Posted by BJ under Musings, Processes & best practice | 
I often use analogies to help express ideas and concepts and I often use the analogy of restaurants when explaining proposal support.
On a recent Saturday morning, I stopped in to say hi to my brother Ken and his family. My brother-in-law, David was also visiting, from Las Vegas, where he is a head chef at one of the major hotels (the hotel is named after those tall trees with really long trunks that line the streets of Palm Beach and such places.).
Ken and his wife were having a dinner party that night, with David preparing the meal. Guests were due to arrive at 6pm and dinner, a Mexican meal with fare such as empanadas and carnitas, was planned for 7:15pm.
As we were sitting at the table finishing a late breakfast, about 11:15am or so, David looked at his watch and said, “Well, if I guess I’d better get started on dinner.”
What? Start preparations on a dinner some 8+ hours before it was due to served?
When I asked him why he was starting so early, David listed all he had to do, in which it needed to be done, and how long each task would take, in order to prepare the meal. As he spoke, his experience with meal preparation was immediately obvious. IT was also obvious he had a concern for preparing the best meal possible. David is as passionate about food and cooking as Jon and I are about proposals.
David pointed out that it was possible to prepare a meal in a much shorter period of time, but the quality would definitely suffer. He would have to take short cuts, wouldn’t be able to pay as much attention to detail and he might even miss an ingredient or two, which had happened many times before when he rushed or hadn’t had enough time. He said the time put into the preparation of a meal was always evident in the quality of the meal served.
As I listened to him, I realized the parallel to proposal development. Those groups that understand what needs to be done and allow enough time, getting started as early as possible and as needed, operate in much the same way as David does. These groups know what needs to be done. They don’t cut corners and they pay attention to the details.
They produce high-impact, high-quality responses and they do so in an efficient manner.
Those groups that don’t get started until the RFP is released, or worse, after some time has elapsed since the RFP was released, inevitably produce a much poorer quality response and doing so is much more difficult and stressful.
Great proposals, like great meals, require time to prepare and the way to have enough time is to, as David did for this dinner, get started well before the meal – the response – was to be served.
Posted by Jon under Word play & writing |
Fancy a few moments of literary fun? If so, I may have the perfect diversion for you…
“I write like…” is a website that provides a:
statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers
I started by pasting in a few of my fictional short stories (from a collection published earlier this year, available from all good bookstores – not that you know my pseudonym, of course, as I don’t mix business and pleasure!). Apparently, they vary between Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer. (And no, they don’t feature vampires, before you ask!).
Next, to a recent Proposal Guys entry – which apparently reads like Joyce. (Hold on: is my writing here that incomprehensible?). I then threw in a few winning proposals I’ve written in the past year or so. Three of the five examples I tested were apparently in the style of H.P. Lovecraft – described by Stephen King as “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale”. The other two came out as similar to Cory Doctorow, the Canadian sci-fi writer. (OK, so my proposals are scary and deal with entirely imaginary worlds?!).
Although I don’t claim to understand the metrics that lead to the site’s conclusions, or to vouch for the exercise’s scientific validity, it was interesting to see that there’s a fairly consistent style in my fiction writing, and a consistent but different style in the way I write proposals.
Anyone fancy playing? Whose writing is yours most like? And – especially interesting to know – can you spot any trends between winning and losing proposals that you’ve submitted?
Posted by BJ under Musings |
Prior to Christmas, while in England as part of an internship sponsored by his college, my nephew Cam’s laptop, an Apple MacBook, died (ok, maybe was killed is a more appropriate description as this was the result of a drink being spilled on it.). Prior to this happening, Cam had decided that when it was time to replace this laptop, he’d probably switch to a PC.
Cam took the laptop into an Apple store and had it diagnosed. It was determined the mother board would need to be replaced and the cost would be approximately $500. He made a call to his father, who was in Germany at the time, and they decided to have the laptop repaired rather than replacing it at that time. The repair would only take a day or two.
When Cam returned to the shop and attempted to pay, the person helping him informed him that his credit card was declined, as the charge exceeded its limit. Somewhat embarrassed and confused, he gave this person his other “for emergencies only” credit card. To his further embarrassment and dismay, this card was also declined (he didn’t realize that the limit on this card was lower than the amount being charged as well.)
As one might expect to be the case, all this was quite upsetting and embarrassing to Cam, a young man away from home and in a country other than his own. He told the clerk he’d have to call his father but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to reach him.
As Cam was preparing to call his father, the clerk handed him the laptop and said, “Merry Christmas. It’s on Apple”.
Despite having previously thought he’d switch to a PC in the future, when he posted about this incident on his blog he finished with “Apple Forever”.
Now, in the future, should it happen that Cam finds himself on an evaluation team and one of the companies being considered is Apple, guess how Cam is going to view that proposal?
The decisions made by evaluators are based on much more than just the proposal itself. They also take into account, both consciously and subconsciously, their relationship, interaction, their experience with the company, as well as what they’ve heard, read and seen.
Posted by Jon under Musings |
A team with whom I was working recently shared their win rate statistics with me. Out came a complex spreadsheet, with a summary that ran something like the following:
Open deals: 30%
Won: 30%
Lost: 20%
Result unknown: 20%
As a result, they explained, their win rate was 60% (in other words, the number of deals won, as a proportion of the number of deals won or lost).
I asked them to explain the difference between ‘open deals’ and ‘no result’. “Ah,” they said, “that’s easy. When we submit a proposal, we forecast when we think the customer will make their decision. Obviously, that can take some time, so we can’t include those ‘open’ deals in the win rate calculation.”
So far, so good. But what of the ‘no results’? Well, they explained, those were the deals that were no longer ‘open’, given the time that had elapsed, but where the company had never heard back from the customer as to the result of the bid.
“In other words, you didn’t actually win a piece of business?” I asked.
They – reluctantly – agreed, knowing where my logic would take me. For their win rate – apparently showing that they captured more deals than they lost – was, to my mind, somewhat misleading. For me, it hugely over-inflated the true picture, in which they were actually winning more like 43% (30 / (30 + 20 + 20). If they hadn’t heard back from the customer after a significant period of time, excluding the deal from the total felt like false optimism.
“Ah,” they commented, “but our boss wouldn’t be happy telling people that.” That’s OK, then…
Posted by BJ under Musings |
There’s a shop near my office that has a sign out front which has changeable type and which has a new message posted every other week or so. I’m sure you know the type of sign to which I’m referring.
As I write this, I suppose this might be one of the original forms of ‘social media’ (and I suppose perhaps the proverbial ‘burning bush’ might fall into that camp as well but I’d suggest we don’t go there here.)
This signs sayings range from the oft heard, tired and somewhat silly (again, I suspect you know the type) – “My wife ran off with my best friend and boy do I miss him.” to simple riddles, occasionally tied to a holiday, as was the case this past Thanksgiving weekend, “Why wouldn’t the Pilgrims pants stay up? His belt and buckle were on his hat.” And occasionally there is a saying that is thought provoking, at least for me (and yes Jon, I do realize that might not take much. )
This week the sign reads, “Given enough thrust, pigs fly just fine.”
I like this. There’s an underlying message in there. Something about refusing to acccept what everyone else believes to be true. Taking on the challenge of the seemingly impossible. Getting the job done despite the odds.
And isn’t that what we do on a daily basis? Working on responses where there’s not enough time. Having less than ideal and limited resources. Needing to do what others believe can’t be done. Hitting both a high standard for quality and a tight deadline. Getting those who would rather not be involved to not only perform but to produce quality work.
So, echoing the sign’s sentiment, here’s to those of us that figure out how to make pigs fly, and fly pretty damn well in most cases, on a daily basis.
*For those of our readers who are of the “politically correct persuasion (though I suspect most of those types have stopped reading this blog long ago) / those who are overly sensitive about anything to do with animals, please note the following: “No pigs, or any other animals, were harmed in the writing of this post. Further, Strategic Proposals does not suggest, promote nor condone the launching of pigs, or any other animals, or other such attempts to get those animals that are normally earth bound to take flight.
Posted by Jon under Processes & best practice |
The APMP syllabus would, quite rightly, have us believe that a proposal team should conduct two learning review (or ‘lessons learnt’) sessions. The first should take place soon after submitting the document – whilst the team’s views are still fresh in their minds. Key topics for debate include identifying what the team did well (i.e. techniques and tactics that should be repeated on future deals), as well as what could have been improved (by individuals, or systemically by the organisation).
Customers then often take forever to make their purchasing decision – prevaricating for weeks and months, often going through an exhaustive process of clarification and negotiation. And even once they’ve appointed their chosen supplier, it may not be appropriate to seek detailed feedback on your proposal until the dust has settled, or until (if you’ve won the deal) implementation is safely underway. The prevailing ‘best practice’ would therefore be that the team needs to revisit their learning once they’ve captured the customer’s feedback – again, a sound principle to follow.
Working with a team in Madrid a while ago, one of the participants made the interesting point that there should probably be a third learning review, say six months after you’ve on a deal. Too often, when projects are delivered, they fail to meet the customer’s expectations or the supplier’s goals; the two organisations’ respective teams struggle to make sense of what was documented and agreed during the bid process. Perhaps it’s a case of “It doesn’t do what it says on the can”, or maybe simply “We hadn’t fully understood or anticipated that”.
Understanding whether this has been the case is critical – and diagnosing anything that could have been done differently in the bid or proposal to prevent the issues from occurring strikes me as crucial. And for those projects that are a resounding success? Again, clear assessment of what went well – and communication of why this was – could add huge value to the organisation.
I thought it was a fascinating point, and it’s one I think I’ll emphasise rather more in future when working with teams who are looking to learn and to improve.
Posted by BJ under Musings |
One of our buds has recently tendered her resignation and taken a position with another firm (We wish you great success on your new adventure Marlene.)
Being the clever girl (yeah, I referred to her as a girl but since when have I ever been politically correct? Besides, she’s cool with it and that’s what really matters. [I also occasionally call her “mam”.}) that she is and, like a good proposal manager, wishing to be proactive, Marlene took it upon herself to write and distribute a mail to the other employees within the company. Her mail follows:
—————————————————————-
To all employees,
I resigned from ABC Corp. on December 3, 2010. I was immediately taken back to my desk where I packed my personal effects, under the supervision of security and was then escorted off the premises.
I am no longer in the employ of ABC Corp. Therefore, I should not be allowed in the building or on company premises. If you encounter me on the property or attempting to gain access to the building, you are requested to remind me that I no longer work for ABC and ask me to leave.
In the event I refuse to leave or become uncooperative, you are advised to call security immediately. They are trained to handle such situations. Under no circumstances should you attempt to remove me from the premises
—————————————————————————–
You go girl! Good luck.
