Posted by BJ on 9 August, 2007 under Musings | 
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?
Posted by Jon on 7 August, 2007 under Musings |
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.
Posted by BJ on 2 August, 2007 under Word play & writing |
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?)
