In the cartoon above, the concept of “luke warm” is clear to Adam. He knows exactly what he means. Yet, this term is easily misinterpreted the coffee guy (I refuse to refer to him as a Barista, no matter how much Starbuck’s wishes I would.)

I have no doubt this kind of confusion happens quite often with information that is presented within a proposal. And idea that is simple, straight forward and clear to a knowledge expert can be interpreted to mean something entirely different by the person reviewing the response.

* For you baby boomers, music fans and Robin D. and Jeff E….10 points if you know which band did the song by that title. 20 points extra is you know the lead singer’s name.

I was rather surprised to read the following within an article about an assault in the paper this morning.

“The couple, terrified to learn (person’s name) was packing heat, then managed to talk him into going to sleep.”

Do you really suppose this couple thought, “Oh no, he’s packing heat!” I suspect they might have thought, “He’s got a gun!” or perhaps, “He’s got a weapon!” but “packing heat!” why even Horatio* would be embarrassed to use that phrase.

Once I hit that phrase, I stopped reading. I suspect this happens when a reader hits phrase within a proposal that’s just a bit too cheesy.
* For those who aren’t aware, Horatio refers to Horatio Caine, a Police Lieutenant with the Miami Dade Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit. Uh…that is, he’s a character, played by David Caruso, on the hit T.V. show C.S.I. Miami.

An amusing debate the other evening discussed props that we use when running proposals. The usual range of items came out – post it notes, pre-printed flipcharts, laminated cards with questions that provoke debate, toys in the war rooms to reduce stress and engender creativity. I recalled BJ’s black plastic rat, brought out so that anyone in a session could wave it prominently should they feel that the discussion was disappearing down a rat hole!

And then I remembered my white pocket handkerchief, from my days running a corporate proposal centre. A team in a qualification meeting I was observing was poised to decide to ‘no bid’ a major deal, without adequate, objective debate. Rather, they seemed to bruised by recent losses to want to return to the battlefield – despite the fact that the opportunity was eminently winnable and deliverable.

Yours truly duly reached into his pocket and pulled out the clean, white handkerchief. Slowly and solemnly, I started to wave it in the air.

“OK, Jon, go on….” (The Sales Director was used to my maverick ways by now!)

“It’s a flag of surrender.”

“Pardon?”

I went on to explain that it seemed to me that if the team were to turn away from this opportunity, they might as well all resign and go and work for the competition. Soon, the debate was focusing on what the team could do to win the opportunity if they really put their minds to it; confidence started to creep back in to the debate; they were on their way.

Now, it’s not the role of proposal managers role to own the qualification decision. But we do act as coaches, as motivators, and we should never lose sight of the importance of this element of our value add.

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(If this causes you to “stumble” or a moment of confusion, imagine what doing the same thing, often several times, within a proposal does to the person reading and evaluating your response.)

I’ve been suffering of late from Jon’s Law of Inverse Technological Availability: “the less time I have available, the greater the chances of IT failure”. Our third panel post has been a little delayed, therefore, as I’ve fought off the gremlins. The challenge we posed this time to our team of proposal professionals from around the world provoked considerable debate:

What impact does the quality of the customer’s RFP have on the quality of the proposal? And what advice would you offer to customers to improve their RFPs?

Roisin seemed to sum up the panel’s frustrations with a wonderfully provocative response:

My mother often says ‘You reap what you sow’. And in this case, she is completely right. Any customer who issues a poorly constructed RFP is setting a poor tone from the outset. It will immediately sway the mood of the bid team who have to spend hours extricating requirements and compliances from a web of confusion.

First impressions count. That’s right, isn’t it? Everyone knows that. It’s why people practice their handshakes, polish their shoes before an interview, and so on…. So why, why, do potential clients think that it is acceptable to send a tangled mess of formatting, hidden text, and obscure questions?

If this is the issue, then the client should be likened to the small child learning to speak. The child knows what it wants, but the communication skills it possesses are not developed enough to clearly define it. The vendors are the adults trying to understand what the child is saying, trying to offer suggestions as to what it may be that is required…

Barbara picked out some specific frustrations:

Poor syntax would have the most effect, as we might not understand the question. Poor formatting, etc., doesn’t affect our response as we always remove the questionnaire and put it into our (beautifully formatted) response template.

In terms of advice, Dave offered four suggestions:

1. Ensure the questions are clearly written and applicable to the project.

2. Eliminate redundant or duplicate questions. Nobody likes to answer the same question twice! (buyers don’t want to read the answer twice, either)

3. Apply consistent formatting to the questionnaire. A proposal manager should not have to correct formatting and numbering in the original RFP document.

4. Allow the vendor to respond in Microsoft Word (or PDF). Excel and web-based RFPs do not typically allow the vendor to incorporate formatting and graphics in their response.

(Read on …)

Yes. Best practice does say that there should be a legal disclaimer, highlighting the confidentiality of the proposal’s content and how the information may or may not be distributed, used, copied, etc.However, if this is over done, it can leave the person reviewing your document feeling as if they’ve been put in hand cuffs.

Witness the following disclaimer from an e-mail received by one of our associates.

Only the company name and information has been changed. As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up folks. If you’ve seen one that’s even longer, send it along (with a generic name inserted, of course.)
——————————————————————————–

The information contained in this E-Mail and any subsequent correspondence is private and is intended solely for the intended recipient(s). The information in this communication may be confidential and/or legally privileged. Nothing in this e-mail is intended to conclude a contract on behalf of ABC Company or make ABC Company subject to any other legally binding commitments, unless the e-mail contains an express statement to the contrary or incorporates a formal Purchase Order.

For those other than the recipient any disclosure, copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on such information is prohibited and may be unlawful.

Emails and other electronic communication with ABC Company may be monitored and recorded for business purposes including security, audit and archival purposes. Any response to this email indicates consent to this.

Telephone calls to ABC Company may be monitored or recorded for quality control, security and other business purposes.

ABC Company Registered in the USA, the UK and Europe: Company I.D. Number: AW231953RTF390495SRDW, Address: 123 Any Street, Somewhere, State, 90454-39453, United States of America. Ship to address: ABC Company, Post Office Box 435-23432, State, 90454-39453. Phone: 234-567-8901. Hours of operation 8-5, Mon-Fri, EST.

www.anycompany.com
info@anycompany.com

This e-mail and any attachments are for authorized use by the intended recipient(s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential information and/or be subject to legal privilege. It should not be copied, disclosed to, retained or used by, any other party. If you are not an intended recipient then please promptly delete this e-mail and any attachment and all copies and inform the sender. Thank you.

I recently listened in as the person at the next desk led a two-hour approvals meeting, 48 hours before their proposal was due with the customer. I wasn’t being nosey - but it’s rather tough not to overhear when someone two feet away is bellowing down the phone line to a cast of thousands on the end of a conference call. It was depressing listening, as they argued about whether their financial model and implementation plan were too risky - with nary a mention of the customer or competition.At the end of the call, she put down the phone in frustration, and turned to a colleague: “They didn’t approve it. I’m going to have to cancel my dinner appointment tonight. We need to schedule another approvals board session tomorrow.” And then, to my amazement, she shrugged her shoulders and added: “Then again, I didn’t expect them to say ‘yes’.”

The whole episode served as a microcosm of what’s wrong with so many bid approvals processes:

- Why so late? A robust process secures in-principle approval early, so that the stakeholders understand the opportunity and their final decision is easy (”are we within the variables we agreed initially?”). Amending the proposal as the result of a late disagreement should be the very, very rare exception - not the rule.

- Why so internally-focused? If we’re testing whether the offer should be amended, doesn’t this need to work both ways: are we doing enough to win, as well as whether we’d be happy with the deal as it stands?

- Why so many people? “Hey, we’ve got nothing better to do: let’s go and make mischief on a bid”. You *do* want all those who’ll be accountable for delivering to stand up and be counted - “we’ll make this happen successfully when we win” - but surely there’s a cleverer way? Delegated authorities, anyone?

- Why so long? Two hours? To sign-off a simple, low-value deal for a standard product?

- Why so unsure? The bid team’s so lacking in confidence that it’s not sure its own management will support them. But the proposal will be fantastic and their bid presentation will ooze clarity and conviction, right?

So here’s the deal. If your final approvals process regularly results in you having to rework your proposal in the final 72 hours, forget what you were planning on doing next, and head straight for your Chief Executive’s office once you’ve finished reading. And don’t leave until they’ve empowered you to change the fundamentally flawed way in which you’re having to work.

Jon has often commented that the obituaries area great place to find brilliant writing. I’ve just read “BasketCase”* by Carl Hisassen (a favorite author).

The central character in this rollicking and quite novel novel, Jack Tagger, is a journalist assigned to write obituaries. Jack offers up as his favorite obituary,

Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolan
of Mauritius Dies at Age 85.

As the book reads, “This did not appear in a Dr. Seuss book, but in the New York Times. Maybe three dozen readers in all Manhattan had ever heard of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolan, but that’s what made the matter-of-fact tone of the headline so splendid-the dry implication that even non-Mautitians ought to have known who he was.”

I see this quite a lot in proposal content. Information that is obscure, arcane or familiar to only a few, strange and mostly socially deprived individuals presented I n a way that assumes those of us reading it should be familiar with the information presented.

When this happens it causes me to feel either –
a) I slept through much more of my schooling than I realize and I question why I’m not familiar with something that the writer thinks I ought to be.
b) The person presenting this information is arrogant, has no concern whether I, as the reader, understand what is being presented or both.

This is where a review by someone with some objectivity to the offering being proposed is so valuable. Ideally, the reviewer will let you know where you’ve presented information that might not be familiar to as many people as you hoped.

*Carl Hiassen writes what is termed Comic Thrillers. His books are filled with wonderfully eccentric characters and always have several intertwining, amazingly complex plots which always resolve themselves in the most unexpected and devilishly clever ways in the end. His writing is not great literature, in the classic sense. (The New York Times refers to Basket Case as a “Frisky novel” and Entertainment weekly calls it, “Fresh and Juicy.) His books fall into the ‘great fun, easy reading’ category. Not to be confused with “light and fluffy”, these are more irreverent, slightly twisted, warped, rock and roller type writing (in fact, Basket Case is about the leader singer of the Slut Puppies, so that should give you an idea.) If you’re sense of humor is just left of center…or decidedly so, Carl’s books will have you smiling from beginning to end. Enjoy.

We will be running software upgrades on The Proposal Guys at 8-10pm GMT on 10 March. The blog may become unavailable or otherwise unusable for a short time during this period.

If you notice any glitches after that, please write to Jon at the contact address above.

Ever stuck for ideas as to how you can build support within your organisation for the changes you’d like to make to your proposal capabilities? One trick of the trade that can help to build momentum is a very simple one - a stakeholder analysis.

Grab a flipchart - or, maybe, several large pieces of flipchart paper taped together - and draw up your map of those inside and outside your organisation who have a stake in what you do, how you do it or the quality of your results.

Start with roles (sales, finance, legal, delivery teams, content contributors, board members, staff within your proposal centre team, and more), then get specific with individuals’ names where you can.

The ‘outside’ angle is key to include: thinking about customers, partners, sub-contractors (and even competitors) can all spark interesting and useful debate. Humour can help, too - “the janitor who has to stay in late while we’re working on proposals into the early hours” has a stake alongside that Sales Director struggling to meet challenging targets for the year. Drawing pictures can also keep the exercise fun and engaging.

For each stakeholder, then ask yourself three questions:

1. What do they like about what we do today? (Start positive, and show that there’s a platform on which you can build. Improvement exercises mustn’t be opportunities to beat yourselves up).

2. What one improvement would they like to see to our proposal capabilities, and what benefits would this bring?
(Be realistic - even if you may struggle for investment, these priority areas should command senior attention. Asking about the benefits is really important, too, if you’re going to prove a case for change).

3. What would they like from us in an ideal world, and what benefits would this bring?
(Think greenfield sites, not today’s constraints).

Just taking it this far can be really interesting and valuable - a great exercise for a team meeting, for example.

A little prioritisation, before asking relevant stakeholders the three questions directly - especially if you’ve secured sponsorship for the exercise from someone senior - can then move things much further forward. As you chat to them or survey them, you demonstrate your enthusiasm to improve, and you start to get them personally vested in helping you to implement change. And a comparison between “what we thought” and “what they told us” can also be revealing.