Posted by Jon and BJ 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 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 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 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!
Posted by Jon under Musings, Processes & best practice, Proposal Guys news |
Great fun in the past week: BJ came across to the UK, to present with me at an event for senior managers in the proposal profession here. As ever, it was great to catch up face-to-face: we work virtually pretty effectively, but a few hours together unlocks so much more creativity.
The conference, “Taking proposals to the next level”, took place at a remarkable venue – Altitude, up on the 29th floor of Millbank Tower, with spectacular views over London. We thought you might like copies of the presentations – just click on the relevant links below.
Dave Blume, European VP of Sant Corporation, opened the session with a look at how improved management of pre-written content can increase proposal efficiency. Colleen Jolly, head of 24 Hour Company’s newly-launched UK operation, gave a fascinating insight into developing high-impact proposal graphics.
Martin Smith, who runs leading bid/proposal recruitment consultants Bid Solutions, led the group through a self-assessment of the effectiveness of their recruitment processes. And before BJ led the afternoon workshop, I discussed some of the projects that our most successful clients have undertaken in the past year or so, and looked at the challenges facing the leaders of proposal centres in these testing times.
Hope you find presentations useful. If you came to the event, comment and let us know what most sparked your interest during the day!
Posted by Jon under Proposal Guys news |
I love it when a plan comes together – and love it still more when things work out even better than one could have imagined. Here’s a little tale…
About two years ago, we ran a benchmark for a major life insurance company’s proposal team. They were doing some good things – despite being relatively under-resourced and under-valued. But, as is so often the way, there was plenty of potential to improve.
With strong board sponsorship, we recommended that they create a new proposal centre – and helped them to build it. I spent a wonderful nine months or so acting as the interim head of the centre -recruiting staff, training the team, developing new processes, working with an agency to create new design collateral. Account teams were delighted; customes gave excellent feedback; their win rates soared.
One of the folks we recruited re-located across the country at the start of last year to take up her new role. As she settled in to the new office, she met and clicked with one of her new colleagues in another department.
We’re going to their wedding today. That has to be the loveliest – unintentional! – consequence of any of the consulting projects I’ve ever run. So congratulations to Jen and Paul, and all of our best wishes for your future happiness together!
Posted by Jon and BJ under Proposal Guys news |
A few of you have asked whether we could email new posts to you when they appear on the site, to save you having to check back every couple of days.We’re pleased to say that we’ve now worked out how to do this! (Thanks, Vic – that’s Jon’s wife, technical expert behind our decidedly non-technical efforts here on the blog). Just click here – or where it says “Subscribe to our new posts” at the foot of the page and choose “EMAIL”.
We’ll only send you the posts themselves – if you want to see comments, you’ll need to check back to the site itself. If you ever need to unsubscribe (and why would you do that?!), there’s a link in each email. And we promise never to use your email address other than to send you blog entries.
