Posted by Jon on 23 October, 2009 under Interviews and the Panel | 
Next up in our occasional series of discussions with some of the leading lights of the proposal profession: Kris Sæther, Sales Director of software company Xait.
Please could you describe your current role?
As Sales Director for Xait, I am responsible for XaitPorter for new and existing clients, in addition to partners/resellers. All sales people at Xait are also responsible for training and follow-up of their clients.
This means that we need to deliver what we promise when presenting XaitPorter to prospects.
How can proposal centres go about making their proposal processes more efficient?
I believe that most people would agree that there are several things that can make their proposal processes more efficient. Biased as I am, I would look at the tools you have at hand. Do you have the correct kit in your toolbox to deliver as required?
In addition, surprisingly many contributors to a proposal merely want to get their bit done and are not concerned about making it easy for the prospects to understand. Giving the proposal participants a better understanding of what is expected of them and more guidance, could go a long way.
How do you respond to those who claim that, “It’s all about price”?
I would say that while there can be some truth in the statement, normally prospects look at the value of your proposal compared to price. If you can’t convince your client that you give them more value for money than the competitor, maybe you should start looking closer at your proposals? Are they compliant AND responsive?
What’s the worst (or funniest) proofreading error you’ve ever seen in a proposal?
This was in a previous job when the law firm White and Case was replaced (mistakenly) with Whore and Case. The lawyer whom received the proposal luckily took this fine and replied; “A lot can be said about lawyers, most of which is true, however I would prefer if you referred to us in the future as White & Case”. By the way, we won the contract.
If you had to recommend one book to proposal managers, what would it be? (It doesn’t have to be specifically about proposals!)
I would recommend the article “A Bidder’s dozen – Golden Rules for Winning Work” by David G. Pugh, published by APMP in 2002. Excellent article.
Thanks for your time, Kris!
Posted by Jon on 26 March, 2009 under Interviews and the Panel |
We’ve left our Proposal Guys Panel – our team of proposal folks around the world who contribute here occasionally – in peace for a couple of months. But we thought it was time we made them do some work again (!), so here’s their latest topic, inspired partly by my recent post on “The Aggregation of Minute Differences”:
“The Little Things. We spend a great deal of time focused on the more obvious components of the proposal process. In your experience, what are some of the seemingly minor things that might be overlooked?”
Dave Blume starts at the beginning, with the covering letter. “From my experience, often an afterthought (second only to the exec summary!), normally full of cap-doffing and grovelling thank yous and the dreaded ‘please do not hesitate to get in contact if you have any questions…”. This should be thought of as “part of the overall proposal package”; Dave’s advice includes:
- thank the individuals in the client organisation who have helped you
- ideally have it signed (or at least co-signed) by a senior executive who can bind the company to the contract
- finish with a specific call to action – with the onus on you
Roisin McCorry picked up that a proposal manager who doesn’t worry about the minor things won’t last very long in the job! Some of her comments:
- Our compliance matrices – it says ‘a brief summary’, so please, please take back the 36 pages of text you just sent me on that case study… yes, it does matter.
- Little things like ‘Phase 1′. Or is it ‘Phase One’? Or indeed, ‘Phase I’? Let’s pick one, guys. And use it consistently!
- Terms, technologies, dates especially, confusing when they don’t add up!
- Diagrams – why change the legend? Pick a scheme, and stick to it. I have witnessed the client and supplier’s responsibilities (colours) being interchanged on more than one occasion: painful for the author, irritating for the evaluator!
Barbara Esmedina agreed that “In an RFP there are no little things!” Her advice:
Always put forth that little bit of extra effort. Do the last minute spell check one more time, provide labelled tabs in hard copies and bookmarks in electronic copies. Include all your contact info on the front cover. Take the time to write a cover letter. Do every little thing to make your RFP the one that is the easiest to review. Use binding that can easily slip into a file cabinet, deliver on time, give them everything they ask for. Follow up with a thank you even when you don’t win.
For Robin Davis, the topic was particularly timely, “since I’ve gone from running a team of ten back to being a one-man shop. How humbling and eye-opening. I’ve been operating at a strategic level for so long – process improvement, taking it to the next level, expanding influence, etc. – that I’d forgotten some of the basics of actually getting the work done.”
So, little things that get overlooked. As writers, especially when you’ve been with an organization for a long time, we get caught up in our own speak, in our own language. Our perspective gets stale. We’re still talking about things that mattered to the market two years ago, but there are new issues now that we’re not addressing. Or we talk about our differentiators that aren’t differentiators anymore….everybody is doing that now…
And who has time to evaluate every record in the knowledge base for its current relevance? Right. You do what you can.
She also picked up on packaging and production. “Following instructions on a public bid are a pain in the butt. Separating the confidential from the rest of it. Precise labelling instructions; lack of instructions on the layout – you have NO idea how they want to see the information; double packing the contents – a box inside of a box, etc. And for God’s sake, please put the label on the tab straight. Use clear packing tape, not duct tape. And spell the client’s name right! I know… NOT small… but can get overlooked!”
Lesa Camarri picked on an even later stage in the process – delivery options. “Sounds simple, but it can really cut into overall turnaround time especially when you only have two weeks or less to respond to the RFP. Delivering via overnight service directly to the client is what we prefer; however, many times Sales prefers to hand deliver it, which means we need to back everything up one or two days to get it to the sales rep so they have enough time to hand deliver. And don’t they dare tell us two days before it’s due that they’ve decided to hand deliver when we’d been planning to ship direct to the client!”
Great stuff, and thanks as ever to our ‘panellistas’. Do feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments box!
Posted by Jon on 13 January, 2009 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?
Posted by Jon on 26 August, 2008 under Interviews and the Panel |
Next up in our series of interviews with folks involved in the proposal profession around the world is Martin Smith, a Director of Bid Solutions – Europe’s leading recruitment consultancy for bid and proposal people. Martin also serves on the UKAPMP sub-committee reviewing membership services.
How did you first get involved in sales proposals?
Honest answer… it was the best-paid job after graduating from my MBA Programme! It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, jack-of-all-trades bid management role for a global IT organisation. I earned all the usual badges: 37 hour sleep deprivation badge; late night printer engineer badge; impoverished social life badge. You know the deal!
To offer a slightly less materialistic perspective I’ll share my reasons for continuing in the profession for a further 12 years following that initial decision. I firmly believe bid and proposal management has huge potential to grow in to a trusted, proven and respected discipline, across all industries and on a global scale. The pace and credibility with which the Accreditation Programme has been both implemented and adopted is testament to this. I believe as a discipline, bid and proposal management offers professional people an unparalleled, immediate and real exposure to all key business functions.
Every proposal professional has a favourite horror story of the proposal that nearly (or actually) went wrong. What’s yours?
We worked on an all night bid, eventually finishing at 9am the following morning. The deadline for delivery was 10am.The location was just two miles from our location in Central London. We ordered a bike to ensure timely delivery. Very pleased with our achievements we headed off for a celebratory breakfast at Simpsons-on-the-Strand.
Unbeknown to us, the courier company sent a car as all the bikes were in use. If only the congestion charge had been introduced several years earlier the average speed of the car might have exceeded the two miles per hour required to get it there on time…! Deadline missed and lesson learnt the hard way.
What’s the single most successful thing you’ve done to improve your organisation’s proposals?
In my previous role, as head of opportunity management for a major company, I introduced a resource model that linked the size of my team to reflect not only the total number of proposals worked, but also proposal quality. It sounds very straight forward and simple (which really it was) however, the key to success was having total buy-in to the model from the Financial Director.
In real terms, it ensured that must-win deals weren’t compromised by a lack of resource availability whilst providing immediate transparency to those deals in which we were clearly making up the numbers – if a deal landed that pushed team utilisation from 100% to 140%, it quickly became an extremely effective qualification tool if sales people knew they had to pick up the phone and ask the FD to fund a 40% increased resource requirement.
How do you respond to those who claim that, “It’s all about price”?
I don’t believe that price is necessarily a flawed strategy. To not pay full attention to the customer’s requirements because you are relying on price is however, unforgivable.
In a commoditised market, differentiation is not always sufficiently tangible to generate long-term customer loyalty. In such markets (and in my experience) price is often the key driver, albeit not in the complete absence of product / service quality considerations.
In the consumer market, price driven strategies are paving the way for success for many organisations. Websites such as ‘Go Compare’ for Insurance or ‘Kelkoo’ for Electronic purchases often remove the customer-loyalty element from the consumers buying decision. Whether such platforms could replace corporate strategic purchasing decisions remains a topic of great debate. To rule it out completely would be arrogant in a digital age.
Any advice for proposal people needing to get greater sponsorship from senior colleagues within the business?
In my experience, far too many bid and proposal teams fail to link the team’s objectives with those of the business. As a result, Senior Execs often view the bid and proposal team as a tactical sales support function rather than a strategic asset. Declaring win-rate aspirations or total revenue won is simply not sufficient. To truly build bridges (and influence) and engender sponsorship from the places that matter, I believe the objectives of the proposal team (and each and every one of its members) should be implicitly tied to those of the business. Only then can you truly influence and ‘manage up’ the chain of command.
For example, whilst most executives are focussed on a specific business unit or sector, bid and proposal teams are generally in the privileged (?!) position of having deal visibility across all sectors. By proactively, objectively and rigorously assessing the sales pipeline and win-rate data – something I believe many senior sales managers fail to do well – bid teams can (and should) be first to flag potential gains, issues, and shortfalls in the business plan. Clearly, flagging them to senior management is really only the first step to improved relations, providing implementable recommendations is the real aim and ultimately the ‘holy grail’ to building bridges and increased sponsorship.
A word of caution…this is fundamentally different to the reactive approach of informing management that there are too many deals on the pipeline and you need more resource!
Thanks for that, Martin – some great advice, mixed with some good and challenging ideas.
Posted by Jon on 20 August, 2008 under Interviews and the Panel |
Our next panel topic - where we challenge our friendly team of proposal professionals from around the world – asked what value (if any) they derived from APMP – the Association of Proposal Management Professionals.
For Robin, APMP was instrumental in moving her organisation from perceiving proposals as a “clerical” role.
My first APMP conference in 2003 changed my whole perspective. I walked away with the understanding that this is a “profession” – a bonafide career choice (albeit crazy)… I had a renewed sense of purpose, confidence and drive to establish a top-notch proposals unit inside my organization.
Knowing that there were people out there that spoke the same language, were experiencing the same pains and had ideas I hadn’t even thought of, was encouraging. I felt like I had a team behind me supporting my theories, thoughts and the direction I was about to head in.
[At APMP's annual conference] I learn so much about what others are doing and then adopt, tweak and implement similar processes in my own organization. Today, I have grown to a team to 10 people. Our processes work, they are successful and the team is highly respected as value drivers within the organization.
Through the APMP and the contacts I have made through its annual conference, I have grown by leaps and bounds in this profession. Each year I give at least one proposal developer the opportunity to attend the conference and I routinely see significant improvement in their performance post-conference. I couldn’t ask for more than that!
Lesa, too, sees real benefits from her participation in the association:
I find my membership in APMP to be very useful primarily for networking and continuing education. It is nice to know there is a whole association of folks worldwide who are involved in the same processes that I am.
Not quite “misery loves company” (although that is the case sometimes), but through the APMP I know at any time I can get in touch with someone who’s gone/is going/or will go through what I am. I know it’s a buzz word, but sharing best practices is great…just picking each others’ brains whether in person at the conferences or via phone/email is an awesome resource.
I’ve attended five or six of the last annual conferences and I’ve always found a wide range of relevant topics at each one…not to mention broadened my network of colleagues and even made a new friend here and there. I’ve been able to bring back what I’ve learned at the conferences to share with my team, as well as other business partners at my company – even Sales!)
For Barbara,
“my original reason for joining was to receive the APMP journal. I figured the publication alone was worth the annual dues. I rarely save magazines, but I just looked in my office magazine bin, which I regularly cull, and found issues dating back to 2003 with articles I still found relevant enough to keep.”
Aside from the Journal, she
“didn’t originally think that I would find the APMP that useful, as there wasn’t a local chapter in my area at the time”.
But…
I have found the APMP more useful than I ever expected over the years.
Just as with the quality of the journal articles, I am always impressed with the quality of the speakers at the national and chapter conferences. This is a profession where quality is extremely important and I feel APMP is very much a reflection of that. They also continue to evolve and add value with the BD-KnowledgeBase and their professional accreditation program.
If I were evaluating several candidates for a position, the one with APMP accreditation would be first on my list, and if I were one of those candidates, I would be expecting a higher salary.”
Roisin found APMP to be “a revelation”. As a lone proposal professional in her organisation,
“I lacked guidance, and more importantly, support. Arriving to sit my Foundation exam, I was terrified that I would be shown up to be a novice, someone who was making it up as I went along. I was relieved, however, to be introduced to a group of people who were just like me.
And that’s how it continues. For me, the APMP provides a network of informed individuals who are working on the same basic principles. Yes, we all have different interpretations of those principles based upon our organisations and working environments, but it is a real gift to have that network of people at the end of a phone or an email, when I need advice, or simply a second opinion.
Sitting my APMP exam also increased my credibility in the working environment. Finally – I have a piece of paper that proves that what I do is a bona fide profession, and not simply ‘spellchecking’, as it was once described to me. It has also given me faith in my work – I am now a fierce advocate of best practice, and have the confidence to implement it.
More to follow on the panel members’ views as to how they’d like to see APMP evolve.
Posted by Jon on 24 May, 2008 under Interviews and the Panel, Proposal Guys news |
You’ll doubtless have seen our series of interviews with proposal professionals from around the world here on The Proposal Guys. Now it’s our turn to have been put under the spotlight, for the latest edition of “Final Draft”, produced by the APMP in Houston.
Michael Kent, our interviewer, posed some fascinating questions, and we think he’s done a great job on the article. If you’re interested, you can get the newsletter from their site! (Note: Link opens a PDF document.)
Posted by BJ on 28 April, 2008 under Interviews and the Panel |
Either “Run the other Way!” or “Watch and Learn”
Connie Sanford is well known and respected within the proposal community and has presented at many APMP conferences and Pragmatech User Forums. She told us she was enjoying the questions so much that she answered 7 of them instead of the usual 5. Here’s Connie input:
Please describe your current role?
I am the Manager of Proposal Services for Kforce Professional Staffing. I manage a team of 4 – 3 full time proposal writers and a developer for our automated documents. Annually, we review about 350 RFPs and were instrumental in adding $44 million in new revenue to the Firm last year. We support a field sales force of approximately 1,500. We also have 30+ automated documents for the field to use for smaller opportunities. They used the website to create more than 1,000 proposals in 2007.
How did you first get involved in sales proposals?
I finished my BA at the ripe age of 39 and took a job as a technical writer, which was really an RFP responder – I hesitate to call it a proposal writer because they only expected me to answer questionnaires (insurance company). I was a one-man show and had no idea what I was doing, but knew there had to be more than this. I looked around on the web and found APMP and they were just about to have their Salt Lake City convention. I asked to go and my boss approved it. I was intrigued by the presentation you guys (BJ and Jon) did and felt like I’d finally found a family of people who were like me. I learned about software like Pragmatech that could make my life and our company’s responses better. I became a proposal evangelist at that conference and haven’t stopped seeking better, building better and wanting more.
Any advice for proposal people needing to get greater sponsorship from senior colleagues within the business?
My advice would be to learn to speak their language. We are ‘word’ people – all of us think and speak and even dream in full sentences. Personally, I find it difficult to text because I can’t bring myself to leave out the punctuation or misspell the words. Your executives are probably not ‘word’ people; they are number people, statistics, ratios, win rates and return on investment. You must speak to them in those terms and make them understand that your department doesn’t just ‘do proposals.’ Your department reviews (for instance) 5 RFPs per person per week, resulting in 35% win rate. Each proposal takes about 20 hours and results in $500,000 in new business. That way they can begin to quantify your value to the Firm and justify your headcount, growth, your need to spend money to send the team to conferences, training sessions, pay for certification tests or anything else. It is our responsibility first to learn to speak to them before they learn to understand us.
Every proposal professional has a favourite horror story of the proposal that nearly (or actually) went wrong. What’s yours?
We did a proposal for a State a couple of years ago. We had just acquired a new company who was already doing business with the State, but the State wanted Kforce to win the bid not just sign over the old award. It was complicated and a large document with multiple copies but after weeks working with the folks from the new company and our organization, we got the document submitted. The State called us to say our headers were wrong. They had not mentioned the header requirement in the RFP, but we would need to reprint the proposals and send them in again. We completed and delivered the new documents only to receive a call from the State that they had posted an updated RFP on their website while we were working on the second version. We would have to comply with the new RFP and its format changes, language changes etc., which meant we had to review the old and new RFPs page at a time to catch all the changes. We submitted the third versions and then heard that our contact person had retired and we would be assigned a new reviewer, which would add months to the review cycle. It all worked out … we were awarded the business, but the entire process took 18 months. Our RFPs are usually released, responded and awarded within three months.
What one piece of advice would you offer to a newcomer just starting work on proposals?
I was reading these questions aloud to my team as I was contemplating which ones to answer. They all responded, in unison, “Run, run the other way.” That has to tell you something. Now, you have to understand, my team is the best – lots of experience, iron wills, strong backbones to deal with our constituency and loads of heart. Each is doing this because they want to. This is not an easy road. There’s no book to read, no degree to seek, finally we have some certification, but still each industry is so different, each of us has to be prepared to forge our own path. It’s not for the faint of heart. So, if the newcomer doesn’t heed, “Run!” I would have to say, “Watch and learn, don’t be afraid to ask and don’t be afraid to stand up when you know you are right.”
How did you come by your belief in the importance of proposals?
Many years ago I had occasion to request other vendors’ proposals through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) on a couple of municipalities. Even though the opportunities were for very different services, many of the vendors’ proposals were identical – word for word. Either the documents were wrong (in a couple of spots) or they were so vague, they resembled pre-printed marketing material. I knew we could do better, so I took the bad proposals to my boss to help him understand what the competition was doing and that we weren’t much better. We made some changes to our documents and won several of those new documents, got good feedback from brokers and that was enough to convince everyone else.
If you had to recommend one book to proposal managers, what would it be? (It doesn’t have to be specifically about proposals!)
Wow, there are lots of good books, but it doesn’t have to be a book. Last year, I completed Dale Carnegie’s Leadership Skills training, and it gave me so many new skills. I would recommend anything that helps you to be a leader and not just a manager. Frequently, we are ‘managing’ people who don’t need to be ‘managed.’ Our teams need to be led, encouraged, shown the way to make their jobs a career choice. They need help in creating a path to continually improve in that career. We need to go to bat for them with our superiors so they can get what they need to stay in those positions, providing important continuity to their Firms and their teams. That usually calls for more than a book.
“If buyers wrote good RFPs, they’d receive good proposals in return. In the meantime, they should stop complaining!” Discuss.
“If frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their fannies.” It’s not my place to complain or lament that RFPs aren’t better, they are what they are. Lots of time they’re vague and redundant, but that’s why my team is valued – we can cut through the vagueness and the redundancy using the tools we have available from our experience. Regardless, it is the client’s game with their rules – period. It’s my job to make sure that we know those rules and if we don’t it’s my team’s responsibility to ask the necessary questions to position my Firm for a win.
