Posted by Jon and BJ on 17 August, 2009 under Proposal Guys news | 
… not that you’d know that from the torrential rains of the past few weeks here in the UK. We know that many of you are still chained to your desks working on proposals throughout what should be the vacation season – but we’re going to take a short “posting holiday” here at The Proposal Guys.
We’ll be back with our next post on 1 September. In the meantime, hope you get a chance to enjoy some summer sunshine!
Posted by BJ on 13 August, 2009 under Musings, Processes & best practice |
David Lebow of Highlighter recently recommended a business book – Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.* Thanks David.
I picked it up and found it quite interesting.
Having read it, I found many of the topics presented and discussed in this book apply directly to the work we do.
As an example, they present the challenge faced by the Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI), that being informing the public that eating movie popcorn cooked in coconut oil is very unhealthy.
As the book points out, the maximum daily recommended amount of saturated fat is 20 grams per day. Movie popcorn cooked in coconut oil typically contains 37 grams. The challenge then was getting the attention of the public.
Telling people that the popcorn contained 37 grams of saturated fat as compared to the recommended 37 certainly wouldn’t do it. Too irrelevant, too scientific, too blah, blah, blah.
So, instead, the CSPI used an analogy. Instead of dry facts, they put together a campaign wherein they presented that the typical serving of movie popcorn had, “more artery clogging fat than…are you ready?…a bacon and egg breakfast, a Big Mac, and an order of fires for lunch and a steak dinner with all the trimmings.” Well, as you can see, that’s quite different than the dry facts.
That’s just one example of how to present information in a way that captures the audience’s attention. The book contains many more and many other concepts that are applicable to our industry. I highly recommend you pick it up and make it a part of your proposal library.
*The book is real easy to find in a bookstore as, very cleverly, it has a piece of what appears to be duct tape on the front cover.
Posted by BJ on under Musings |
My dog Jack and I are currently attending “clicker” training.
For those unfamiliar with this type of training, this is a method wherein a device which makes a clicking sound is used to help let a dog know when they are doing exactly what the trainer wants them to do.
This method is like the game of “warmer/colder” that most of us played at some point as children.
The trainer wants the dog to do something, say, go lie down in a specific spot. The trainer lets the dog know he has a treat for the dog and holds it just out of reach. The clicker is in the other hand. The dog looks at the trainer. The dog might nudge the treats. The dog might perform a trick that it knows (or several in succession), which has resulted previously in the dog getting a treat. The trainer ignores the dog.
Eventually, the dog, initially typically out of frustration, will make some move in attempt to get the treat. If the dog moves away from the desired spot, he/she doesn’t get the treat. But, if he/she moves towards the spot, even accidently, he/she gets a treat, letting him/her know they are “warmer”. This is repeated, but the dog only gets the treat if/as they move closer to the desired spot. Eventually, the dog figures out just what the trainer wants and knows the desired behavior. The behavior is then given a name which the dog learns to associate with the behavior.
(In order to understand this from the dog’s perspective, my wife and I have even gone so far as to try to teach each other a specific behavior. The ‘game’ is initially quite frustrating, but playing it a few times, one quickly learns to think through the possibilities and learns each trick faster and faster. (I’ll leave it to you and your imaginations to guess at the tricks we were learning.)
What’s most interesting for me with this is that there is never any acknowledgement or correction if the dog doesn’t perform the desired behavior. There’s only a reward for doing something right.
Now, imagine if we all used a similar approach to help a member of pour proposal team, whether a subordinate, a colleague or a superior, learn a new skill or reinforce a desired behavior. Reinforce the positive. Applaud successes. Give treats when the person does something correctly. How refreshing would that be, right?
I’m going to try this approach on my next project, sans clicker of course, and I’ll let you know how it goes. And I’d love to hear from anyone out there who applies this technique.
Posted by Proposal Panda on 11 August, 2009 under Musings |
Made to feel part of the Amex Team
I was welcomed with open arms by the Business Travel Bid Management Team as soon as I arrived at their London offices. It was a bit chilly in the English Summer so they kindly lent me a t-shirt to warm up.
Brief intro to Business Travel
To ease me into Business Travel the team gave me some “lite” reading on the basics of Business Travel but as you can see, the jet leg (and delayed tequila hangover from partying in the US) and reading got the better of me and I had to just rest my head for five minutes.
Creating the perfect win strategy
The team soon woke me up and got me involved in a win strategy meeting where I got back to basics and utilised a SWOT diagram to determine a winning strategy.
Hmm, is it 'organisation' or 'organization'?
The team was working on some strategic global bids and the question arose as to the use of UK or US English grammar in a bid. I of course had my opinion on this but decided to seek some expert advice from the “Essentials of English Grammar” by L.Sue Baugh (McGraw Hill 2005). A fantastic book which gives a quick guide to good English…..written by an American….in American English ☺
Burning the midnight oil - comfy bed
The team had some challenging bid deadlines, so I pushed up my sleeves and got involved to help them out. The bad news is it turned into a very late finish but the good news is the team created a very comfy bed for me to rest in.
Global bid team call - motivational music
The team invited me to join their bi-weekly global bid team call and I volunteered to provide some motivational music by playing the guitar rendition of “Im so excited” by the Pointer Sisters which is the unofficial team song.
The award for best bid management newcomer goes to...
On my last day in the office the team presented me with the Best Bid Management Newcomer Award which brought a tear to my eye… before we headed next door to the pub to celebrate with some fine English ale.
Posted by Jon on 6 August, 2009 under Processes & best practice, Proposal training |
Early on when running a proposal, I ask members of the team to visualise success. If they all have a clear and consistent picture in mind of “what good would look like”, then the chances of them “doing good stuff” will be that much higher. The process should be less painful, too, as they work with a common goal to which they’ve each committed.
One team I worked with recently was struggling to get their minds in gear on this topic. We’d tried the usual tricks: we’d brainstormed, we’d used post-its, we’d visualised the evaluators reading the document, we’d drawn pictures – but to no avail: nothing really clicked.
So I tried an alternative approach the following morning. I copied the back covers of a selection of paperback books – novels and non-fiction. I asked the team to look through them and study their composition. A headline to catch the eye, a plot synopsis, an author profile and a few gushing quotes seemed to be the common features.
And then I invited the team to write their own perfect back cover for the proposal they were about to write. And it worked like a dream!
Yet I was minded to push the concept a step further. Most evaluation teams will produce some form of internal briefing note about each bidder’s proposal. That summary, it struck me, is broadly akin to a book review.
So, what if we asked proposal contributors to write a ‘review’ of the ‘book’ they’re about to produce – specifically, the review they’d hope would be written by the customer’s chief evaluator? That’d make them think about structure, style and story of the proposal they were about to develop – and might well unlock some fascinating insights.
Posted by BJ on 4 August, 2009 under Processes & best practice |
The stand-up comic Demitri Martin says, “I don’t have a plan B. My plans are numbered.”
The theme of the upcoming annual SPAC* APMP conference**, at which I’m presenting and will have a booth, is “Little Shop of Proposal Horrors: A Survival Guide”.
My presentation is titled, “Survivor – Atlanta”. This wasn’t a big stretch given the overall conference theme and the popularity of this show (one of the few I thing that hasn’t been parodied as Jon and I have done “Makeover”, “Idol” and several others at previous conferences.
During my presentation, we will look at some of typical (and perhaps not so typical but certainly possible) situations that one could (should?) expect to encounter while working on a proposal. For each of these we’ll develop a three level plan, borne out of my training in martial arts.
The approach taken by the particular school of martial arts I study (Kenpo karate, Parker school) calls for a three pronged approach. These are “avoid”, “disengage” and “engage”. Each of these is fairly self explanatory so I won’t say much about then.
- Avoid. Simply put, you avoid getting into a difficult situation in the first place. Be aware of your surroundings. Know where it is safe to go…and where it is dangerous.
- Disengage. If you haven’t been able to avoid a difficult situation, attempt to disengage. Walk away. Refuse to engage. Don’t answer that person back. Let it go.
- Engage. If you can’t avoid or disengage, then and only then do you engage. And when you engage, fully engage. With intent. Be focused. Use your training. Control your emotions and breathing. (“He/She who controls their emotions and breathing wins.”) Take command of the situation. (You’ve practiced for this and know what to do.)
For our proposal purposes these would be “avoid”, “contain” and “contingency” (ACC). Here too, fairly self explanatory, right? For any probable challenge, you can, given enough time, come up with a way to avoid it, contain it and or put in place a contingency in the event it can not be contained.
The analogy I use for this is “cows”, having once lived on a farm. To avoid our cows running free, they were kept in a fenced pasture. To contain them, in the event they break out of the pasture, there was a second fence surrounding the first fence. For contingency planning, we had a trailer and a pick-up in which we could go get the run away cow (yes, it did happen on a few occasions.)
I’ve worked with proposal teams and developed “ACC” plans. These have proved very useful in allowing us to develop and submit a high-impact, high-quality proposal under tough circumstances. (In fact, the tougher the circumstances, the more you need to do ACC planning.)
We’d love to hear form those of our readers who are already doing this. For what situations have planned? How has this helped you in your work?
And for those who implement this method, we’d like to hear of your success with it.
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*Southern Proposal Accents Conference. This is jointly hosted by the Carolina, Florida Sunshine and Georgia Chattahoochee Chapters of APMP.
** Friday, October 30, 2009. Cobb Galleria Conference Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
