Posted by Jon under Processes & best practice, Word play & writing | 
A while back, I posted the views of Sheilagh Douglas-Hamilton – a senior figure in the world of procurement – on the purpose of the Executive Summary.I was debating the same topic more recently with Steve Mullins, one of the gurus of the purchasing community. I loved his comments:
“The purpose of the Executive Summary? With passion, to bring alive the essence of the proposition.
The Executive Summary needs to present what about their solution and differentiation they can bring to the point of advantage for me.”
Here’s our recommended structure for an Executive Summary, carefully fine-tuned over the years:
Open by playing back the client’s requirements: create empathy, and show you understand why they’re doing this, the problem they’re trying to overcome (or the opportunity they’re trying to exploit) and the benefits they could achieve.
Outline the characteristics of a successful solution / supplier (clearly, slanted in your favour!).
Provide an overview of your offer (in appropriate detail, both from a solution and commercial perspective, ensuring that it hits all the buttons you’ve highlighted in the previous section).
Introduce each of the three or four win themes that will flow through your document, explaining “why you, why not the competition” – then expand on each in turn, with relevant proof points
Discuss next steps.
Posted by BJ under Musings |
You might have heard or seen the expression – “There are no bad dogs, just bad owners.”
You hear the term “Pit Bull” and what comes to mind? For many of you, I suspect the image that comes to mind is a very powerful, dangerous and vicious dog. We can thank the media for this, as that is how they seem to always portray dogs that are classified as Pit Bulls.
The term Pit Bull applies to several breeds of dogs – the Bull Terrier, the American Pit Bull Terrier and the American Staffordshire Terrier. All of these breeds are indeed powerful but they are not inherently dangerous or vicious. The majority of such dogs are lovable, affectionate great with people (especially children) and get along with other dogs and animals. These breeds are also tenacious, determined, have a high tolerance for pain and are not easily dissuaded from the task at hand, or paw as it were.
Any of these breeds will be well behaved and make a great pet if they get the exercise, positive training and affection they require. Without these, they are prone to being destructive (they love to chew and, thanks to powerful jaw muscles and razor sharp teeth, they can shred the average couch in under a minute) and to finding ways to get into trouble.
I know all of the above to be true based on my having raised and trained an American Staffordshire Terrier (His name is Jack and he is now 2 years old), having met many such dogs and their owners, and having done my research and home work. Jack is very well behaved, loves people, children and other dogs. He is well known and liked by neighbors and goes with us to hotels, restaurants, playgrounds and the beach. He’s also an ambassador for his breed with the local dog association.
Unfortunately, due to some owners mistreating such dogs and/or intentionally making such dogs aggressive (these breeds are often used for dog-fighting, a practice which is horrific and illegal) and the negative image presented by the media, many counties and cities have enacted or are considering “breed specific legislation (BSL). These laws ban specific breeds, solely on the breed itself, rather than on the action of a particular dog and/or owner. This is not fair to the breeds involved. Particular dogs that are known or have proven to be aggressive should be taken from their owners and rehabilitated. Owners who mistreat dogs should be fined or sent to jail.
So, I imagine about now, assuming you’ve read this far, you’re wondering what this has to do with proposals, right? Well, it occurred to be that I’ve been guilty of “position specific bashing” (PSB). I have come to realize that I have been treating sales people and/or subject matter experts (SME) as a group rather than individuals. I have made statements about these groups that only apply to a few specific individuals. I’ve judged the group based on individual incidences. I’ve been blaming the breed, not the person.
After all, not all sales people think they don’t need to be involved in a proposal effort or view it as a bunch of marketing information that is pulled together at the last minute and something which has nothing to do with winning the opportunity. And surely not all SME’s are late with every deliverable and are uncooperative. I’m sure many of you will have worked with sales and subject matter experts who understood their role, actively contributed and participated and who “get it” when it comes to proposals.
Further, I’m guilty of blaming the individuals rather than directing my attention on the real culprit – management. Often times it’s not the fault of sales and SME’s. It’s the metrics applied that drive them to behave in a way that is not supportive of proposals. It lies with management to ensure roles are clearly understood and defined and that sales and SME’s actively contribute and participate in a proposal effort.
So hence forth, no more PSB from me. From now on I’m going to adopt the philosophy that, “There are no bad sales people or SME’s, only bad management.”
Posted by Jon under APMP & accreditation |
My recent ponderings about the APMP Foundation Level qualification also made me wonder about the folks who get the highest marks in the exams at the end of our courses – not, of course, that we can ever share anything other than a simple “pass” or “fail” with candidates (a source of some frustration, to us as much as to many of you).
I guess the profile of the perfect participant would encompass some non-proposal attributes (inherent intellect, short-term memory, academic ability, exam technique, skill at revision) as well as your proposal experience – where a track record of managing proposal teams (rather than writing them all yourself!) within a more formal, defined process on which you’ve been trained in the past will certainly help. And fluent English is a big advantage.
That’s not to say that if all of these don’t ring true for you, you won’t pass; the overwhelming majority of those who come through the doors into our classes do. You just won’t be one of those folks who accumulate enough marks in the first two columns on the exam sheet (comprising 50 questions) to have reached the pass mark of 42 before we even score your final column of answers!
Posted by BJ under Musings, Processes & best practice |
I’ve come across a cool new application. The product is Hylighter, created by David Lebow, a most interesting person.
David created this product to manage comments provided by multiple reviewers when he was working documents that required input from literally hundreds of people. He found it impossible to manage the comments in a conventional manner and developed this product to allow him to review and capture the comments he received (necessity being the mother, etc.). David will tell you that the product allows for the capturing and capitalizing on the ‘collect knowledge of a group.”
For the purposes of the work we proposal professionals do, I think of this tool as “track changes on steroids” or a “revved up review tool”. Having played with this product a bit and used it for reviewing proposal documents, ’m extremely impressed by this product’s ability to simplify the review process.
We all know how much fun it can be to try to collect, read and then reconcile comments from multiple reviewers. Hylighter makes this much simpler, whether there are just a few reviewers involved or many.
The tool sends a reviewer an invite and directs them to the document which they are to open and read. The document has highlighted area (thus the name) indicating what is to be reviewed, areas previously commented on by others and other information. The reviewer then inputs his or her comments. These comments can be categorized, such a “typo”, “informational inaccuracy”, “non-compliant”, etc.
When the document is opened by the owner, he or she sees the comments in a categorized and prioritized table, making it extremely simple to understand the relationship between comments and to reconcile them.
I encourage you to check out this cool new product which is sure to change the way reviews are handled in the future and become a standard tool in the proposal process.
Posted by Jon under Musings, Processes & best practice |
My last post covered the views of our Proposal Guys’ panel of experts on the likely impact of the current economic climate on the proposal profession. I promised to share my own thoughts, which are broadly consistent with those of the panel.
Our business is holding up very well: we’ve never been busier. But we’re certainly seeing some clients who are starting to feel pressure – whether it’s on headcount, travel restrictions, or a general air of caution.
Here’s my own list of the likely impact on proposal centres – and hence some of the areas in which you might need to focus:
- A need for ever-sharper qualification – as clients use the RFP process as a tactic to benchmark their incumbent supplier, and as salespeople become more desperate (fewer opportunities meaning that they’ll be tempted to chase “anything that moves”).
- A greater need to protect one’s existing client base: hence a little more focus on pro-active proposals (creatively re-negotiating service levels, terms, rates and volumes).
- Similarly, a greater emphasis on pro-active proposals as sales folks try and target other customer’s accounts – seeking to create opportunities where the clients may not be initiating procurement processes themselves, and looking to exploit any competitors’ fragilities.
- An emphasis within those contracts that do come up for renewal on proven, creative approaches to driving down cost – potentially conflicting with internal pressures to increase margins as companies fight to stay profitable.
- Fewer contracts to be won; hence sales organisations realising the importance of the proposal process. Deals genuinely become “must win” when there are fewer opportunities out there.
- Fewer people employed in the business – hence the need for the proposal process to become even more efficient, and demands for proposal centres to become more flexible in regard to resourcing (i.e., potentially, to reduce fixed internal headcount and use more contract resource).
- The need for proposal centres to be crystal-clear on their value-add, role (beware scope creep as other departments contract!) and on time sizing (how many proposals need to be chased, how much effort needed on each, hence what size team is needed). Keeping close to your major sponsors is important – and now is not a time to be shy about singing your own praises by gathering good feedback and communicating it widely!
Posted by BJ under Word play & writing |
One of our readers (hey there Ruth and how’s things down South Carolina way? I imagine it’s a bit warmer than the sub freezing temperatures up here in NH) recently sent me what she called a “stump the proposal guys question.” (Jon and I enjoy the challenge of answering reader’s questions and would encourage other readers to submit questions.)
I had to smile when I read Ruth’s question, as I have a fondness for derivations of words, phrases, expressions etc. and Ruth asked, “How did Black Hat reviews come to be named thus?” Great question Ruth and thanks for asking. (This question surely would have won a prize if you’d asked it of the Big Professor*).
Now, I know the majority of you, especially any one who has taken the APMP Foundation Level Accreditation Exam as this question comes up almost every time, will know that a Black Hat review is one in which the strengths and weaknesses of your offer and position are reviewed against those of the probable competition.
As to how a review of this information came to be referred to as a Black Hat review, I’m pretty sure I know the answer. However, before I confirm my answer, with Ruth’s permission, I wanted to first pose the question to our reader’s, as I suspect a few of you (especially our good friend Jay Herther, government proposal guru that he is) will have the correct answer.
Once we’ve heard from a few readers, Jon and I will confirm the answers and offer comment.
* The Big Professor was a character on a children’s show – the Sandy Becker show – seen in NY in the 60’s (way before your time Jon). Viewers could submit questions and if the professor deemed them worthy, would win a prize. A cousin of mine won a prize for the question, “What makes popcorn pop.”)
Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel |
We’re pleased to say that, after a short break, our Proposal Guys panel is back. The latest question we posed to our team of proposal professionals around the world was based on some of the challenges that organisations are facing at the moment:
What will be the impact of the current economic climate on the proposal profession?
Let’s start with Roisin:
When I first read the question, my thoughts immediately turned to negativity, the reduction in the numbers of tenders coming through, the decisions put on ‘hold’ and the restrictions placed on budgets. I braced myself to write something suitably gloomy, but in a call to discuss new proposal templates, I realised that in fact, with the shift within businesses from ‘nice to win’ to ‘must win’, it has actually brought improvements to my role as a Bid Manager.
Speaking from personal experience, opportunities are being qualified harder, with management increasingly reluctant to waste resources on proposals… Focus on and visibility of the proposals that do pass the vetting process has increased, with Senior Management taking more and more interest in what goes on at a lower level.
At this lower level, focus on best practice has also increased. Bid teams and Senior Management are more and more receptive to the nuances and idiosyncrasies of best practice within proposals, more ‘interested’ in the tips and tricks that will help us to gain marks (and of course lose marks) at evaluation.
Lesa added an interesting perspective:
“I think the impacts will be different based on industry and where your company is from a price perspective. For example, if you’re the highest priced solution in your market, then I think a lot of your existing customers will probably go out to bid to shop the market for a less expensive solution, so you’ll see an increase in RFP volume.
If your company is at the lower end of the price spectrum for your product, I’d guess you might see a decrease in RFP volume… Going out to bid can be expensive especially if a broker or consultant is involved, so companies that feel they already have a good product at a good price will likely not expend time, energy and resources going out to bid.”
At the same time, she foresees procurement people getting ever-more involved in purchase decisions, which could “further ‘commoditize’ a lot of products/services that really shouldn’t be viewed as a commodity” and result in “more online RFPs, auctions, spreadsheets, etc.”
Barbara believes that “it will be a very good time for RFP professionals”. She and colleagues in other businesses have actually “noticed an increase in RFPs: the worse the economy got, the more RFPs. No one has entered their normal slow season yet.”
For individuals, as a result, “the job market for RFP professionals in general will be very good. It would be a good time to learn a new industry, brush up your skills, get your APMP certification, update your resume. This is a good time to advance our profession as a whole. No one is going to be able to do business without us in this climate.”
Efficiency matters, too: “I think RFP software skills will also become more important as companies are required to do more with less people. Automation tools will be in demand.”
Talking of automation tools, Dave (from Sant) has noticed “much more scrutiny over any expenditure (preserving cash is of paramount importance)… but on the whole we are not seeing proposal related investments being cancelled on the basis that winning more (or indeed any) business is more critical than ever. Both the vendors and the business sponsors are having to work much harder to quantify benefits to justify any investment.”
He echoes Barbara’s point on efficiency. “The proposal team’s effectiveness is a key element to supporting this goal. Headcount freezes are now common-place, so proposal teams are expected to do more with the same or less resource. Therefore anything that addresses productivity is being viewed favourably.”
I’ll add a few thoughts of my own in my next post; your own comments – as ever – are always welcome here, or by email. What impact are you seeing? Are you being crunched?
