For this week’s dive into the results emerging from the 2007 Proposal & BD Professionals Survey, we’re looking at data around APMP (the Association of Proposal Management Professionals, in case you don’t know).

It suggests that APMP has some way to go in marketing itself to members of the profession. Less than a quarter (23%) of those surveyed are members, and only 15% have ever attended an APMP event.

The split of attendees by sector confirms my long-held belief that APMP needs to be much more active in the financial services sector. To pick a few market segments:
* 29% of those in high-tech roles (IT or telecoms) are members
* 22% of those in Healthcare are in APMP
* only 14% of those in Financial organisations have joined up.

Particularly scarily, only 1.4% of respondents have already received certification under APMP’s professional accreditation scheme. (That’s not a typo, by the way: only seven people from a survey of nigh on 500 have been accredited, and BJ and I make up two of those!).

The one glimmer of good news, and a tribute to those unpaid volunteers to do so much to make APMP’s events a success, is that 89% of those who have attended events in the past plan to go to more events in the future.

By and larger, the longer respondents have worked in proposal roles, the more likely they are to join APMP. And that links to one other interesting perspective – the remarkably strong correlation between APMP membership and salary:

Sub-$50k : 11% are APMP members
$50k - $100k : 23% membership
$100k+ : 39% membership

“Join us and make more money” has a slightly cynical ring to it, and the cause and effect might not be quite that way round! But does seem as if the professional association faces something of a marketing challenge – and, indeed, a tremendous opportunity for growth.

My all-time favourite worst-line-ever in a proposal (ignoring those involving proofreading errors) was in an Executive Summary that I reviewed in my purchasing days, which stated:

This is described in more detail in our quality assurance procedures, which may or may not be included later in this proposal.

As an example of breaching the rule that a good proposal should ‘read with one voice’ - in terms of both the style and substance of the content – this must take some beating.  

I was reminded of this a few days ago when I came across two of the most incongruous lines I’ve encountered in a long time, within the space of a couple of hours. First, an announcement over the tannoy by the staff on Durham railway station, as my early-morning train to London pulled in:

“There are no reservations on this train. This is because of earlier flooding.”

What?!

Later, I read the “Ethical Living” section in my morning Guardian, which commented:

Keeping a few geese seems to have gone a little out of fashion, which is perhaps surprising…

A little? Surprising?

I posted a piece on various signs a while back. In it a pointed out that some of the wording didn’t work for me.

Well, the glass shop I mentioned has redeemed itself in my eyes with their latest sign. It reads, “Come in for first-glass service”.

I like that. For me it works on several levels. First and foremost, it’s relevant. And then, it’s a clever play on words (and I’m a huge fan of puns…or as I like to call it, “being punny”). It also tells me what I’m going to get (First-class service) and it suggests this company is the number one or first of its kind (First glass service). Quite creative and effective from my perspective.

I approach proposal titles and themes the same way. I look to make them relevant, have them present the value and be creative. An example that comes to mind is a proposal submitted to the largest retail home/building supply store (I’m sure you know to which one I am referring). This was for technology but the real driver was increasing profits. Our title/theme? “Building Profitability”.

Time to catch up on some more results from the 2007 “Proposal and BD Professional Survey”. Well over 400 survey responses have now been received, and we’d strongly encourage you to add your input if you haven’t done so already.

This week, we’re looking at the issue of respect. Barbara Esmedina, who designed the survey, asked respondents to indicate: “How well-respected is your position within your company?”. Options were:

• My position is very well-respected
• My position is somewhat well-respected
• Not as well-respected as it should be
• Not really, no one seems to understand what I do
• Not respected at all
• Don’t get me started.

Here are a few snippets from the data as it stands at present (and remember, the final results may differ once more replies are in):

• Just 17% of those surveyed class themselves as “very” well-respected; 42% are (at best) not as well-respected as they think they should be.

• 73% of those in senior executive or management (supervisory) roles categorise themselves in this “very” / “somewhat” well-respected camp. (I wonder if they have the respect of their peers within the business in mind, or the people who work for them?!).

• But the figure drops to 40% for writers/editors – there’s presumably an air of mystique about their art!

• Respect varies alarmingly by salary. Just 40% of those earning under $50k class themselves as “very” or “somewhat” well-respected, compared to 89% of those earning over $100k.

• There’s remarkably little variation in the degree of respect by level of education.

• There’s a sharp gender difference: 66% of male respondents think they’re “very”/”somewhat” well-respected, 10% higher than the figure for females. (Interestingly, for those who wonder about gender balance within our profession, over 75% of the respondents are female).

Fascinating stuff. More extracts from the data next Tuesday, diving into some of the statistics around membership of APMP (The Association of Proposal Management Professionals).

We’re really grateful to R. Dennis Green - founding editor of the APMP Journal - for his kind words in the current issue of APMP Perspective. Reviewing our presentation, ‘Church of Proposal Excellence’, which he described as “an unforgettable hour of celebration and worship at proposal church”, Dennis commented:

“Conceived and orchestrated by APMP’s now-legendary funnymen, BJ Lownie and Jon Williams, the Church of Proposal Excellence proved an ingenious concept of readings, meditation, a sermon, stories, and hymns. There was even a spirited recitation of seven deadly sins. A collection was taken-not of money, but of takeaway lessons from the conference. Yes, there was a lesson or two tied to someone’s excessive revelry. But in greater abundance were the testimonials of best practice lessons shared.”

It’s great running these sessions; it’s lovely when our efforts get recognised.

Dennis is also a truly excellent photographer; earlier this week, he kindly sent us over some of the shots he took of the session, which we thought might entertain those of you who were there:

(Click on the thumbnails if you want to see the larger images).

That last one shows BJ and I fighting a boxing match on a Wii. Go on , BJ, I know you’re dying to tell everyone who won. (It does his ego good to be allowed the occasional victory at these things from time to time!!)

Those of you who are old enough might remember the title as the tag line for the show, ‘Name That Tune’. On the show, the objective was to recognize a song having heard the least number of notes. (Yes Jon, this probably was before your time though I am starting to think you might not be quite as young as you’d like to think you are. :) )

I think our job as proposal professionals has an element of the above to it. That is, we need to be able to present information using fewer, rather than more words. Sometimes this is stated (RFP instructions – “The Executive Summary may not exceed 1500 words”) and sometimes it is just following ‘best practice’ (Proposal reviewer - “Uh, I think this 35,895 word section on our company history might need to be edited down a bit.”)

The concept of presenting a message with the minimum amount of information came to mind today while driving when I saw a license plate with the letters “ZPTDODA”. Upon seeing this I thought, “It’s really cool that a person could present this commonly known phrase with only 7 letters.”

Now, I’ll admit it. I’m a big fan of creative license plates. And I’m fortunate in that I live in a state (that being the geographical type, in this case NH, as opposed to the psychological such as ‘denial’ - nice try though, Jon) that allows 7 letters on a license plate.

Some of my other favorites license plates are “10SNE1”, “NTDEDYT”, “O2BFIT” and one which was on an older Lincoln Continental (a rather large car for those of you not familiar with it) which was “DAYAHT”. Perhaps you’ve got a few of your own. If so, please feel free to post and share them here.

Each of these plates manages to express a word/phrase/message using a minimum amount of letters. As proposal professionals, I think we should keep this concept in mind as we edit our documents and seek to use fewer, rather than more, words.

Barbara Esmedina has kindly offered to let us share some behind-the-scenes results from her Proposals & BD Professionals survey, which I mentioned here last week. (Do spend a few minutes completing the survey, if you get a few spare moments!)

I’m fascinated by some of the answers that have come in so far to the question “Do you have a pet peeve?”. Here are my favourites so far – some that provoke anguished grimaces of recognition, others that just made me smile:

“People holding on to RFPs for days before sending through to RFP team to work on them.”

“Folks who don’t read :-) ”

“Sales reps that don’t read the finished product.”

“A resume that claims excellent communications skills and reads as if written by a third grader.”

“People who are: late, disinterested, lazy, unethical, immoral, social climbers, corporate ladder climbers and way more interested in themselves than you.”

“People who don’t SPELLCHICK ;-) ”

“I don’t believe peeves should be kept as pets.” (!!!!!!)

We’ll be posting more of the survey’s conclusions as people continue to contribute over the coming weeks.

In a previous posting I talked about the Hillside Su, a wonderful hotel in Antalya, Turkey along the country’s south coast.

As you might imagine, given my description of the place, the clientele at the Hillside Su draws a pretty upscale and rather attractive crowd. (For those of you who might not have had the chance to visit there yet, think the Delano in South Beach. And if you haven’t been there either, think any of the pool scenes on C.S.I. Miami.).

Poolside was a constant parade of beautiful women in very skimpy bathing suits. (There might have been some men, I didn’t notice.) As these women passed by, the people with whom I was sitting would occasionally make a comment; on that person’s figure, their hair, their choice of suit, etc. (Oh come on, admit, you’ve done, or at least thought, the same thing!)

As they passed by, on a fair number of the women, we’d notice the tag on the bottom of their suit would be hanging out. And interestingly, even if this was a strikingly beautiful, incredibly fit, perfectly suited (pun intended) woman, the errant tag immediately became the center of focus and topic of conversation. Try as we might to stay focused on the whole package, we were drawn to that silly little tag.

You get the connection right?

Barbara Esmedina mailed me a link yesterday to her fascinating survey, canvassing views of those involved in the proposal process. The findings will be presented at this year’s Pragmatech User Forum.

If you have a spare ten minutes (and, hey, proposal people are always short of things to do, right?), it’s well worth clicking through the questions, and then scanning through the current status of the results online. A couple of interesting data points so far from the first 100 or so respondents:

• Less than a third of those surveyed are members of APMP, the professional body for proposal folks.
• Of those who are in APMP, 77% get their membership fees funded by their employer. (Hey, that’ll give some of you some useful evidence for a negotiation with your boss today!)
• Only around half those surveyed regard their roles as ‘well-respected’ in their organisation.
• Nigh on 80% of proposal teams handle fulfilment (printing, binding, shipping) in-house rather than passing it to a specialist third-party.

Obviously you need to handle the data with caution, as the survey has only just gone live and the sample size is small. But do head over and add your own responses to what looks like a really thought-provoking exercise.

Charles Campion, the London Evening Standard’s quite wonderful restaurant critic, has just announced the winners of his “Great Menu Outrage” competition. Top of the list:

“Cured carpaccio and tartare of red tuna, spring onions marinated in sesame seed oil, tomato tartare with vanilla, yoghurt and Sichuan pepper ice cream”

“Fresh calamari linguini ‘blanco y negro’, black paella paint, candied garlic and lemony mayonnaise sponge”

“Cinnamon rubbed pork tenderloin cooked at low heat, pureed leeks, mangosteen, wasabi and rose froth, wild rocket and salty caramel”

Now, eating in good restaurants is something of a hobby for me. (OK, BJ, I know you think the word ‘addiction’ would be more accurate). And I have rather a loathing for the trend towards menus so complex that they read more like recipe books than descriptions of the dishes.

A similar challenge applies for proposal teams as they present their “menus” of options to the customer. How much detail do we include? Too little, we get scored down. Too much, we bore the readers – and get scored down. There’s the eternal challenge – a great proposal should be complete, comprehensive, yet concise.

As ever, getting the account manager to ask the buyer up front – “how long are you expecting our proposal to be”, or “picture the ideal proposal for us” - is no bad thing. And as a default to aim for, the praise one team I worked with recently garnered from a client sums up the ideal outcome:

“Your proposal was half the length of your competitor’s, but said twice as much.”

In the case of these menus, of course, the solutions themselves (the dishes) sound fundamentally flawed – and no amount of wordsmithing could have saved the day. Again, like a few proposals I’ve read…