What I’d Like To See

8/17/2007

Posted by BJ
In the discussion of “tomatoe, tomaato” (previous post), Sandra clarified her question by saying, “I was just curious about your personal preference on what you’d like to see in a proposal.”

Ah but this sparks the imagination. What would you like to see in a proposal? Hmmm.

My first thought is a check for a very large amount (which I suspect is because today is “bill paying” day here in the office.).

Then what comes to mind is that it would be really cool to see document that had one of those hidden compartments wherein I’d find a sandwich (preferably a mozzarella cheese and sun-dried tomato on a whole wheat roll from ‘Cooking Matters”, a delightful gourmet sandwich shop here in Nashua, NH. And no, that’ not a plug for Tony and his team and their wonderful variety of sandwiches [15 mouth-watering items from which to choose] their lovely assortment of gourmet gifts which are perfect for any occasion, or the fact that they cater for any occasion, big or small (up to 125 people). But then I suspect this is due to the fact that it’s lunch time as I write this and it’s really just my stomach speaking without benefit of consultation with the knowledge experts up north.

Ok, how about this. I’d love to a see live videos of each of the team members proposed for the project, wherein they explain what they bring to the project, the value they add and how they will make this happen. A bit closer to reality I’d suggest.

So, if you had a magic wand and could see whatever you wish in a proposal, what would be on your list?

5 Comments

Jon

3/26/2016 05:00:28 am

As a purchaser? A few very quick thoughts, conscious it’s 6pm on a Friday and my darling wife wants the weekend to start!

With a short-term perspective:
- A document that’s professional and gives my team all of the information I need, in the format I need.
- A document that’s easy to read – enjoyable, stimulating, well-designed and presented; something that makes me smile!
- A document that shows me that the bidder “gets it” – absolutely understands what I’m trying to achieve and why.
- A document that makes everyone involved (the evaluation team, senior stakeholders) think that I’m doing the right thing, and going about it the right way.
- A document that makes it very easy for me to gain senior exec (and stakeholder) approval to go with this bidder (and to make sure debriefs to unsuccessful suppliers will be easy).
- A document full of content that I can steal – sorry, adapt – to sell the story internally.
- A document that excites me about working with the people concerned.
- A document that makes it very straightforward to move from this ‘proposal’ to the ’signed contract’.

Longer-term:
- A document that presents a solution that will make me seem successful internally (”hey, that’s the person that led that wonderful project to source XYZ from ABC Corp”).
- A document that gives me absolute confidence that the solution and implementation will work, and be painless and free of nasty surprises.
- A document that’s future-proofed, giving me confidence that the solution will “age well” – i.e. that someone looking at it in a couple of years time will still think it’s great

And ‘on the side’:
- A nice Montblanc pen to use whilst critiquing the document.
- A beautiful folder that I can keep after throwing away the proposal itself.
- An attractive CD/DVD; no, I don’t want to watch it, but it’ll make a nice coffee mat.
- The keys to my new villa in France. (Joke! Even if, sadly, I have known at least one buyer who’s ethical standards have fallen some way short in this respect).

Sandra

3/26/2016 05:00:38 am

While BJ’s answer gets my imagination pumped, Jon, I like your answer. It gives me practical goals and benchmarks. Keep up the great work, fellas.

Mike Hilton

3/26/2016 05:00:48 am

I very much like the idea of including a sandwich in each proposal. However we generally deliver proposals as PDF files, so I’ve contacted Adobe and suggested they bring out Adobe Acrobat Professional 9.0 ‘Chef Edition’ with the necessary technology to embed tasty foodstuff in PDFs.

Keep up the good work!

-Mike

Jon

3/26/2016 05:00:59 am

Mike – when Adobe bring out 9.1 (the ‘Sommelier’ upgrade), can you let me know? :-)

3/26/2016 05:01:08 am

Ok. How about a built in mp3 player with the client’s favorite tunes? That way theycan plug in haedphones and listen while they review the document. (And we could include the tunes suggested by our associate Graham, ‘Love My Tender’ or “You Are Always On My Mind”

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BJ Lownie and Jon Williams are the co-founders of Strategic Proposals.

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