Posted by Jon under Musings | 
Picture the scene: my wife Vic and I are at a music festival. There are two stages; Keane (her favourite band) are headlining one, Oasis (my idols, the greatest British band of the past 15 years, her least favourite band in the world) are due to take the starring role on the other at the same time. Gallantly, I agree to go with her to watch Keane.
Within a couple of days, Oasis announce that they’re splitting up. I immediately gain numerous husband points, together with the best possible story to demonstrate my marital devotion: “I love her so much that I turned down the chance to see Oasis’s final gig.”
Relevance to proposals? None. But driving to see friends the following day, we found ourselves flicking between radio channels. BBC Radio 5 led its hourly news with the story of the break-up. Radio 1 – targeted at a rather youthful audience – mentioned it, but as the fifth item on their news programme.
Same story, different audiences, so accorded an entirely different priority. Yet how often do salespeople try and cut and paste the same Executive Summary from one proposal to the next, or experts regurgitate the same answers that they gave last time, or proposal teams extract content from their knowledge bases without a moment’s thought or tailoring?
Posted by BJ under Musings |
I was reading an article in the local newspaper today on white water rafting.
In it, a river guide with Still River Outfitters (who operate on the Still River in Vermont), Craig Commody, discussed the dangers inherent in white water rafting, safety issues. He emphasized the need for proper planning, being prepared and always keeping safety in mind.
He had a saying to help the people on his tours keep in mind preparedness and safety. He told them it was important to “Do the right things first and do the first things right.”
This definitely applies to our work.
If you get the pre-proposal planning, the initial qualification, strategy development and the planning right, most of the rest will fall in line. And paying attention to these critical areas will certainly help prevent problems that would arise if you don’t pay attention to these critical areas.
Posted by Jon under Musings |
Quote of the month. A lady who’d just taken a message from me for one of her colleagues checked my details: “Jon Williams, Strange Proposals”.
Yep, that rather describes the life of many a proposal professional – although I think we’ll hold off from rebranding Strategic Proposals just for now.
Posted by BJ under Processes & best practice |
A while back my buddy Mike P. of 24 Hour Co. gave me a copy of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (Dan Ariely, Harper), I found the information in this book so incredible and so relevant to the work we do I gave a copy of the book to the Jon and our directors.
The book demonstrates, through scientifically conducted experiments, that our buying decisions, and how we think about price and cost, are not usually rational and that often, the person presenting the price is actually manipulating how we think about these factors.
An example they give is for buying a subscription to the Economist. In the first example, the choices are:
| Option |
Price |
| Internet only |
$59 |
| Print only |
$125 |
| Print and Internet |
$125.
|
Which would you choose?
In the study presented in the book, when 100 students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management the results were as follows:
| Option |
Price |
No. of students |
| Internet only |
$59 |
16 |
| Print only |
$125 |
0 |
| Print and Internet |
$125 |
84 |
The book goes on to ask, “Suppose one of the options was removed?”
| Option |
Price |
| Internet only |
$59 |
| Print and Internet |
$125.
|
“Would the students respond as before? Certainly they would react the same way, wouldn’t they? After all, the option taken out was one that no one selected, so it should make no difference, right?”
Consider which one you would opt for.
The results from the book are as follows:
| Option |
Price |
No. of students |
| Internet only |
$59 |
68 |
| Print and Internet |
$125 |
32 |
As the book points out, “What could have possibly changed the students’ minds? Nothing rational, I assure you. It was the mere presence of the decoy that sent 84 of the students to the print and internet option.”
The book presents many more “irrational” decisions that are made regarding price and cost. Reading this book has definitely changed the way I think about pricing and costs within the proposals I develop. Like “Made to Stick” discussed in my last post, I highly recommend this book and suggest it be part of your proposal library.
