going basis, and ensure responsibilities, resources, effort for this are clearly planned and identified.

5. DO… Provide professional proposal support (especially editing, but also for constructive critique of material) to help the content contributors. Much as I hate the phrase ‘red team’, why would you ‘red team’ stuff for a live deal, but not for your knowledge base?

6. DO… (We would say this, wouldn’t we, but…) Consider using outside support to “break the back” of the task of designing and developing the first batch of content - otherwise you’ll exacerbate the existing workload challenges for an already-overloaded team. The aim for the proposal team is to make your life easier, not to fill you with despair.

SIX DON’T’S

1. DON’T… Over-commit. There’s a danger that the CEO, or your sales colleagues, will assume that now you have bought the tool, all proposal content will be available from the system. At the touch of the button. From tomorrow morning. Manage expectations!

2. DON’T… Publish content to sales until you have enough robust material to make it worthwhile for them to use. (If they find a poor/sketchy answer the first time they go into the system, or if none of their questions is answered in the database, you’ll have your work cut out to convince them to come back).

3. DON’T… Publish poor content (such that you merely “write more poor proposals faster”) unless you are doing this very deliberately as a conscious tactic designed to free up time to reinvest into polishing up the material, with clear timescales and resources to do so.

4. DON’T… Ignore the pressures that content contributors are under – in terms of time (this may not be top of their list of priorities) and skills (they may be scared of writing the content - hence the need for support and coaching). They will need (and should rightly be able to expect) editing support, and appropriate lead times.

5. DON’T… Buy a tool that will dictate the way you run your proposal process, rather than adapting to your modus operandi.

6. DON’T… Under-estimate the time and effort needed to keep the content up-to-date. The one thing that that is true for any piece of pre-written content is that it starts to go out of date from the moment it’s published - time moves on, your capabilities and corporate messaging move on, press/analyst comments move on, competitors’ capabilities and messaging moves on, customers’ views of the market moves on.