Posted by BJ on 31 January, 2008 under Interviews and the Panel | 
Please could you describe your current role?
While at Medical Transportation Management (MTM), my official title was Director of Quality Management. However, I was also occasionally referred to as the “Proposal Witch”. I always preferred to think that people meant that in a good way. I am now happily retired and when I think about proposals, I recall them fondly. I suspect this may be a product of time away from them.
How did you first get involved in sales proposals?
When I started, MTM was a small but growing company where we everyone wore many hats. To capture our first real piece of business, we needed to respond to an RFP. I had a higher degree and enjoyed writing, so I was given the proposal hat. We won that opportunity and proposals became a part of my job description. Interestingly, we didn’t have any written job descriptions at that time and writing them also became part of my job description.
Any advice for proposal people needing to get greater sponsorship from senior colleagues within the business?
I firmly believe the only way to get greater sponsorship is to educate senior management. In our case, I gave a mini-presentation to people at various levels within the business – anyone who would be asked to contribute or whose buy-in we needed. During my presentation, I presented many of the points I picked up from BJ when I attended a conference which he presented. Many of the people to whom I presented commented that they had not previously understood the work involved to produce a proposal. They had a mentality of “it’s all done by elves and magic”. (BJ used this term during his presentation.) Sr. management needs to understand what it takes to develop, produce and submit high-quality proposals and not support the elves and magic mentality in order for the quality of proposals and the way in which they are produced to improve.
Every proposal professional has a favorite horror story of the proposal that nearly (or actually) went wrong. What’s yours?
When proposal writing was still a one man show (or woman in this case), we were working on a very large proposal. It was due the next day, tasks were overlapping one another and I needed someone to oversee assembly. Another management person said she would handle it. This person then left, promising she would, “Be right back.” She never returned. It was a mad scramble to pull everything together and while the people who came in at the last minute did their best to help, they proved the adage that “Availability is not a skill.” (Another apt term I picked up form BJ would say.)
It was a very long night and a nightmare from which I felt like I could not awake – total mayhem. The proposal ultimately went out on time, but just barely and certainly not in the manner for which one would hope.
What’s the single most successful thing you’ve done to improve your organisation’s proposals?
That’s an easy one. I attended a conference on RFP’s and met BJ. I knew we needed help so I looked for a proposal course and, though this particular one was intended for the financial management community, I thought I might get at least a few ideas and tips by attending.
As I sat there listening to BJ, I was like the cartoon character with light bulbs going on over my head. With each topic or idea that BJ discussed, I recognized the many, many things we could easily change to be more effective. Of course, once back in the office, the changes didn’t happen overnight. But over time, with lots of learning and BJ and his team providing support, the quality and the physical presentation of our proposals improved significantly.
The second thing I did was to build a proposal team. When selecting the first person for this team, I knew I’d found the right person when she commented, “I love working on proposals.” This person, Marlene, has gone on to become the Proposal Director and to head up the MTM team. Marlene also presented at last year’s APMP conference. As the saying goes, “We’ve come a long ways.” And I owe a lot of our success to BJ’s support.
How did you come by your belief in the importance of proposals?
Quite simply, all of our business was done by RFP and our revenue literally depended on our being able to submit the winning proposal.
What’s the worst (or funniest) proofreading error you’ve ever seen in a proposal?
I have seen many, and although I can’t recall one specifically, I have found several expletives which were correctly typed and not picked up by spell-check.
Posted by Jon on 29 January, 2008 under Word play & writing |
I posted a while back about a proposal-related question on LinkedIn’s Answers area. Another interesting question there wondered about words that are used daily in sales and business development that “immediately put us in a ‘one-down’ position”.
One Sales VP posted a lovely humorous reply which you might enjoy, about his organisation’s “‘Vendor to English’ dictionary”. Here are a few of my favourites:
“We are not a vendor, but a partner” = we are a Vendor
“This is cutting edge” = Beta Version
“Wow, that’s really thinking outside the box” = You are an idiot
“Our RFP Response is Pretty Comprehensive, It tells you who we are as a company” = I have no clue what you are trying to pull off so I threw the kitchen sink into our response
“We provide a platform” = we have two products
We’d love to hear any of your own examples!
Posted by BJ on 24 January, 2008 under Word play & writing |
If I were to play on a very old and simple pun (which many of you know very well I am not above doing.) I’d say, “I know all about Grammar. She’s my mother’s mother.”
While flipping through my well worn copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide” on Grammar and Style recently (yes, though my grammar might not show it, I actually do occasionally check how things are supposed to be done.) and I noticed a couple of things.
The first is that it’s possible to review the rules of grammar simply by reading the “call out” boxes that provide cautionary points. These are, in my opinion, rather cleverly titled, “Danger, Will Robinson”. (For the $64, what was the name of the robot who said those words? Hint- it’s from the TV show “lost In Space”. The boxes present the things many of us do that go against the rules of grammar and style.
The book also has several other types call out boxes. These include – “You could look it up.” (which provides a definition of the particular term), “Take my word for it.” (which provides fun facts) and “Quoth the maven.” (which provides hints and tips.)
I find these boxes extremely helpful, especially when I’m moving very quickly and don’t have time to really dig into the information.
I bring attention to these boxes for two reasons. The first is to point out their value when you need a quick reference for grammar. Two, to highlight how such graphic devices can help improve the ease of evaluation of your proposal and help get you the precious extra points.
And yes, I know there are, no doubt, a great many violations of the rules of grammar within this entry. But I’m OK with that because it’s a blog entry, not a proposal. I’m smart enough to have someone who knows and loves the rules of grammar edit my proposals.
Posted by Jon on 21 January, 2008 under Processes & best practice |
So, the client invites your team to come in and present your proposal. There are four slots available during the day. Given the choice (and you might not always be), should your account manager:
a) Beg to be given the opening slot
b) Plead to be allowed to present last
c) Not worry too much, but avoid the post-lunch siesta slot at all costs
d) Relax, put their feet up, and not care where they are placed in the running order?
I’ve discussed this a few times now with my good friend Grant Widlake, a friend whose an expert on sales processes, when we’ve been working on projects together. We’ve arrived at the following rule of thumb.
We’d go first if we were particularly confident of having the best story to tell (to set the bar high, shape the evaluators’ perspectives, and so others pale into insignificance in subsequent comparison)
However, we’d choose to go last if we felt it might be a closer race, since the audience would then be comparing us to the best of all of the previous bidders. In other words, we’d already (subconsciously at least) be down to the final two under consideration, the best of the earlier presentations having taken the other competitors out of the race. Moreover, any questions after the presentation might be more focused, giving us a greater chance of addressing any concerns that the evaluation team might have.
And we’d avoid the middle slots like the plague!
There’s some interesting academic research that’s tangentially related to the debate, though. I’ll post about it more in the next week or two.
Posted by Jon on 16 January, 2008 under Musings |
A friend related the story the other day of a conversation he’d had with the managers of two neighbouring – but very different – supermarkets. The boss of the more upmarket store explained to his counterpart that -
“When we run out of bread, our customers comment that they must get here earlier next time. When you run out of bread, your customers complain that your bakery department hasn’t done its job.”
I was struck by the similarity with account managers approaching proposal centres for support. In many organisations, it’s deemed fine for salespeople to turn up with an RFP having provided no advance notice, and then complain if the centre struggles to provide proposal support. That’s the downmarket bread approach.
Others recognise that this is a recipe for disaster: cost of sale is far from unlimited, and it’s vital that the proposal centre focuses on the best opportunities.
Sure, they’ll be flexible and responsive to their (internal) customer base. They may well have an infrastructure in place that enables sales staff to respond to simpler, less strategic opportunities without hands-on support from the proposal centre. But they’ll also have careful sizing and capacity models, a clear Service Level Agreement, robust qualification processes and a solid understanding shared with the sales team and senior management that “no notice may result in no proposal”.
Posted by Jon on 11 January, 2008 under Interviews and the Panel |
Our second Proposal Guys Panel topic challenged our ‘panellistas’ (comprising proposal professionals from around the world) to: “List the ten adjectives that best describe a successful proposal function”. BJ and I also took on the challenge, as did a few of our team. Here’s what came out on top:
1st
Organised
=2nd
Collaborative / co-operative
Creative
Flexible
=3rd
Accurate
Adaptable
Client-centric
Competitive
Dedicated
Detail-oriented
Diligent
Knowledgeable
Passionate
Professional
Strategic
Easy job this, isn’t it?! The full list ran to over 80 adjectives, So, the next time your boss asks why you deserve that pay rise, or that extra member of staff, or those funds you need in your budget, remember – it’s because to do your job well, you need all of the characteristics listed above, and you also need to be…
…adequately-staffed, adrenalin-junkies, amazing, analytical, appreciated, appropriately-utilized, capable, cohesive, commercial, committed, communicative, compassionate, competent, content-sensitive, continually improving, curious, determined, direct, disciplined, effective, efficient, efficient, empowered, energetic, energising, even-keeled, experienced, facilitative, first-class, focused, forward-thinking, hierarchical, innovative, inquisitive, insightful, inspired, level-headed, linguistically-aware, meticulous, motivated, motivating, optimistic, original, patient, perceptive, perfectionist, persistent, personable, persuasive, planned, proactive, questioning, quick, reliable, resilient, responsive, sales-oriented, sceptical, self-starter, skillful, structured, structured, team-oriented, team-oriented, thick-skinned, thorough, tireless, trustworthy, well-read, and winning!
I rather fancy getting those printed up on a T-shirt for the next APMP conference!
Needless to say, a few of the more cynical contributors added in their alternative lists, and one of the team kindly pointed out that “one man’s adjective is another man’s cliché” (thanks, Jeff!). I did rather enjoy some of the following:
fun-loving, humorous, incompetence-tolerating, insane, landfill-filling, masochistic, overly-optimistic, tree-killing, pizza-loving, underappreciated, weird.
What would be in your top ten? And are they a good description of how your proposal function really operates today.
Posted by Jon on 9 January, 2008 under Musings |
We’ve got a new-ish Spanish restaurant in Durham, where we live, which Vic and I decided to try for the first time the other day.
The staff were really friendly: mainly students at the local University trying to avoid sinking ever-deeper into debt. Our server handed us the menus, and explained the choices, describing the wonderful selection of tapas but noting that:
Unfortunately, the paella takes about 45 minutes to prepare. The chef has to prepare it fresh each time.
‘Unfortunately’.
So guess what we had? Yes, that’s right. With our love of fine food, why would we possibly go for the quick-to-serve dishes that they’d grab, pre-prepared, out of the storage jar, when there was a cooked-to-order option for much the same price? And as it was prepared fresh, we were even able to swap out the squid, which I hate, for some extra chorizo.
An interesting indication, this, of the importance of tailoring your story to the specific customer. No doubt plenty of their customers are after rapid refreshment en route to the pub; for them, “steer clear of the paella” would be exactly the right message.
Yet for us, on a Saturday lunchtime with a large pile of newspapers to browse, in no particular hurry to go anywhere? Why, the 45-minute wait for the chef’s special was just the thing.
