It’s always great when we can persuade a senior executive to drop into one of our courses to add their weight to the discussions. Hearing a Chief Executive or Senior VP discussing the importance of proposals - and offering their personal support for improvement initiatives - does wonders for the confidence of the attendees.Only, it doesn’t always quite work, no matter how carefully the exec’s been briefed. Take the following ‘praise’ offered to a group of proposal managers at a recent event:

“You guys do a fantastic job - I come up late at night and there you are”

Noooooo! That’s precisely what proposal centres should be trying to avoid!

When the security guard on the night shift drops by your desk to say goodnight before heading home - when success is measured in terms of hours worked, commitment viewed as a willingness to persevere with too few resources and an unnecessarily inefficient process - then it’s time for change.

I recently reviewed a list of countries from which readers have accessed our blog and found it quite interesting. Thinking you might enjoy knowing who else is visiting us, here are the countries from which we’ve had visitors.

As you’d probably expect, we’ve had readers from the US and Canada.

From Jon’s side of the pond we’ve had readers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden (presented in alphabetical order :-)

We’ve also had readers from Kuwait, Jordan, India and Nepal.

And from the other side of the world, we’ve had visitors from Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.

We’ve also had a dozen or so visitors whose country is not known to us (something to do with how they access the net I suspect).

Given that when I started out in proposals neither the worldwide web (aka – The Net) nor the APMP existed and most of us were “out there and alone”, it is most cool that the technology and the profession of proposals have come so far as to allow us to connect in this way.

*Yes, as many of you will have realized, this is a case of using the word “wherefore” incorrectly. As you know, the word “wherefore” is defined as “for what reason” or “why”. And it is often misused. Did you catch it? If not, perhaps you need to brush up on your Shakespeare.

You know how we talk about the need for a good title for your proposal - something (other than “Response to RFP”) that catches the reader’s attention, and provides a snapshot of the story you’re going to tell?

I guess the following newspaper headline, which I spied whilst wandering around Brighton recently, demonstrates the point. It’s arresting, and just makes you want to know more:

So, when you write your next proposal, remember: what’s your rat?

On the same trip to New York City that I mention in my last post, I went up to the Observatory deck of the Empire State Building. I’m originally from NY and have played host to many people visiting the city and this was somewhere around trip number 20 or so for me. However, I still find the experience of being that high above the city and the incredible view to be nothing short of amazing. And when the time period during which the construction was undertaken (it was during the Depression) and how quickly it was put up (would you believe 13 months?), it is that much more incredible and fascinating to me.

The whole experience was apparently lost on several of the younger people, ranging in age from about 13 to 18, who had made the trip up the 100 plus stories. They weren’t looking out over the city and enjoying the view or wandering around the deck reading the many posters telling the tale of how the building was constructed. Nope. Not interested. I’m sure many of you will have guessed already what they were doing.

That’s right, they were playing on their various game players, texting or talking on the phone and listening to music players…many of them doing all three simultaneously.

What’s this have to do with proposals? Bear in mind that in 10-15 years time, these same individuals will be the reviewers and evaluators of proposals. So what will proposals need to look like to capture their attention? Because if they are uninterested in or bored by being at the top of Empire State Building, you can bet that plain text documents with a few scattered graphics sure isn’t going to do it for them.

The oil company’s adverts that I spied the other day on the gates at Brussels airport read:

more energy. fewer emissions.
with technology, we can do both.

Yep, and with a decent proofreader you could even capitalise letters correctly, too.

Am I the only person pedantic enough to find this sort of thing incredibly irritating - and entirely counter-productive? I’m supposed to be impressed by their modern, innovative outlook - but end up thinking they’re pretentious fools. Or is it just that I’m not trendy enough to be in their target audience?

I was on a tour bus in New York City recently while hosting my wife’s 13-year old niece, Ilayda, who’s visiting from Turkey for the summer.

The people on the bus, as one would expect on a tour bus in New York City, were from other countries and didn’t speak English as their first language, if they spoke it at all. Ilayda, for instance, is just learning English, has a vocabulary of a couple of hundred words and can make herself understood, but is only just learning the language.

I was therefore somewhat surprised by the wording the tour guide used when he explained the need for people to be quiet. He could have simply said, “Please be quiet.” Or he could have stated this very simply with, “No noise please.” Probably the most effective way to convey what he wanted would have been to put a finger to his lips and said, “Shhhhhh.”

Instead, the tour guide said,

“If you must converse while we’re meandering through the city, please keep your conversations as brief as possible and to a minimal roar.”

Now I ask you, even for those who have a basic understand of English, what do you suppose the chances are that they’d be able to understand this person’s request?

No doubt you’ll already be making the connection to proposal content. The job of a proposal is not to impress the reviewers/evaluators with our fancy vocabulary and language abilities. It’s to state the information in a clearly and in a way that is easy to understand. As you’ve heard us say many, many times, “Keep it simple.”

Overheard in an office recently… a desperate account manager wandering from desk to desk, looking for someone who could help with content for a proposal due the following day:

“I need someone who can make it up, with just a hint of ‘techie’”

I was rather encouraged that, even in his moment of crisis, he was still sharp enough to want content that was written in a style that would appeal to the relevant evaluators.

For the proposal I’m working on at the moment, a very large public sector deal, the evaluation process is clearly defined. Within this process, price is the last consideration, not, as some people continue to believe, the first.The process steps for the evaluation of responses for this deal are as follows:

1. The proposal will initially be reviewed for compliance with the instructions contained in this Request for Proposals (RFP).
2. The proposal will then be reviewed and evaluated for technical merit. During this review oral presentations and discussions may be held. The purpose of such discussions will be to assure a full understanding of the State’s requirements and the Offeror’s ability to perform.
3. Offerors will be given the opportunity to correct deficient proposals, respond to written questions or provide written clarifications. Technical proposals will be ranked at the end of this process.
4. Finally, the financial section of each proposal will be opened and evaluated separately from the technical evaluation. After a review of the financial proposals additional and further discussions may be requested and held.

At least for this deal, it is definitely not “All about Price”.

I love it when a plan comes together - and love it still more when things work out even better than one could have imagined. Here’s a little tale…

About two years ago, we ran a benchmark for a major life insurance company’s proposal team. They were doing some good things - despite being relatively under-resourced and under-valued. But, as is so often the way, there was plenty of potential to improve.

With strong board sponsorship, we recommended that they create a new proposal centre - and helped them to build it. I spent a wonderful nine months or so acting as the interim head of the centre -recruiting staff, training the team, developing new processes, working with an agency to create new design collateral. Account teams were delighted; customes gave excellent feedback; their win rates soared.

One of the folks we recruited re-located across the country at the start of last year to take up her new role. As she settled in to the new office, she met and clicked with one of her new colleagues in another department.

We’re going to their wedding today. That has to be the loveliest - unintentional! - consequence of any of the consulting projects I’ve ever run. So congratulations to Jen and Paul, and all of our best wishes for your future happiness together!

I’ve been toying with statements that encapsulate the value that a Proposal Writer can bring to the subject matter experts who contribute proposal content.

One I particularly liked - probably to be used with senior managers, rather than with the contributors themselves (who might feel just a tad patronised!) is:

To make them sound more eloquent than they actually are.

On reflection, however, this may be aiming too high. Perhaps we should stick with:

To remove the need for them to be eloquent at all.