When you’re writing, do you prefer to have it quiet or do you listen to music?

When I’m writing I prefer to have music playing. As I write this I’m listening to some old Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ (via headphones from iTunes on my computers as I ride the train into New York City). I actually have playlists on my iTunes that I’ve put together just for writing. My choice of music varies from heavy metal (Iron Maiden) and rock (AC/DC) to bluegrass (Alison Krauss) and folk (Cheryl Wheeler) and everything in between (Reggae, classical, soul, etc.) And I can see my pal Jon cringing as he reads this list).

I know others who find it difficult, if not impossible, to write if music is playing. I think Jon falls into this category (though interestingly, after all our years of working together, and sharing lots of music with each other, I don’t know for sure.)

So, do you listen to music while you write? And if you do, what kinds of music do you prefer while writing?

Another proposal blog that we enjoy is Laura Ricci’s. Take her recent post on “Comprehension vs legibility“:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch sudty at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.

As Laura comments:

Does this mean that spelling doesn’t matter? Not at all. Good spelling demonstrates a level of care and attention to detail that reflects well on the writer.

However, this research study proves that the human mind has an amazing amount of processing power. Your reader is thinking as they read. Keep your copy interesting and communicate compelling concepts and they’ll be thinking deeply about your message.

Deliver dull, bland proposalese, and they’ll be thinking about lunch.

Actor Patrick Stewart has received rave reviews for his performances in Macbeth and Twelfth Night at the Chichester Festival Theatre. I was hugely taken with his behind-the-scenes description of life in the theatre’s company, published in the Observer a few weeks back:

Mostly strangers on day one, the challenges of the play and production have made everyone bolder, braver, vulnerable, needy, self-reliant, co-dependent.

…By the time the performance begins we are connected, in tune, up, and the experience of each performance is shared, praised, dissected, laughed about at every break and when it is all over.

The parallels with the world of proposals - at its best - are uncanny. As one who’s long argued that proposals are primarily a people activity, I’d love to frame this and put it on the desk of every proposal manager. Yet how many of you could honestly say that your proposal teams buzz in the same way as Stewart’s company of actors?

Benefits. As a proposal professional, when I’m thinking about or focusing on benefits, it’s usually in relation to the customer and what they’ll get from the proposal I’m developing. Things like increased revenue, higher productivity and/or improved customer service come to mind.

But in this case, the benefits I’m focusing on are those within the 2007 Proposal and BD Professionals Survey (Thanks to Barbara Esmedina and all her hard work on this. You rock Barbara!)

So, as Jon wrote in his last survey entry, “Let’s dive into some more of the results, shall we?”

Okay. By now, most of you will have picked up on the fact that Jon and I, while obviously enjoying working together and way too often thinking alike (it’s not uncommon for people to tell us we’re like “an old married couple”), also differ in our style, approach etc. So, while I know Jon would approach the survey results with a proven methodology and a comprehensive, well thought through plan for sifting and sorting data, etc, I’m going straight to the good stuff. That being the “other” category on the survey.

In that category, the benefit that comes up most often is “telecommuting and/or working from home” (32 out of the 92 responses in this category). As many of us will have experienced, many of the functions of a proposal professional can be done, very capably and successfully, from a remote location (I’m writing this entry in a local coffee shop :) ) and it seems employers are supporting this.

Also showing up a fair number of times is “gym, fitness center, work out room, wellness center”, so it would appear there’s no reason for us proposal folks not to be getting in some exercise on a regular basis (right Jon?)

A handful of respondents receive subsidized lunches and retail discounts. One person listed “Really bad Christmas parties” as a benefit. Another listed “free lunch”. A tasty one (pun intended, of course) that I noticed was “A paid 12-weeks sabbatical after 2 of years.”

Okay, I upped the numbers on that last one a bit. It really said 4 weeks after 5 years… but it’s still a pretty cool benefit. And heck, I know lots of proposal folks who’d settle for half a day off after working ten 12-hour days without a break.

Of special interest to Jon I know will be “Bonus tied to winning” (this is a hot and ongoing [largely because Jon refuses to admit that I’m right] topic of debate between Jon and I.) Stats for “Bonus tied to winning” were:

• US, 15%
• Canada 23%
• Europe (averaged) 33% (UK 16%, France 50%)
• Asia Australia, sadly, 0%

Out of the standard categories we see that proposal professionals enjoy a fairly reasonable (in my opinion) set of benefits including health (92%) and dental (86%) insurance, paid vacations (95%), and sick leave (87%). The lowest percentage (< 5%) was seen for daycare as a benefit.

And my favorite of the benefits listed – “All the fun we can handle!”

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* 10 points if you know the name of TV show that made the title a well known and all too popular phrase - scarily so for awhile. (20 points if you can name the original host, 50 if you can name all 4 hosts. And if you can, well, then you’re watching way too much TV my friend! And for the record, I preferred Louie A.)

In the discussion of “tomatoe, tomaato” (previous post), Sandra clarified her question by saying, “I was just curious about your personal preference on what you’d like to see in a proposal.”

Ah but this sparks the imagination. What would you like to see in a proposal? Hmmm.

My first thought is a check for a very large amount (which I suspect is because today is “bill paying” day here in the office.).

Then what comes to mind is that it would be really cool to see document that had one of those hidden compartments wherein I’d find a sandwich (preferably a mozzarella cheese and sun-dried tomato on a whole wheat roll from ‘Cooking Matters”, a delightful gourmet sandwich shop here in Nashua, NH. And no, that’ not a plug for Tony and his team and their wonderful variety of sandwiches [15 mouth-watering items from which to choose] their lovely assortment of gourmet gifts which are perfect for any occasion, or the fact that they cater for any occasion, big or small (up to 125 people). But then I suspect this is due to the fact that it’s lunch time as I write this and it’s really just my stomach speaking without benefit of consultation with the knowledge experts up north.

Ok, how about this. I’d love to a see live videos of each of the team members proposed for the project, wherein they explain what they bring to the project, the value they add and how they will make this happen. A bit closer to reality I’d suggest.

So, if you had a magic wand and could see whatever you wish in a proposal, what would be on your list?

Time for a look at some the latest “Pet Peeves” in the 2007 Proposals & BD Professionals survey. I groaned with familiarity at more than a few:

• What is it about “send me the RFP as soon as you receive it” that somehow translates into “go ahead and sit on it for a week?”
• Salespeople who don’t show up for proposal meetings but still get the commission!
• “Drive by sales”, as in sales forwarding an email request from customer with RFP/RFI included before reading it, understanding the request, and scoping it first.
• People who think they know how to write (such as sales executives) yet exert their power to edit text they should not be meddling with.
• The response “we’ve already responded to this before”.
• Receiving RFP responses from SME’s that in no way answer the questions assigned to them.
• People who wait until the last minute when they know there’s a deadline.
• Lack of MS Word skills in those who use MS Word daily.
• Sales people who don’t send edits or draft inputs on time, and then expect you to create answers for them at the last minute.
• With so many proposal managers in the US, why are there still so many people… who have no idea what we do, how hard we work to meet deadlines and still view us as admins?
• When someone says “To make a long story short” they have already taken up too much of my time.
• People who think this job is easy.
• Sales Person: We must bid on this proposal. It is important that we appear interested even if we can’t win!!!
• Those who declare that govt proposals are SOOO much more complicated than commercial. They obviously have never been in commercial market!
• RFPs in Excel format!
• RFPs that do not clearly and succinctly explain the submission requirements…AND, RFPs received as hardcopies or scanned PDFs.
• Sales people that don’t realise how long proof-reading & final checking actually takes!
• That our database is not up to date.
• People who sit on your email requests and don’t even acknowledge that they have received it and will get to it when they can!
• Sales people who believe they have a “relationship” with a client after one meeting…
• People that expect you to drop all your other bids and work for them!
• People who don’t answer the question because they haven’t read the brief or have read the brief but think they are so special that they don’t have to follow the instructions
• People that can’t understand the basic rules for use of apostrophes.
• Using ‘&’ instead of ‘and’.
• Florida drivers.

I reckon I’m guilty of the penultimate one of those. And what is it with Florida?!

Whilst I’m on the subject of the survey, here are a few replies from the general comments section, which I wanted to reproduce as I couldn’t agree more with their praise for Barbara Esmedina, who’s running the exercise:

• Thank you for doing this.
• Excellent idea. Kudos to all involved
• An absolutely wonderful survey. Thank you for all of your hard work and effort. You are appreciated!
• I am VERY appreciative of this as it make me feel connected to something larger … and given the lack of appreciation of this job, it is great to know there are other masochists out there too!

Although “The Proposal Guys” attracts a lot of hits, we’re certainly not the only proposal-related blog out there. Another interesting forum is Jeff’s “Proposals are Chaos“; you may have seen its author commenting here from time-to-time.

Jeff posts an interesting selection of proposal-related comments and ideas. Some time back, he was blod enough to test the very assumption underlying his blog’s title by canvassing views on LinkedIn. Some of the responses were fascinating:

• The winner doesn’t find the RFP chaotic, because they’ve developed enough of a relationship and understanding of the customer’s organization to read between the lines of the RFP.
• When at IBM, we would not answer most RFPs. The effort was huge, the cost staggering and the outcome very unpredictable. Answering RFPs is not a good way to do business.
• Not to be blunt, but if you’re answering RFPs you either enjoy getting whipped as a provider of commodities, or you’re not marketing yourself very well. Your marketing should lead you to a dialog among decision makers that leads to a tailored proposal and a solid Work Plan, rather than a rigid RFP process.

To my mind, there are a couple of cases when responding to an RFP is most certainly not where you want to be. For example, if you’re the incumbent, ideally, you’d have seen off the competitive process before the client got near an RFP. Or if you’re talking pro-actively to a potential client about some new initiative, a good pro-active proposal would ideally secure you the business without a competitive RFP.

But RFP responses is a way of life for many of us in the proposal world- and it is certainly possible to engineer some radical improvements to quality and win rates. Of course qualification is critical – but don’t despair if this is how your market sector happens to operate.

One reply really depressed me, by the way:

• I’ve tried to streamline the proposal process many times, but getting an office of 300 to follow a set procedure is very difficult, especially when the professionals are much higher up than I. It seems like an unfixable situation.

Hold on. Proposal people are professionals. And it is fixable!

What do you think? I shared one somewhat quirky perspective earlier in the year – click here to read more!

A friend, colleague, “one-of-the-gang when we’re at APMP” (no names here but she’s works in the St. Louis area, is a very talented poet as well as proposal writer and she prefers NOT to be called “Sandy”) recently wrote and posed the question, under the subject/title, ‘Tomatoe, Tomaato?’:

Which would you rather see in an RFP response?
“…twenty-five (25) blah-blah blahs..” or “… 25 blah-blah blahs…”

I replied (copying Jon and our associates, knowing they’d have an opinion, and a strong one at that no doubt) using a style that I thought would bring a smile and which would hopefully evoke the excitement of an eager child in school (which is just how I felt, having just eaten a PBJ, which I washed down with a glass of pink lemonade.)

“I know the answer. I do, I do. I know it.
Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me!
Pleeeeeaaassse.
Aw c’mon. Let me answer!”

Sandra replied, “Okay BJ. You’re picked.”

I replied with (again trying to be clever. Jury’s still out as to if this was indeed viewed that way):

“The answer is….

(Wait for it) – scroll down

…

A question actually (scroll further)

…

With which style is the customer most comfortable? Confirmation/indicators of this would be the RFP, previous correspondence, website style, press releases or the best way. Ask them!

How’d I do Ms. Spooner?

Ms. Spooner replied with “Well done BJ, and here’s your Gold star.”

Jon then replied as follows:

“Not fair: the whole game got played overnight UK-time, so I was asleep at the time! (Being good like that, and not having to work on proposals until the early hours of the morning. This week, at least!)

I want a recount: I think I disagree with BJ. (BJ’s note: Big surprise that, eh dear readers?) There are no circumstances in which a customer is so stupid as to need reminding that “twenty-five” is actually the same as “25”. Even if they feel in their RFP that their bidders are so challenged as to need the extra clue.

Interestingly, this often comes up when I’m training purchasing folks. We see this “twenty-five (25)” in their RFPs, and I ask why they do it. They all seem surprised, then slightly embarrassed, then confess that they have no clue whatsoever why they do it. I think it’s probably just force of habit, picked up from spending too much time with contract lawyers – without stopping to think about the difference between the body of the RFP and the Ts and Cs.

Please, miss, can we blog about this exchange?!

So, here’s were the real fun begins. Game on. Weigh in. Let’s discuss, shall we?

We’re strong advocates of the school of thought that proposal skills are transferable. It’s not unusual for us to find ourselves working successfully in investment management one day, with an insurance client the next, combined with forays into logistics, travel, high-tech and other market sectors.

In our latest dive into the results of the 2007 Proposal & BD Professionals Survey, I was therefore curious to consider some of the differences between proposal management in different industries. I’ve focused on the three sectors that have the highest number of responses (Finance, ‘Healthcare/insurance/TPA/benefits admin/Rx’, and Technology (telecoms and computer products/services).

‘Turnaround time for RFPs’ shows that many of us are working to very tight response times, of ‘one week or under’:
Finance - 20%
Healthcare - 19%
Technology - 7%

A shade over a quarter of bidders are given two calendar weeks or longer to respond to RFPs, but this hides another difference in the Technology market:
Finance – 15%
Healthcare – 16%
Technology – 36%

Fortunately, well over half of proposals in Finance or Healthcare are sub-100 pages in length. Again, perhaps commensurate with the length of time given to respond, a higher proportion of proposals in the Technology sector are over 200 pages long:
Finance – 2%
Healthcare – 16%
Technology – 32%

Where do we work? Overall, 38% of respondents are office-bound, 12% of us telecommute full-time, and the other half of us work from home part-time or occasionally.

Again, though, that masks interesting differences: the Technology sector leads the way in remote working, with just 27% entirely office-based, versus 44% of those in Finance or Healthcare. This is presumably due both to the technical capabilities of the organisations concerned, and the shorter turnaround times for RFPs in the non-technology arena.

A third of respondents report that they have a formal qualification process in place to decide which opportunities in place. However, organisations in the Technology sector are far more likely to have a formal process in place than their peers in other large sectors (42%, versus 28% in Finance and just 18% in Healthcare). Thereafter, the most common responses were that the qualification decision rests with salespeople (26% overall), upper management (17%) or the proposal team (8%). And a scary 12% of respondents have no process and “just bid on everything”.

Some 81% of those surveyed report that they use a knowledge base of pre-written content. (I suspect that this may be slightly high due to the population who’ve been circulated with the survey details). What’s fascinating is that there’s very little variation in this figure between the larger sectors. And what’s scary is the 10% who report buying a knowledge base but not using it! That makes me wonder what proportion of the 81% have databases that simply enable them to write poor proposals faster – rather than a robust process for publishing truly well-written, strategically-focused, up-to-date material.

Survey results are still coming in, so there’s still time for you to add your voice if you click on the link at the top of this post.

The latest edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary has about 100 new words/phrases.

One of the words/phrases on the list definitely relates to proposals. The word/phrase is “gray literature”, which is defined as “hard to get written-material”. I think most of us can relate to this.

Also added was “ginormous” (a combination of giant and enormous) which also relates because it describes precisely how some of the RFPs we receive (and occasionally our responses) feel.

The new edition also includes a section on new words introduced in 1806. Words of note from a proposal perspective on that list? The words “unmarketable” and “deliverable”. (Do you suppose it’s a coincidence that these words were introduced at the same time?)