Next up in our collection of war stories from our panellistas is Robin:

Favorite war story? Do I have to pick just one? Actually, I’m finding it challenging to recall as I often suppress such horrifying events - how else could I move forward with such a positive attitude and still come to work everyday? If forced to choose just one, this is my favorite… only because we WON.

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“I thought tomorrow we would…..”

This story falls into the “There is no such thing as a perfect proposal” category. I was working with a new sales person on a big proposal (potential of $40 mil in annual revenue) for a major health plan that we had been courting for several years. We had 30 days to respond! Normally this is a good thing. However, what it meant was non-stop work on the project for all 30 days - including weekends.

We had a good strategy that only changed 3 times throughout the process; a very dedicated sales person; we were selling programs that we actually already have built; and we were competitively priced. My challenges, however, were educating the sales person on the process, earning his trust and getting him to adhere to the established timelines. Despite these challenges, he is a great person to work with because of his dedication, attention to detail and appreciation. So, I carved out the 30 days, put my head down and worked full steam ahead, counting down the days until I could resume normal life.

The proposal was due on a Monday. The sales person decided he was going to hand deliver it and would fly out on Sunday afternoon with the precious package. According to plan, we would complete the final touches and production on Saturday. Therefore, I planned to unwind with a bottle of wine on Saturday night and do NOTHING on Sunday but watch football and eat chicken wings.

At 2 pm on Saturday, as the sales person lay across my desk and we were combing through the document making final edits, he had the audacity to say, “I thought that tomorrow we would……blah blah blah” - I totally lost him when he said those first 6 words. I felt my face get red and tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at him in total shock and shouted in a panicky voice:

“TOMORROW? TOMORROW? I AM NOT COMING IN HERE TOMORROW! I’VE BEEN WORKING WITH YOU FOR 30 DAYS STRAIGHT AND THIS MARRIAGE COMES TO AN END TODAY. IF YOU WANT TO WORK ON THIS TOMORROW, YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN. YOU COULDN’T BUY ME ENOUGH FOOD OR STARBUCKS FOR ME TO COME IN HERE TOMORROW. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT PROPOSAL - REMEMBER?? THIS IS IT, BUDDY!”

As the tears rolled down my face and my entire body shuddered from my emotional breakdown, the fear in his eyes was unmistakable. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Being the wise man that he is, he back away slowly and said, “You’re right, we’re just about done here. No need to come in tomorrow.”

That is the first and hopefully the last project that will bring me to tears. The work we did for those 30 days resulted in a HUGE win for the company. When the sales person received his first commission check almost a year later, he gave me a generous portion of it in ten dollar bills rolled up inside two Tiffany wine glasses. This was the first time a sales person had EVER given me a portion of his commissions.

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Other posts in this series:

War Story 1

Our latest panel topic asked our collection of proposal professionals from around the world to tell us their “favourite proposal ‘war story’, from personal experience”. Their replies were so enjoyable that, rather than edit them down into one post, we’ll post one story a day throughout this week. Hope you enjoy them!

Roisin leads the way…

Having spent my formative years in an organisation struggling with the value of Bid Management as a function, I struggled to decide upon a war story - not one that would make good reading, but one that I could bring myself to revisit.

I eventually decided that I would be brave - and relive the story that will haunt me, perhaps, to the end of my career.

It begins with two large bids for two separate sectors being run with submission dates four days apart. (Friday and Tuesday - for posterity). We shall call them Bid A and Bid B. Bid A was being run solely by myself in Location 1. Bid B was being run in Location 2 (without my consultation) by someone who knew a bit about Bid Management, but tended to ‘talk the talk’ more than ‘walk the walk’. Let’s call them Person X. Everyone with me so far?

Bid A went swimmingly - but due to its nature and complexity I was committed to it until the Friday - when the client changed the delivery requirements somewhat. No matter, it was handled; pats on the back all round, and off I trundled to Location 2.

Location 2 was my official base location, although I worked from home a lot (anyone who knows me knows it is a long commute), and having had several conversations with Person X, it was decided during the week that, having completed my contributions two weeks previously, I would come for the last four days ‘just in case I was needed’. Having made several phone calls on the train journey, I began to get an uneasy feeling that all was not exactly as it seemed. I arranged to meet the team the next morning (Saturday) in the office.

Having established that Person X would ‘not be working the weekend due to family commitments’, and had left no handover, just the understanding that I would be taking over, I quickly realized that the buck had been well and truly passed. Emergency discussions ensued, establishing that little was finalised, nothing was reviewed - and it had to be with the client in 72 hours.

How we got through that weekend is not important, but suffice to say it was long, arduous, and frankly, painful, but between us when it came to Monday morning (4 a.m.-ish) we had a draft fit for review. And off it went.

Person X came in at 1030am, wanting ‘to know what he could do’. I bit my tongue. At this point I should introduce person Y, who sits above Person X in the organisational hierarchy, and well, that’s about the sum total of their contribution, really. Person Y was present along with highbrow Management Consultants Z1 and Z2, brought in from Location 1 to help review. In case you haven’t worked it out already, this was a huge bid worth many million pounds. Z1 and Z2 were charm personified, very focused and obliging. X and Y did a lot of ‘networking’ that day, whilst I silently calculated the minutes until it was all over.

At 6pm the first reviews were completed and I began the task of updating the master document whilst the second reviews went on. X retired to the conference room on the phone whilst Y disappeared. Home, presumably. Z1 and Z2 were still present, as Person X had decided that since Location 1 was were they were to return to, and the client was within a fifty mile radius, that they, yes, oh yes, they - would deliver it, in order that we would not be working to the courier’s deadline. I expressed abject horror but was swiftly overruled.

By 11pm I had closed the document for further contributions and all that was left was a final read-through for continuity, spelling, grammar, and readability. Any bid manager knows that this is no small task - the document was, incidentally, pushing 300 pages (plus appendices). Half an hour later, there was a commotion at the front door as Person Y entered, heartily back-slapping and pumping the hand of Person X, congratulating them for completion of the document.

Y then produced several bags, which he announced were the ‘team’s reward for their hard work’. Fine, you think, thoughtful, you think. Except that the document wasn’t finished. So there I was, sat at my desk blazing through this document, while the rest of the office put their feet on the desks and cracked into kebabs and beer. Yes, you read that right.

I can honestly say that that was the lowest moment of my entire career to date. Part of me wondered if I was hallucinating. It was so surreal. There I was, tired, frustrated, and working against the clock, at my desk, trying to pull this bid together whilst there was a party going on around me. An actual party. I put my earphones in and silently begged for strength.

That’s about the end of the story, really. The party continued whilst I worked, then when they had eaten and drunk their fill Person X stood over me, chiding me for taking so long and telling me I was being too ‘picky’. If I was a less stubborn person, I’d have cried.

Z1 (who was driving) went to their car to sleep. Everyone else refused to go home, simply sat and waited whilst I worked, asking me at fifteen minute intervals if I was finished yet. At 2am we went to print, (credit to the team it was all hands on deck) and by 4.30am there were five boxes (the client wanted an obscene number of copies) packed and waved off. Person X announced loudly that they were ‘exhausted with all the effort ‘, and Y concurred, saying no-one should expect to see X for a few days.

We won the deal, incidentally. And when we got the news, full credit (and much more back slapping and man hugging) was given to X for doing such a fantastic job managing the bid.

I resigned not long after.

After not having been for some time, I finally managed to get out on the slopes here in NH and get in some snowboarding. My previous outing had been at Whistler in British Columbia last year. In Whistler, the snow had been very deep and my board had been set up for the conditions. Here in NH, the snow was good but nowhere near as deep as at Whistler.On my first run my board didn’t feel right and I realized immediately that it was still set up for deep powder and I was now riding on packed snow with just a light covering.

For those of you who aren’t snowboarders, a snowboard is adjusted for different conditions by moving the bindings forward or backwards on the board. (The bindings are typically set further back when the snow is deeper.) On my board, this is done by removing 6 screws, moving the binding and then reinserting the 6 screws. Doing this necessitates unbuckling the bindings and unhooking the safety leash and stepping out of the bindings, finding a flat area in which to work, removing my gloves, getting out the screw driver out of my pack and finally doing the work. On a good day, it takes about 5 minutes or so. When it’s cold and windy and my fingers are numb and screws get dropped and the screw holes are full of ice it can take what seems like forever. It also cuts into riding time.

I should mention that on this particular day the temperature was around 14°F (10° C for our European friends) and the wind was blowing at about 20+mph. I definitely was not looking forward to spending time in the cold and the wind, sans gloves, making adjustments.

I stopped after my first run and made a pretty significant adjustment to the placement of the bindings, moving both the front and rear bindings forward about 1 ½ inches. It took about 10 minutes and my hands were pretty cold when I was done. I then took a run.

The board rode better but it was still not right. Despite not wanting to go through all that again, I reluctantly stopped again after my second run and again adjusted the bindings. But this time I moved only the rear binding, bringing it back ½ inch. This time went a bit quicker but as my fingers were already cold, they were now near frozen and I had to retreat to the lodge to allow them to thaw out. (And yeah, it would be nice if they allowed making adjustments inside…but they don’t.)

When I warmed up I took my next run and the board rode much better. I could feel the difference that the seemingly small adjustment made.

I took two more runs and the board was riding well…but it still felt just slightly off. So, knowing my fingers would get cold again and that I’d lose another 5-10 minutes of riding time, I stopped yet again and made what would turn out to be my final adjustment (yeah!). This time I moved the front binding back about ¼ of an inch (I also changed the slant of the binding ever so slightly. That did the trick as when I took my next run the board felt absolutely perfect. I smiled to myself knowing that stopping to make the final adjustment was well worth it, cold fingers and all, as the rest of the day’s riding would be so much better for having done so.

So, dear readers (and thanks for hanging with me here with this long tale) what’s this got to do with proposals? (‘Cause you know that’s why I related this story to you, right?) It’s this. Stopping to make adjustments, even seemingly minor ones, to your environment, your tools, etc, can make a big difference in how you perform and the results you’re able to achieve.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Gee, I wonder what kind of adjustments BJ means? Well, it could be anything really. It could be a big change, like finding and moving to space which is more conducive to your work. Or it might be getting a new piece of equipment such as a larger monitor (Ask an editor who has switched to a large (27″+) monitor how much easier it is to edit documents.) Or it could be as simple as changing the lighting, adjusting your chair, using a different pen or markers, wearing more comfortable shoes, or just taking a break when needed (those who know us will tell you that Jon and I are VERY big on taking walks to work through a challenging issue.)

Too often, I’ve seen people so caught up in getting the work done that they don’t or won’t stop to make adjustments that would improve their performance. The time pressure they are under often causes people to feel they can’t afford the time to stop and make changes, even when they know the change will prove beneficial if they made it. (And this is when someone typically most needs to stop and make adjustment to gain effectiveness and/or efficiency.)

I’m sure many of you have made adjustments - major or minor - that have made a significant difference in how you work and the proposals you produce. We’d love to hear from you have you share what you’ve done with your fellow readers.

We often swap anecdotes between members of our team, and one such note recently provided the perfect illustration of the importance of understanding the customer’s evaluation team before you start to write a proposal.

One of his previous organisations submitted an investment proposal to a major UK retailer. The document and subsequent bid presentation were packed full of advanced technical information that could only be fully understood by evaluators with detailed knowledge of the investment and pensions market.

Unfortunately for them, the potential client, being a relatively enlightened organisation, had invited trade union representatives to act as two of their four pension fund trustees. The bid team were unaware of this, and their slick suits contrasted somewhat with the orange boilersuits worn by the two truck drivers on the opposite side of the table.

Half way through the presentation, one of the union reps interrupted:

“Bob and I tried to read your proposal but didn’t understand a word of it. We haven’t understood a word of your presentation either… We honestly don’t know the difference between an equity and a bond. And we don’t really want to know.

I’ve promised that I’ll take the wife for a cruise when I retire in ten years’ time. If we invest our pension money with you instead of the other people who’ve presented, will I be taking her round the Caribbean - or will we be catching the ferry to France?”