Comments for The Proposal Guys

Comment on Missing the point by John E. Bredehoft

John E. Bredehoft — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:30:46 +0000

It could have been worse. At least you didn’t offer to provide one more bikini so that the deficiency highlighted in the title could be corrected.

Comment on Sharing in the win by Robin

Robin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:36:00 +0000

I like the idea of an incentive bonus because I think [some] people do better work when they have some skin in the game. If it motivates people to be more proactive, more detailed, more emotionally attached to the outcome, I’m all about it. In terms of structure, that’s always the difficult part. At my last company, I was able to convince leadership to pay out a flat rate bonus on wins. It was a rather small amount but the team liked it and it didn’t impact the sales person’s commission. But, the reason I requested it in the first place was because my people were underpaid and I was unable to get them up to industry minimum standards through a hefty raise. The bonuses were my Plan B.

Comment on Sharing in the win by Sharon Mahoney

Sharon Mahoney — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:28:25 +0000

I have worked in 100% commission sales positions and in salaried positions (various industries). So, I can understand true sales efforts/pay for performance as well as G&A or Overhead positions. Unless a Proposal Manager/Team are willing to take a hit on the lost proposals, I don’t see a huge push for win bonuses. However, it would be nice, especially if a team has a high win rate. I look forward to seeing feedback from your other readers.

Comment on Sharing in the win by Herve Schyns

Herve Schyns — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:09:26 +0000

Very interested in reading future comments.

I’m actually investigating how to incentivate proposal managers in our company.
I’m in complete agreement with John’s remarks and building on it, I’m looking to setting a win bonus scheme as a percentage of opportunity value.

To mitigate adversed individual effects, I envisioned mutualizing the collected bonuses and a the end of a specific period (quarter, half year, year…) to redistribute the global pot across the team following a predefined key (either based on salary, or seniority,or a combination of several parameters or anyother one…)

In this case, you would sustain motivation and solidarity of a team of proposal professionnals.

Comment on Sharing in the win by Michelle Woodward Palasek

Michelle Woodward Palasek — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:06:37 +0000

Performance/merit does seem to make the most sense for bonus compensation as proposal teams can influence the bid/no-bid process but typically it is the sales team that makes the final decision to pursue. Plus, pricing is a strong selection factor (depsite our best efforts to show “value”) and most proposal teams don’t have control over that piece either.

Comment on The twelve days of Christmas proposals by The Accidental Proposal Manager

The Accidental Proposal Manager — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:55:44 +0000

As always BJ, very funny. I myself had started rewriting ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas but was interrupted when the live RFP was released…

“Twas the night before Christmas, and all thro’ CDS
When the RFP would be released was anyone’s guess

Questions had been posed, with utmost care
In hopes that a reasonable RFP soon would be here

The SMEs had all gone back to their day jobs
Monitoring systems, and tweaking computer knobs

Yet vigilant and alert we rest did stay
On this short, grey, cold winter’s day

When out on the Internet bits and bytes moved
To my computer I sprang my nerves to soothe

I surfed to FedBizOpps to see what had posted
For “surely not on Christmas Eve” I had once boasted

The light from my monitor’s many LEDs
Revealed the outcome of our united silent pleas

Oh no! Not a change! Not from them!
Before me was an RFP and Sections A through M

With a Statement of Work so broad and so vague
The solution team would be haggling for days.

More poorly than mice, the requirements were writ
Volume leads scrambled for the best SMEs they could get

Now Architects! Now Networks and Telephony! Now Analysts!
The product they want is a cloud, not mere mist!

On Executives, on Program Managers, on transition staff
We must execute flawlessly or incur the auditor’s wrath.”

At which point (several weeks before Christmas Eve) we were slightly surprised (as one would expect to be) by the release of the live RFP; haven’t had a chance to go back and finish this and what would be the point?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!

Comment on The twelve days of Christmas proposals by Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:00:46 +0000

Great stuff, BJ!! Happy Holidays to you and Jon and everyone at Strategic Proposals. Looking forward to another year of sharing proposal best practices.

Comment on Simply brilliant by Sam

Sam — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:50:10 +0000

Hmmm, I don’t get that. Kid is grumpy. Kid gives parents present which will undoubtedly be rubbish. Winsome young girl murders Smiths song. The end.

Comment on Simply brilliant by John E. Bredehoft

John E. Bredehoft — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 03:46:16 +0000

Well, it is the first time that I’ve seen someone impatiently waiting for the deadline to come… :)

Comment on The wine bottle by Scott Knitter, AM.APMP

Scott Knitter, AM.APMP — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:23:53 +0000

One sort of over-elaboration I often find is the attempt to make some work sound like a whole lot of work:

“We have collaborated and strategized with our top-tier software partners to determine the optimal solution.”

…which could really mean…

“One of us emailed a friend at Microsoft, who recommended the best software package.”

Granted, you wouldn’t put it the second way in a proposal, but a lot of -ating and -izing makes it sound like we went through quite an ordeal just for you, Customer! Even if it was really rather quick and simple.