Posted by BJ under Musings | 
The US Strategic Proposal team was recently brought in on an effort that had been underway for some time and which had a proposal manager in place.
We were asked to come in and manage this effort utilizing the existing team and augmented in where needed. Part of the augmentation was to put in place a proposal manager from the Strategic Proposals’ bench. We did this very quickly and with little to no introductions to the existing team. In hindsight, we should have seen the problems this would cause. As you might guess, the proposal manager who was already in place was not happy about having someone intrude on his turf and was not thrilled to be working with the person we introduced. There was constant friction, questioning and tension between these two individuals.
As those of you who are regular readers of this blog will be aware, I have a dog (a 3 year old, male American Staffordshire terrier [aka- a Pit Bull] named Jack) and I am a fairly experienced dog trainer (having had several dogs pass the American Kennel Club “Canine Good Citizenship” test.).
On the morning of the day on which the post-proposal review was scheduled, I was out walking Jack and we encountered another dog and its owner. The dog was about the same size as Jack (about 70 pounds) and was an intact male. Upon seeing us, the dog lunged forward, pulling hard on the leash. The owner, in response, pulled back hard enough to cause the other dog’s feet to come off the ground. The owner continued to pull hard with the dog barking and jumping up and down. In the meantime, responding to my request for him to lie down and remain quiet, Jack was lying quietly by my side, though it was obvious by his wagging tail and wiggling butt that he wanted to say hi to this dog.
The owner was quite obviously fearful and continued to pull on the leash. And the more he pulled, the more aggressive the dog became, including growling and showing teeth.
Based on years of experience*, a good understanding of dog behavior and knowing how to read a dog’s body language, I suggested to the owner that he loosen the leash and let his dog approach Jack. He was reluctant to do so, but I assured him that Jack would be well mannered and that I was experienced enough to handle the situation. I directed him to keep control of the leash but not to pull back on it or tighten it unless I told him to do so.
He somewhat reluctantly and hesitantly loosened the leash. As soon as he did, his dog bounded over to Jack, sniffing him, and run around him. I told Jack to remain lying down for a moment and then, once the other dog had calmed down somewhat, I let Jack know it was okay to say hi. He immediately jumped up and approached the other dog. But Jack didn’t approach the other dog head on. Instead, he approached sideways, and attempted to sniff the other dog’s butt. The other dog meanwhile, as soon as Jack was standing, was doing the same thing.
The two dogs spent about 30 seconds sniffing each other, confirmed that they weren’t a threat to one another and then both dogs went into a ‘play bow’**, signifying their desire to play together.
When I attended the post proposal review later that afternoon, one of my first comments was that we had not managed the introductions of the two proposal managers correctly and that we neglected to allow them the opportunity to “sniff each other’s butts”.
*Only someone who is very experienced with dogs should attempt to introduce dogs who are not familiar with each other. There is a significant chance of a dog becoming aggressive in such situations.
**A play bow is a posture a dog will assume ― paws extended in front, shoulders lowered, head low, butt raised, usually with tail and butt wagging ―to indicate his/her desire/willingness to play with another dog. A dog will also indicate a desire to play by slapping a paw in front of them or by reaching out with a paw and touching the other dog.
Posted by Jon under APMP & accreditation |
Many of you will have read the news last month that David Winton, Executive Director of APMP, has taken the decision to step down from the post at the end of this year. As the official announcement from APMP stated:
David has been actively involved with APMP for the past 20 years, and has served as our Executive Director for the past 18 years. He has worked tirelessly to grow our membership and to increase recognition for our profession. Under his tenure, APMP has grown to more than 3,800 members in 68 countries, and more than half of the membership has achieved accreditation. He has successfully coordinated and co-chaired 18 annual international conferences, and many chapter events and symposia.
On a personal note, I’ll be extremely sorry to see David leave; he’s someone I admire and respect greatly. He’s offered marvellous support to me since I first met him nearly ten years ago – being wonderfully helpful to the UKAPMP chapter in its early days and since, and being incredibly helpful regarding the conferences at which we’ve presented and exhibited over the years.
The search is now on for a new Executive Director for APMP (and anyone interested should contact Kirste Webb). Whilst policy for the association is set largely by its elected officers, the Executive Director inevitably has a huge impact on APMP’s direction. Here are my personal thoughts on some of the priorities for the new post holder (and the Association more generally) in the coming years – building, of course, on much excellent work that’s already underway:
1. Grow membership. 3,800 is an impressive figure – but still represents merely a fraction of the bid / proposal community in any of the countries where we have chapters or members. Let’s set an aggressive, challenging, step-change target – say, to at least double it (or to 10,000) within four years – and build a clear plan to get there.
2. Grow internationally. March 2011 marks the tenth anniversary of the APMP’s first international branch. Nearly a decade on, the association’s roots have spread, with chapters in several other countries. Yet many of these international groups are still relatively young, and relatively small. I’d like to see real focus from APMP on growing these more rapidly – with strong financial investment if needs be. We also urgently need more realistic membership rates in countries where the cost of living is so much lower than in the US / western Europe, if we’re not to inhibit growth.
3. Run a non-US conference. Why don’t we decide that APMP’s main worldwide conference in, say, 2014 will be one of the autumn events held outside the US – e.g. an expanded version of the excellent event that takes place every year in the UK? The May/June summer event could still take place that year – but would be classed simply as the US national gathering for a year. I think that’d give a very powerful message about the association’s worldwide reach. (And let’s run the conference in, say, South Africa or India before the end of the decade, too).
4. Commercial focus. Clearly, APMP’s legacy is in the government / defense space – and I respect and value the pioneering work in those areas, which have largely shaped the way we view our profession today. But so many proposal teams work in such different environments – with response times measured in days and weeks, rather than months or years – that APMP needs to come to terms more fully with the commercial world, with approaches in this arena seen as equally valid as those in the traditional areas of APMP’s strengths. More research focused specifically onto this area may also help.
5. “Accreditation, mark 2”. The accreditation scheme has been one of APMP’s greatest success stories in recent years. Yet the current model draws on benchmarking data from a study nearly ten years old – at a point where the Association was largely US and government / defense oriented. That means that the competency definitions are skewed (and irrelevant for many who wish to become accredited) – whilst some of the syllabus feels increasingly dated. The competencies and questions urgently need updating; there needs to be a vendor-independent study guide (rather than a proprietary textbook, no matter how good that is); we need an exam in languages other than English. And the investment needed to make that needs to be generated and made available – surely not infeasible, given the revenues and memberships that accreditation has generated. Moreover, far too few members have reached the higher levels of accreditation (Practitioner & Professional) – progress in this area needs to be accelerated.
6. Financial openness. I’d like to see the Association’s financial accounts and plans published openly every year for all to review, along with a review of central spend versus monies invested back into local chapters. It’s tough for a not-for-profit organisation to balance financial robustness with the investments that we’d all like to see; letting members understand the finances can only help.
7. Exploit the website. How many members regularly access the www.apmp.org site, or really make use of the wealth of wonderful information in the APMP “Body of Knowledge”? I genuinely believe that there’s far more potential for the APMP website to become the focal point for proposal professionals – the daily “must visit” site for all members over their morning cup of coffee.
8. Focus on proposals. I know I’m fighting an unpopular cause here, but we’re called the Association of Proposal Management Professionals. The clue’s in the name. By focussing more and more on “business development”, I believe we’ve diluted our message and lost a degree of focus.
I’m sure there’d be other things on my wishlist, if I kept writing, but that’s enough for now. And I know I write from the luxurious position of being someone who’s served as an officer of the association in the past, but whose commitments mean I can’t take on elected posts again myself at the moment – especially in such a US-oriented organisation. But I’d welcome readers’ thoughts on the future priorities for the association, to assist the new Executive Director, whoever that may turn out to be.
Posted by BJ under Musings |
In the book “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” (C. Gallo), the author references two events – The TechCrunch 50 and DEMO – at which dozens of entrepreneurs are invited* to pitch their ideas to investors.
As the book presents, these are ‘high stakes’ presentations for the entrepreneurs, as they can mean the difference between success and obsolescence.
The organizers of both of these events allow very little time for the presentations. TechCrunch allows eight minutes, and DEMO only allows six. According to the organizers of TechCrunch, “If you cannot express your idea in eight minutes, the thinking goes, you need to refine your idea.
As the book points out, the consensus among venture capitalists listening to the presentations is that those presenting fail to create an intriguing story line and ‘jump right into their product without explaining the problem.”
According to one investor, “You need to create a new space in my brain to hold the information you’re about to deliver. It turns me off when entrepreneurs offer a solution without setting up the problem. They have a pot of coffee – their idea – without a cup to pour it in.”
The investors profiled in this example are buying into an idea. As such they want to know what pervasive problem the company’s product addresses. It is very similar for those reviewing the proposal we submit, they want to know that you understand the problem and they want to be able to quickly and easily understand how you intend to solve their problems/help them meet their objectives.
*DEMO charges entrepreneurs an $18,000 fee to present…that’s $3000 a minute! Imagine if a company putting out an RFP charged the responders a fee to submit a response – say $100 a page. I’m pretty sure that would drastically change how opportunities were qualified and both the size/quality of the responses submitted.
Posted by Jon under Musings |
I’ve long held the belief that an effective proposal centre is, in effect, a company’s main job creation engine. Win new business – and new jobs are created. Retain existing contracts – and colleagues keep their positions. Lose? Then your business needs fewer staff. Not that the stakes are high, or anything! (See, for example, my post on “Proposal Leadership” from early last year).
This was encapsulated perfectly in a recent newspaper article about MTM (Medical Transport Management). We’ve had the pleasure of working with Marlene Slusser and the MTM proposal team for the past eight years, and it’s wonderful to see their achievements contributing so directly to the company’s growth.
If you want to be inspired – to be reminded why proposals are so important – grab yourself a coffee and have a read. And then share the article with anyone in your company who needs convincing of the need to treat the proposal process seriously, and the benefits that can result. Click here to download the article (a one-page PDF), which is entitled: “MTM rides outsourcing trend to double revenue”.
Posted by BJ under Musings |
Several Strategic Proposals team members and I are currently working on a proposal effort. This effort was underway when we were brought in and had been in the works for some 6 months or so prior to our becoming involved. Despite having been worked on for a seemingly long time, not much progress had been made and much of the content had not been developed.
As we reviewed status on the project, we discovered what was slowing things down. We learned that the people who were responsible for the content – the subject matter experts. (SME) – had been given a format to use and asked to submit their content in that format The format consisted of various boxes on a page, each a specific size and designated for a particular type of content.
As many of these SME’s had little to know understanding of how to work within the formatting, each time they worked within a box, either the content didn’t fit or it would corrupt the format. As a result, they would spend as much, if not more time, attempting to correct the formatting as they did working on the actual content. They also often limited the amount of content they provided in order to make it fit within the specified box.
Recognizing that the formatting was what was slowing down the SME’s, we immediately issued instructions to have them work without the format. They were instructed to focus solely on the content. We asked them to identify which box the particular piece of content would ultimately go in, and we did let them know they should be as concise as possible, but we told them not to concern themselves with formatting. We let them know formatting would be handled towards the end of the effort and that it would be done by someone who was an expert at formatting. They collectively gave sigh of relief.
This simple change had a huge impact. The SME’s, no longer having to deal with formatting and able to focus solely on content, produced better content and did so much quicker.
Are you perhaps making the task of content development more difficult than it needs to be by attempting to work within a format, rather than making the formatting of your document a discreet step at a later stage in the process? If so, you might want to consider ‘working outside the box’ on your next effort.
Posted by Jon under Processes & best practice, Proposal Guys news |
The APMP conference in South Africa last week was the second major event I’d addressed in the space of a week – following hard on the heels of what, to my mind, was the best-ever UKAPMP annual conference. (Huge congratulations to Ken Erskine, France Campbell and the team for attracting 270 delegates to the two-day session).
During the event, we announced the winners of the UKAPMP Proposal Design competition, which we’d sponsored. There were several contenders for the award – including Arqiva, Bid Management Services, BidPerfect, Canon, Colt, DocumentGenie, Lloyds Banking Group and Siemens Enterprise Communications – and some truly excellent entries.
The prize was captured by Lloyds Banking Group – and Andy Lyons is seen here on the left receiving the trophy from Strategic Proposals’ Consulting Director, Graham Ablett:
The cover of their winning entry – a proposal submitted to Commerzbank – is below (reproduced with permission):
Andy also shared another of their proposals with us, and I thought the front cover of that one (to brewer Fullers – main product, London Pride beer – was even better):
Congratulations to all of the entrants. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a similar competition at the APMP worldwide conference? Perhaps I should chat to the organisers…?
Posted by Jon under Processes & best practice |
What do bidders think of buyers – and, particularly, of the RFPs we receive?
We’re currently conducting a survey capturing the views of bid and proposal managers around the world, to be fed back to the purchasing community. (Free copies will, of course, be sent to anyone who participates in the survey).
If you’d like to add your voice to the debate, please download the survey form (in Letter or A4 format) and email your contribution (in Word, or scanned if you’d rather complete it by hand) to info@strategicproposals.com by 30 November.
We’re already had contributions from the Dubai, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, the UK & US, and more. But the more folks who participate, the more weight our messages will carry back to the procurement community. Thanks for your input!
