The sub-title, next to a scantily clad, curvaceous young lady in a provocative pose and sporting a “come hither” look in her eyes, read:

“100 women, 99 bikinis. Never has math been so fun!”

My immediate thought was that this should have read, “…so much fun.” or “…such fun!”

Henry pointed out that I might be focusing on something other than that which the magazine intended its readers to focus upon.

It’s always been a regret for me that I didn’t accept a win bonus when I ran the bid centre at Compaq years ago. Given my team then helped to secure $1.5bn of business in a very short time, I’d have been rich had I been pocketing a share of the spoils. But the purist in me prevails: the proposal is a key element of the win, but far from the only factor. Moreover, if you put proposal managers on commission, it can drive the wrong behaviours: rivalry between proposal centre members (”why is s/he always given the good deals”); lack of mutual support on bids (”I won’t get any money, so why should I help”); sales people feeling threatened (”they’re stealing from my pot”).

Then again, we do deserve to be well-rewarded – and helping our sales colleagues to win is, after all, what we’re here to do. My personal preference is that there’s a hefty bonus scheme in place, in which the amount and percentage won is a major factor. Barbara Esmedina’s excellent survey tends to validate the assumption that win bonuses are rare: only 16% of respondents receive a “bonus tied to winning business (specific to RFP/sales activity”), whereas 65% get bonuses linked to performance / merit. I’m curious to know what others think – and what works well in organisations around the world. Do let us have your comments!

Penny’s list prompted me to do my own version of the 12 items, included below for your enjoyment and amusement.

The 12 Days of Christmas Proposals

On the first day of Christmas my client said to me,
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the second day of Christmas my client said to me,
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the third day of Christmas my client said to me,
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the fourth day of Christmas my client said to me,
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the fifth day of Christmas my client said to me,
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the sixth day of Christmas my client said to me,
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the seventh day of Christmas my client said to me,
No questions will be answered after the RFP is released
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the eight day of Christmas my client said to me,
You must include a compliance matrix
No questions will be answered after the RFP is released
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the ninth day of Christmas my client said to me,
All fonts must be larger than 9 point
You must include a compliance matrix
No questions will be answered after the RFP is released
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the tenth day of Christmas my client said to me,
Submit financials in a separate volume.
All fonts must be larger than 9 point
You must include a compliance matrix
No questions will be answered after the RFP is released
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my client said to me,
Expect to see additional requirements.
Submit financials in a separate volume.
All fonts must be larger than 9 point
You must include a compliance matrix
No questions will be answered after the RFP is released
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my client said to me,
Good luck and we look forward to receiving your proposal.
Expect to see additional requirements.
Submit financials in a separate volume.
All fonts must be larger than 9 point
You must include a compliance matrix
No questions will be answered after the RFP is released
There’s a bidder’s conference on Monday
Use binders with three rings
Four forms must be completed and signed
Please submit 1 original and 2 copies
It’s due in two weeks.
I’m sending you an R – F – P.

In an article published by the company, Melissa highlighted the role accreditation has played in the development of her company’s proposal group. She commented, “Just as an accountant should have a CPA and a lawyer needs to pass the Bar, our proposal professionals should be accredited and have the chance to participate in learning and development programs.”

In the article, Melissa also offers her views on ways to develop your team (and echoes many of the things Jon and I have stated and written about here in the blog). Here’s what Melissa advises:

• Recognize that each individual is different – with different skill sets, needs and interests.
• Understand the expectations for your group and consider ways you can coach and mentor.
• Join professional organizations (such as APMP) to stay abreast of best practices for your group or industry.
• Seek out training opportunities
• Don’t get too comfortable – There’s always something to learn!

Congratulations to Melissa on this prestigious award, on her promoting APMP accreditation and her obviously ‘getting it’ when it comes to the profession of proposals.

APMP’s 2011/12 Global Salary Survey has just been unveiled. You can complete it anonymously here. The survey assesses eight key salary drivers and the associated compensation structure:

Industry

Region

Gender

Age

Education

Job Function

Management Responsibility

Experience

The deadline for participating is 23 December: do pop over to the survey site and join in! I’ve just filled it in myself, and it only took about three minutes.

If you choose to provide your email address, you’ll receive a report showing the key findings once the survey results have been analysed – probably around the end of January. If it shows you’re underpaid, what better way to support your claim for a pay rise. And if it shows you’re overpaid – well, let’s just hope your boss hasn’t participated too!!

The requirement read as follows:

“It shall be the responsibility of the supplier to keep their private areas clean. Please refer to the rules and regulations if you don’t know where your private area is.”

I’ve no doubt this would make for some pretty interesting responses.

• over 1,000 trees had been cut down in the past year to generate the paper needed for the hard copy proposals we’d submitted: hopefully they’d all coe from sustainable sources!
• we had around 1,500 years of proposal management experience
• we’d won some £12bn ($18bn) of contracts in our careers – roughly equivalent to the GDP of Paraguay!

Meanwhile, our company (Strategic Proposals) has been celebrating ten years since our UK business was founded. A few of our friends from client organisations joined us for a small dinner in London last week; Steve Mullins (who chairs our board of directors) and I were hugely honoured to receive a truly lovely message in absentia from Rene Schuster, CEO of Telefónica Germany, marking the occasion: click here to download and view the video if you’re interested and have a minute to spare. It certainly made us feel very proud: watching it for the first time was a very special moment.

I was therefore fascinated to read of a recent study by sociologists at Cornell University, reported in the New York Times:

Drawing on messages posted by more than two million people in 84 countries, researchers discovered that the emotional tone of people’s messages followed a similar pattern not only through the day but also through the week and the changing seasons.

Use of positive words and phrases:

• crested around breakfast time (6 a.m. – 9 a.m.)
• fell off gradually until hitting a trough between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
• then drifted upward, rising more sharply after dinner.

Particularly interesting was that tweets followed broadly the same pattern at weekends as on weekdays (albeit around two hours later). As the researchers commented:

“This is a significant finding because one explanation out there for the pattern was just that people hate going to work. But if that were the case, the pattern should be different on the weekends, and it’s not. That suggests that something more fundamental is driving this — that it’s due to biological or circadian factors.”

I wonder if there’s any learning in this for proposal managers? I guess it suggests that if we’re trying to engineer creativity or secure commitment from people, we’re best doing that earlier in the day than later. Organise a review meeting at 3 p.m. – and you’re potentially going to get people at their most downbeat and negative: not necessarily the ideal mood for constructive input.

Now, I love trying to learn from other creative professions – artistic folks, writers, marketeers, advertisers – and I’ve just seen the most amazing example of  this (thanks to my friend Emma, who linked to it on her Facebook page earlier this evening). It’s the new Christmas* advert from British department store John Lewis (bettering, IMHO, even their incredible “Always a Woman” ad from last year).

Turn down the volume so as to not disturb the other folks in your open plan office; get a box of paper handkerchiefs; and wonder what on earth we** could do to influence customers like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLOnR1s74o

–

* Sorry, it’s mid-November. Did I mention Christmas?!

** Frankly, if you don’t get the parallels with proposals, I hope you enjoy an amazing piece of advertising anyway!

Later, we went for dinner with her partner, and decided that more wine was called for – and on the list, I spied this rather complex explanation:

After a huge investment of both time and money this wine is now presented with a stelvin closure to preserve freshness and purity of fruit, whilst also avoiding the possibility of cork taint.

Anyone guess what that means?

Yep, you got it: “Screw cap.”

It sounds like the sort of thing I read in proposals all too often – content contributors feeling the need to write over-elaborate text, incorporating jargon wherever possible, as if doing so makes them sound clever. And, of course, it usually achieves the exact opposite. Never forget to keep it simple!