Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel, Purchasing insights | 
I’ve been suffering of late from Jon’s Law of Inverse Technological Availability: “the less time I have available, the greater the chances of IT failure”. Our third panel post has been a little delayed, therefore, as I’ve fought off the gremlins. The challenge we posed this time to our team of proposal professionals from around the world provoked considerable debate:
What impact does the quality of the customer’s RFP have on the quality of the proposal? And what advice would you offer to customers to improve their RFPs?
Roisin seemed to sum up the panel’s frustrations with a wonderfully provocative response:
My mother often says ‘You reap what you sow’. And in this case, she is completely right. Any customer who issues a poorly constructed RFP is setting a poor tone from the outset. It will immediately sway the mood of the bid team who have to spend hours extricating requirements and compliances from a web of confusion.
First impressions count. That’s right, isn’t it? Everyone knows that. It’s why people practice their handshakes, polish their shoes before an interview, and so on…. So why, why, do potential clients think that it is acceptable to send a tangled mess of formatting, hidden text, and obscure questions?
If this is the issue, then the client should be likened to the small child learning to speak. The child knows what it wants, but the communication skills it possesses are not developed enough to clearly define it. The vendors are the adults trying to understand what the child is saying, trying to offer suggestions as to what it may be that is required…
Barbara picked out some specific frustrations:
Poor syntax would have the most effect, as we might not understand the question. Poor formatting, etc., doesn’t affect our response as we always remove the questionnaire and put it into our (beautifully formatted) response template.
In terms of advice, Dave offered four suggestions:
1. Ensure the questions are clearly written and applicable to the project.
2. Eliminate redundant or duplicate questions. Nobody likes to answer the same question twice! (buyers don’t want to read the answer twice, either)
3. Apply consistent formatting to the questionnaire. A proposal manager should not have to correct formatting and numbering in the original RFP document.
4. Allow the vendor to respond in Microsoft Word (or PDF). Excel and web-based RFPs do not typically allow the vendor to incorporate formatting and graphics in their response.
Read more of this article »
Posted by BJ under Interviews and the Panel |
Please could you describe your current role?
While at Medical Transportation Management (MTM), my official title was Director of Quality Management. However, I was also occasionally referred to as the “Proposal Witch”. I always preferred to think that people meant that in a good way. I am now happily retired and when I think about proposals, I recall them fondly. I suspect this may be a product of time away from them.
How did you first get involved in sales proposals?
When I started, MTM was a small but growing company where we everyone wore many hats. To capture our first real piece of business, we needed to respond to an RFP. I had a higher degree and enjoyed writing, so I was given the proposal hat. We won that opportunity and proposals became a part of my job description. Interestingly, we didn’t have any written job descriptions at that time and writing them also became part of my job description.
Any advice for proposal people needing to get greater sponsorship from senior colleagues within the business?
I firmly believe the only way to get greater sponsorship is to educate senior management. In our case, I gave a mini-presentation to people at various levels within the business – anyone who would be asked to contribute or whose buy-in we needed. During my presentation, I presented many of the points I picked up from BJ when I attended a conference which he presented. Many of the people to whom I presented commented that they had not previously understood the work involved to produce a proposal. They had a mentality of “it’s all done by elves and magic”. (BJ used this term during his presentation.) Sr. management needs to understand what it takes to develop, produce and submit high-quality proposals and not support the elves and magic mentality in order for the quality of proposals and the way in which they are produced to improve.
Every proposal professional has a favorite horror story of the proposal that nearly (or actually) went wrong. What’s yours?
When proposal writing was still a one man show (or woman in this case), we were working on a very large proposal. It was due the next day, tasks were overlapping one another and I needed someone to oversee assembly. Another management person said she would handle it. This person then left, promising she would, “Be right back.” She never returned. It was a mad scramble to pull everything together and while the people who came in at the last minute did their best to help, they proved the adage that “Availability is not a skill.” (Another apt term I picked up form BJ would say.)
It was a very long night and a nightmare from which I felt like I could not awake – total mayhem. The proposal ultimately went out on time, but just barely and certainly not in the manner for which one would hope.
What’s the single most successful thing you’ve done to improve your organisation’s proposals?
That’s an easy one. I attended a conference on RFP’s and met BJ. I knew we needed help so I looked for a proposal course and, though this particular one was intended for the financial management community, I thought I might get at least a few ideas and tips by attending.
As I sat there listening to BJ, I was like the cartoon character with light bulbs going on over my head. With each topic or idea that BJ discussed, I recognized the many, many things we could easily change to be more effective. Of course, once back in the office, the changes didn’t happen overnight. But over time, with lots of learning and BJ and his team providing support, the quality and the physical presentation of our proposals improved significantly.
The second thing I did was to build a proposal team. When selecting the first person for this team, I knew I’d found the right person when she commented, “I love working on proposals.” This person, Marlene, has gone on to become the Proposal Director and to head up the MTM team. Marlene also presented at last year’s APMP conference. As the saying goes, “We’ve come a long ways.” And I owe a lot of our success to BJ’s support.
How did you come by your belief in the importance of proposals?
Quite simply, all of our business was done by RFP and our revenue literally depended on our being able to submit the winning proposal.
What’s the worst (or funniest) proofreading error you’ve ever seen in a proposal?
I have seen many, and although I can’t recall one specifically, I have found several expletives which were correctly typed and not picked up by spell-check.
Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel |
Our second Proposal Guys Panel topic challenged our ‘panellistas’ (comprising proposal professionals from around the world) to: “List the ten adjectives that best describe a successful proposal function”. BJ and I also took on the challenge, as did a few of our team. Here’s what came out on top:
1st
Organised
=2nd
Collaborative / co-operative
Creative
Flexible
=3rd
Accurate
Adaptable
Client-centric
Competitive
Dedicated
Detail-oriented
Diligent
Knowledgeable
Passionate
Professional
Strategic
Easy job this, isn’t it?! The full list ran to over 80 adjectives, So, the next time your boss asks why you deserve that pay rise, or that extra member of staff, or those funds you need in your budget, remember – it’s because to do your job well, you need all of the characteristics listed above, and you also need to be…
…adequately-staffed, adrenalin-junkies, amazing, analytical, appreciated, appropriately-utilized, capable, cohesive, commercial, committed, communicative, compassionate, competent, content-sensitive, continually improving, curious, determined, direct, disciplined, effective, efficient, efficient, empowered, energetic, energising, even-keeled, experienced, facilitative, first-class, focused, forward-thinking, hierarchical, innovative, inquisitive, insightful, inspired, level-headed, linguistically-aware, meticulous, motivated, motivating, optimistic, original, patient, perceptive, perfectionist, persistent, personable, persuasive, planned, proactive, questioning, quick, reliable, resilient, responsive, sales-oriented, sceptical, self-starter, skillful, structured, structured, team-oriented, team-oriented, thick-skinned, thorough, tireless, trustworthy, well-read, and winning!
I rather fancy getting those printed up on a T-shirt for the next APMP conference!
Needless to say, a few of the more cynical contributors added in their alternative lists, and one of the team kindly pointed out that “one man’s adjective is another man’s cliché” (thanks, Jeff!). I did rather enjoy some of the following:
fun-loving, humorous, incompetence-tolerating, insane, landfill-filling, masochistic, overly-optimistic, tree-killing, pizza-loving, underappreciated, weird.
What would be in your top ten? And are they a good description of how your proposal function really operates today.
Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel |
We’re delighted to bring you the second of our Proposal Guys interviews, featuring Erica Vis, who’s based in Brussels with DHL Express. Of all the senior proposal professionals with whom we work, Erica’s remit is one of the most genuinely international in nature, and it’s fascinating to hear her perspectives.
Please could you describe your current role?
My current role is leading the DHL Express tender teams in Europe; this includes direct management of the regional tender team and the functional lead of tender teams in 29 countries.
How did you first get involved in sales proposals?
My first involvement was as Sales Manager, doing my own tenders. I realized that Sales was missing the right support and was interested in developing this across Europe.
What characteristics make for a first-class proposal?
A first-class proposal should be compelling, describe how we will make our customer more successful and clearly differentiate us from competition.
How can proposal centres go about making their proposal processes more efficient?
Agree with all stakeholders on their roles in tender processes, ensure that their role is part of their job description and define shared Key Performance Indicators and incentives.
What’s the single most successful thing you’ve done to improve your organisation’s proposals?
Share best practises between all teams.
If you were asked to take over a new proposal centre tomorrow, what would you do first?
I would make sure that the proposal centre was positioned well in the organizational structure.
Having worked with Erica, we know she’s done some fabulous work inspiring her colleagues and promote best practices, and it’s been great to see the leadership she’s brought to the proposal function in her organisation. We’re really grateful to her for taking the time to be interviewed.
Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel |
In addition to the introduction of our Readers’ Panel, our other new regular feature here at The Proposal Guys will be interviews with people working in the proposal world. I’m delighted to say that our first interviewee is Lewie Miller.
Please could you describe your current role.
I am currently president of The Sant Corporation, and based on my background, directly manage our sales efforts. I began my career in sales with IBM in 1976 and I have sold or directly managed sales in every position since. In the past 30 years I have personally made thousands of sales calls, managed thousands of sales people, and contributed to thousands of proposals.
This career experience gives me direct perspective of the needs of sales organisations and what works with prospective customers. I have been trained in virtually every sales process or methodology and have implemented numerous sales systems. Therefore, I have a unique perspective regarding what sales people and proposal professionals will embrace to improve their performance.
What characteristics make for a first-class proposal?
A first-class proposal is professionally formatted, free of spelling and grammar mistakes, and is structured using a method we call the “persuasive paradigm”:
1. Restate the business problem or need
2. Identify the outcomes the client seeks
3. Recommend a solution
4. Provide substantiating details
Companies who incorporate this structure into their proposals have the highest probability of winning the bid.
How can proposal centres go about making their proposal processes more efficient?
Efficiency is very important in the proposal centre. Proposal writers are most efficient, and effective, when they are writing client-focused content and focusing on the proposal’s win theme. Proposal writers are least efficient, and effective, when they are searching old proposals for RFP answers, copying & pasting content, and reformatting answers to be consistent with the document.
One simple way to improve efficiency in the proposal centre is to store best-in-class RFP answers in a database that is accessible to everyone involved in proposal writing. When a new RFP is received, users can quickly search the database to find relevant answers from the past. This allows the proposal manager to assemble a first draft much faster so he/she can spend their time making sure the answers are the right answers and address the customer’s needs.
How do you respond to those who claim that, “It’s all about price”?
In reality, some buyers are only focused on price. Research from Holden Advisors indicates 30% of buyers are only focused on price. If you’re selling to a price buyer you should provide the minimum solution to meet their requirements, because they won’t see any value-add in your solution.
The good news is, the majority of buyers understands and appreciates value. The true value buyer wants to know how your solution is different from competitors and why that matters. Some buyers are more focused on relationships. They want a long-term, advisory relationship that is based on trust. Value and relationship buyers will purchase a solution that is more expensive if they see meaningful value. It’s always best to quantify your value proposition.
Unfortunately, many value buyers disguise themselves as price buyers. Holden calls them poker players. They want the best of both worlds – good value at a low price. Holden has effective techniques to identify buyer behaviors and deliver a value-based solution.
If you had to recommend one book to proposal managers, what would it be? (It doesn’t have to be specifically about proposals!)
Persuasive Business Proposals, by Tom Sant (would you really expect me to say anything else!). Tom’s book is the world’s best selling book on proposal writing. It’s a great resource for new or veteran proposal writers who write proactive proposals or RFP responses. Tom’s been in the proposal business for 30 years, was named the first-ever Fellow of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP), and is well respected throughout the proposal community. Amazon.com has good reviews and a “look inside” feature to preview the content.
“If buyers wrote good RFPs, they’d receive good proposals in return. In the meantime, they should stop complaining!” Discuss!
True!! The single most frustrating part of the proposal process is poor quality RFPs. We work with a lot of companies who receive RFPs that contain irrelevant, repetitive, and conflicting questions. It’s frustrating and challenging for a proposal manager to respond to questions that have nothing to do with the current sales opportunity. Resources are spent on these questions that could be better used in other areas of the response document. Even worse, some RFPs contain conflicting requirements, causing proposal managers to speculate about the prospect’s true needs. Inconsistent formatting and numbering in the RFP is also frustrating. It should not be the proposal manager’s responsibility to correct formatting mistakes in the prospect’s RFP.
Thanks, Lewie! We really appreciate your time.
We’ll be interviewing someone new every six weeks or so. If you’d like to suggest someone you’d like to see us interview, then do feel free to comment.
Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel |
Yesterday we posted the frustrations that our panel of proposal professionals from around the world experienced in their roles. Today we’ll turn the tables to look on the bright side, since we also asked them to describe the single most rewarding aspect of proposals in their organisations.
Barbara’s response was succinct: “Winning!” I love that: indeed, I’m often heard to comment that I don’t turn up to work in the morning because I enjoy losing!
David picks a similar theme: “The most rewarding aspect of proposals is the win! Nothing is more motivating that a big win from a proposal you developed…. At the end of the day, winning is all that matters – unlike my daughter’s school who believe that ‘trying hard’ is most important!)”. (Reminds me of the feedback at my own son Benedict’s first-ever school parents’ evening, that he was ‘very competitive’. Yes, and…?)
Robin picks not only “wins”, but also “win bonuses”!:
A couple years ago I got my senior leaders to agree to bonuses on RFPs that turned into contracts. This is great extra incentive to the writers. I am also empowered by my organization to give individual awards at whim and even grant up to 10% of an employees’ salary in company stock. There’s also comp time, flex time and work from home options that are very rewarding.
The culture of the organization is also key to employee satisfaction. The company is full of people that want to do their best work and the company tends to hire qualified people that fit the culture. This helps to minimize the frustration of getting subject matter expert cooperation or co-worker support.
We are also encouraged and compensated for continuing education and advancing our skills (i.e. APMP membership, conferences, courses). And we have fun! We work hard and we play hard. People ask me all the time if I have any openings in my department because we know how to have fun.I have to remind them that they also have to work their butts off, but they’ll have fun doing it. It all goes hand-in-hand with work/life balance.I want people to be passionate about their work and happy to be here.
I often describe the proposal team as being in the game of job creation. After all, the proposal is a critical part of winning the deal, and winning business not only helps to secure the futures of existing staff, but also potentially creates vacancies for new roles to deliver to new customers. Along similar lines, Lesa views the most rewarding aspect as being:
…knowing how much we contribute to the company’s bottom line is very rewarding from a team perspective. In 2006, RFP wins represented $100 million in new or retained revenue for our company (total annual revenue for our company is about $2 billion).
From a manager’s perspective, I find it very rewarding to watch the growth and development of the proposal specialists on my team as they move from being tactical to strategic (e.g., go from writing “compliant” proposals to crafting “compelling” proposals that really get the big picture and hone in on each client’s specific needs).
Jeff picks out another of the things that gives me a buzz from working in the world of proposals:
“Every proposal we get is like solving a mystery or a puzzle: Who is this company; how is our relationship with them; what are their real issues; how can we win the work; where can we get the information that needs to go into it? Solving the mystery, along with working with teams of lawyers and marketers to solve real client issues, are the most rewarding parts of proposals in my organization.”
Lisa feels extremely fortunate to -
be part of an organization that is paying close attention to the proposal process these days, which includes paying attention to the people who create proposals and the people we work with. Many improvements have been put in place lately that enable us to better perform our jobs, and the improvements keep piling up.
Our manager is very keen to the idea of the critical interrelationships between our team and the sales team, as well as others throughout our area of the business, and recent initiatives have included a push for higher quality information from salespeople before a proposal is written, as well as a more formal definition of the bid/no-bid process.
The last word goes to Roisin again:
In the early hours of the morning, as you stand there in your crumpled suit, hair standing on end like some form of deviant, nothing looks as pretty as a glossy document, bound, packed, and glistening with the excellence bursting from within. Or perhaps it’s a mirage, a hallucination. After all, you’ve been there for the last twenty hours. Or maybe it’s thirty. You lost count after breaking into the cold pizza.
But when it’s reverently handed to the courier, with admonishments of ‘Be careful with it now, its very important’ and you sign that little slip, there is a deep sense of satisfaction and pride as you watch it begin its journey to the client, like watching your first born head off for their first day at school. And it feels good. You did it – you negotiated, you yelled, and sometimes you begged, but you made it!
Thanks again to the Panel for such thought-provoking and entertaining contributions. Their next challenge will be coming their way very shortly – and do feel free to comment with your own suggestions for topics you’d like them to debate.
Posted by Jon under Interviews and the Panel |
A big thank you to the members of our Readers Panel for their response to the first question we threw in their direction. (You can read the panel members’ profiles here).
The issue we asked them to debate was as follows:
“What are the single most (a) frustrating and (b) rewarding aspects of proposals in your organisation?”
It drew out some fascinating answers. Frustrations first. (Hey, you suggesting that I’m a pessimist by nature?!)
The challenges start with the poor quality of the RFPs that proposal teams receive from potential clients, described by David as containing “irrelevant, repetitive, and conflicting questions.” The proposal team wastes time responding “to questions that have nothing to do with the current sales opportunity”, which “could be better used in other areas of the response document.” And “inconsistent formatting and numbering in the RFP is also frustrating. It should not be the proposal manager’s responsibility to correct formatting mistakes in the prospect’s RFP.”
For Lisa, a frustrating aspect of proposal creation is getting hold of the information needed for RFP responses.
This is a large firm that has undergone several acquisitions and managerial changes over the years; systems have been added and accountabilities have been spread around. With multiple systems and people managing different subsets of information, the whole statistical snapshot of a given time in the company’s existence between annual reports can be difficult to find. Luckily, management is aware of the problem and steps are being taken to correct it…
Meanwhile, Barbara bemoans the “lack of control in picking the RFPs with the best chance of winning and lack of involvement in driving it to the win or debriefing the failures. It is disheartening to craft a winning RFP that is followed up by lackluster interest on the part of the salesperson or that had no chance of winning in the first place.”
Lesa hates the last minute changes prevalent in her organisation. “We work directly with our sales people on every proposal and it seems that no matter how well organized we are by pre-planning and engaging them in the process up front, there are still “reasons” that pop up necessitating last minute changes and rework on our proposals. And we all know that means sacrificing final quality checks and risking errors in the final proposal, which we as proposal professionals loathe.”
For Jeff, “the most frustrating part is the lack of belief in our, or any, proposal theory or best practices. Like most organizations, we have our proprietary proposal “textbook” and program. Both are great too! However, getting the students to actually crack her open, let alone read and believe in her, is another matter.” He continues:
My advice to firms that are crafting such a document and program (e.g. Propose to Win, Refuse to Lose, Pitch to Perfection), before you put anything down on paper, you should figure out how you can get your folks to change their current behavior. More likely than not, even if you have a program and document as good as ours, getting the individuals to change their current behavior as a result is is another matter entirely.”
The people dimension crops up in Robin’s response, discussing the lack of “respect for the work that is being accomplished”:
Once the sales person has been through the process, they “get it”, resulting in a new found respect for the writers. HOWEVER, that does not mean that the sales person can dump it in our lap the next time and not participate! They are sales people – they use flattery to sell! Don’t buy the “I trust you know what you’re doing so send it to me when you’re done” nonsense!
…and “scope creep” is also a challenge – that is requests for support that go “beyond the scope of our defined roles in the department”, such as:
the follow-up questions that trickle in or the request for presentation assistance or ‘can you find X’ for me. We bend, we are flexible, we are always willing to help, but we will not be used. We are not your clerical staff, we are professionals.
Roisin also focuses on the issue of respect, with a wonderful description:
Every Proposal Manager I know is a perfectionist. And a bit of a control freak. But that’s okay, we’re allowed, because we have to be, to get the job done. Except that only Proposal Managers themselves recognise that, and can sympathise and empathise.
If we were brain surgeons, we would be applauded for being particular about detail, thorough to the end. As a Proposal Manager, I am frequently prodded, rushed, and harrassed, to the tune of phrases such as ‘Don’t bother reading it, I checked it myself – it’s complete’, ‘Does the font REALLY matter?’, ‘You’re too fussy’, and worst of all – ‘It’s only a proposal’.
These are the moments when I quietly slip outside for blessed fresh (usually dewy) air and a shot of nicotine. No-one tells a surgeon that ‘It’s only a brain’. Okay, so they aren’t REALLY comparable, no-one ever died as a result of a dodgy proposal, but Proposal Management is our discipline, our art, and it needs more respect.
Check back tomorrow to see what the panel members described as the most rewarding part of their jobs!
