Posted by Jon on 26 February, 2010 under Musings, Proposal Guys news | 
Today’s post marks something of a milestone, as it’s the 500th post that BJ and I have made here at The Proposal Guys. We’re rather proud of reaching this landmark – and want to say thank you to our readers. We hope you’ve enjoyed our first 500 – and that you’ll stay with us as we head on towards the thousand mark!
We’ll be running a couple of major posts next week, looking at trends past and future in the world of proposals – with input from a number of luminaries in the proposal profession. Watch this space!
In the meantime, something to make you smile… Ever come across clients who behave like this?
(With many thanks to the participant on the APMP Foundation course that I ran in the Netherlands earlier this week, who shared the clip with me. And a quick reminder whilst talking about buyers: our recent white paper discussing how purchasers perceive proposals is still available for free download!)
Posted by Jon and BJ on 21 December, 2009 under Proposal Guys news, Proposal Panda, Word play & writing |
You know, it’s a very small step from “Impossible” to “I’m possible“. Here’s wishing you every happiness for the festive season, and hoping that you achieve every “possible” success in 2010.
We’ll be taking a seasonal break from posting for the next couple of weeks. See you back here at the very start of the new decade…
With very best wishes to all of our many readers
Jon and BJ – and Proposal Panda!
Posted by Jon and BJ on 17 August, 2009 under Proposal Guys news |
… not that you’d know that from the torrential rains of the past few weeks here in the UK. We know that many of you are still chained to your desks working on proposals throughout what should be the vacation season – but we’re going to take a short “posting holiday” here at The Proposal Guys.
We’ll be back with our next post on 1 September. In the meantime, hope you get a chance to enjoy some summer sunshine!
Posted by Jon and BJ on 8 June, 2009 under Proposal Guys news |
About half of our readers will already have noticed our new design here at The Proposal Guys. The rest of you – those who subscribe by email or our RSS feed – might well want to head over to the site to have a look.
We’re tried to make it easier to navigate the site. So if you’re interested in reading about, for example, “Processes & best practice”, you can click on a link to see all of our past posts in that category. There’s a search bar – on the right hand side of the grey bar at the top of the page. And we love getting comments – links to your recent entries are now in the sidebar, so you can follow and join in the debate.
We hope you like the new look! Do let us know what you think – and if you’ve not posted anything before, feel free to leave a comment on this post saying “hi”: it’s always lovely to know who’s reading the blog and what you like about it.
Posted by Jon and BJ on 22 March, 2009 under Proposal Guys news, Proposal Panda |
One of the great things about the proposal profession is our sense of community. Whether through attending APMP’s events, gaining professional accreditation, reading and commenting on The Proposal Guys, or participating in other forums – there’s a real feeling of being part of a network of hard-working folks, carrying out similar activities and facing similar issues, all over the world.
So we’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our community. Meet Proposal Panda!
Various of you have asked us for a way to “join in” here at The Proposal Guys. Aside from commenting on our posts (and we always love to hear your views!), here’s a way to do so. We’ll ship Proposal Panda to a proposal team, somewhere in the world. The team can take photos of the panda helping them with their work – and then we’ll let you know where to send Proposal Panda next.
We’ll post your photos – and any commentary you might want to provide – here on the blog (and you’ll also be able to get to it from www.proposalpanda.com). If you want to join in, all we ask is that you send Proposal Panda on within ten days or so, in suitable packaging, and cover the shipping costs to the next destination.
Anyone involved in proposals is welcome to join in – whether you’re in a proposal centre in a major organisation, or you are your company’s proposal centre; whether you’re supplying support services to the proposal community. Hey, even the occasional purchaser evaluating proposals might get a look in sometime!
So – if you’d like to play host to Proposal Panda – email us via panda@theproposalguys.com and let us know!
Posted by Jon on 25 February, 2009 under Proposal Guys news |
A quick reminder of the three ways in which you can view the Proposal Guys:
- come here to the website, www.theproposalguys.com, to see the latest posts every two working days;
- click on our email subscription link here, and have the latest posts sent directly to your mailbox;
- subscribe to our RSS feed, if you read other blogs using services such as Bloglines or Google (whatever it is!)
Posted by Jon on 6 February, 2009 under Musings, Processes & best practice, Proposal Guys news |
Thanks to those of you who emailed in response to my last post, which contained copies of the presentations from a recent event for heads of bid and proposal management in the UK.
In response to the interest, I thought I’d share a little more from my own presentation. I started by explaining that the ancient Chinese used the phrase, “May you live in interesting times” as a curse, not a blessing.
Yet for proposal people today, these interesting times create significant opportunities. So as well as describing a number of projects we’ve delivered successfully for clients recently, and the challenges posed to proposal teams by the current economic climate, I therefore presented something of a call to action for these senior managers.
Few know that, apparently, the ancients had an even-more damning curse: “May you come to the attention of those in authority.”
We see any number of reasons that trigger change to an organisation’s proposal capabilities. Many of these are “done to” the proposal centre:
• There’s the deal that goes horribly wrong. That “must win” deal that you don’t – or sometimes worse, that deal that you do capture, where “did we really say that in the proposal” becomes the order of the day.
• There’s the Chief Executive or Sales Director, who “gets it” – and gets that he or she doesn’t like what they see of your current proposals.
• There’s that damning piece of customer feedback.
• There’s a new head of proposal management – that person standing by to step into your shoes, bringing new ideas and fresh energy, securing visibility and support at senior levels for how things could and should be done better.
But if you’re the head of your company’s proposal team, then maybe that new leader, with the new drive, is actually you?
It’s not enough for you to wait until someone lets the cat out of the bag as to the inefficiency of your current proposal processes, or the relatively disappointing documents that you submit as a result. How much better for you to drive that change yourself.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s down to you personally to keep the light at the end of the proposal tunnel flickering. The hopes, fears, careers of those working in your proposal organisations – they rest in your hands. So too do the jobs of so many of your colleagues in other parts of the business: nothing gives me more pleasure when visiting some of our clients than to see the groups of staff working to deliver the projects that we’ve helped to win.
I’ve long held the view of the proposal centre as the heart of an organisation’s job creation function – capturing the deals that need the staff to deliver. Perhaps now, more than ever, your importance as proposal professionals – and as leaders – comes to the fore. Perhaps those who really ‘get it’ will look back on 2009 as the year in which their organisations really started to embrace the need to take proposals far more seriously.
For the alternatives are too worrying to contemplate. In 2009, “must win” really does mean “must win”.
Are you one of those folks who are ready for the battle ahead? Tough times call for leaders who are personally tough, to stand up and be counted. Your teams depend on you. Indeed, your organisations depend on you, as winning (and protecting) business becomes ever tougher – and ever more important. So are you personally up to the challenge of taking your proposals to the next level? If you are, we’d love to work with you!
Do download the presentation – and let us have your perspectives!
