• Current contracting environment – LPTA, strategic sourcing, budget constraints and sequestration;
• Bidding on emerging GWACs like SEWP V, ITES 3s, and OASIS;
• Building a business development culture in your company;
• Winning bids before they go public.

Today’s reminders:

     1.    Proposal Editing Workshop on April 16-17, 2013 is now half-full, although the class launch sale of 35% off the early bird price (an additional $100 off) lasts until February 28 2013. Use coupon code 35PROPED. If you wanted to claim your seat, register now at http://bit.ly/aF4Dpv. The next editing class is on December 9-10, 2013.

     2.    Upcoming February courses:

• Win Themes Development Workshop on February 27, 2013 that shares our fast-track methodology to develop powerful win_strategies and proposal themes. Learn more or register at http://bit.ly/UWYI6A.
• Foundations of Capture Management on February 28-March 1, 2013. Learn how to win a contract before an RFP hits the street. Find out more details or register at http://bit.ly/NGItZZ.

Want to learn more about BD, capture, and proposals? Get the How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of a $1 Trillion Pie on Amazon at http://amzn.to/13LUpzc. This is a book sharing secrets of how professionals get not one, but multiple multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S. Federal market using the full life cycle of business development, capture, and proposal preparation.

P.S.: If you need Business Development, Capture Management, Proposal Management and Writing, Proposal Training Support, or would like to lease a proposal space for the duration of your proposal pursuits, please call us 301-384-3350 or email service@ostglobalsolutions.com. We have more than 900 fully vetted capture and proposal managers, technical writers, graphic artists, orals coaches, editors, subject matter experts, and other proposal support. We have supported 18 out of the top 20 Federal Contractors and have won $19 Billion since 2005.

Best regards,

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
…Because There is No Second Place in Proposals! TM
https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com

Workshops and Seminars

Rockville, MD, or remotely via webcast. Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

Professional Proposal Tools and Self-Study Training

Order at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/self-study-courses

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts

- Explains how to find opportunities, write winning proposals, and get multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.

• Task Order Manual Template

- Reusable professional tool-set (electronic template) – instant download.

• Executive Summary Secrets

- Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.

• How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant

- Tips to get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download.

• A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists

- Reusable tool-set for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.

• Proposal Resources Estimating Guide

- Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost.

• Six Strategies to Grow Aggressively in the Federal Market

- Video course explaining how to succeed and grow in the highly competitive federal contracting market.

 P.P.S.: Feel free to forward this newsletter to others who may find it useful. If you have received this from a colleague and would like to sign up yourself, here is where you can do it: https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/eZine-signup.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope you love the world of proposals, even if some days you may love to hate it. Today, we bring you an article by our Proposal Manager and writer, Erin Hoefer, who supports our clients on consulting engagements. She discusses her take on proposal editing, self-editing, and editing others’ work:

Proposal managers often get to wear different hats. I am stating the obvious, I know. We do not always get to stand back and orchestrate the overall effort of a winning proposal. Often we have to also get down in the trenches and perform last-minute capture management, fill out pricing and contractual forms, write the technical sections when the Subject Matter Experts are unavailable, and dare I say we even have to edit the proposal after we have written most of it ourselves.

Editing begins early in the proposal writing process and continues throughout the lifecycle, but no matter what stage you are pulled in to edit, it is a distinct task in a proposal’s lifecycle that requires a specific skill set. Editing includes cutting and strengthening text for readability and impact, bringing consistency to diverse materials, achieving a “single voice” in a proposal, and even making your writing sing.

At the very least, as a good proposal editor, you will:

• Work to a proposal-specific or company style guide to ensure consistent use of words.
• Strengthen messages and remove ambiguity missed by the proposal team through familiarity.
• Reduce word count—we all tend to use unnecessary words and phrases.
• Identify and correct errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

It does not matter what you choose to edit first. It may make sense to one editor to review for punctuation and spelling first, and then dig deeper into the message, but there is no right order for editing. It is up to the individual.

Editing your own proposal writing

If you are anything like me, you will repeatedly fall in love with your own writing (I am having a love fest with this piece right now). It is easy to fall into this trap, since writing is hard work. It does not matter what type of writing you are doing, it takes a serious effort to get the right words onto the screen in a coherent fashion. When we spend so much time learning about our clients with the final mission of winning business for them, we inevitably begin to feel passionate about the proposal and its potential outcome. We struggle for the right words, then struggle more to arrange them into the right messages, and finally, present a winning proposal that we know (or think we know) needs very little editing. Therefore, it is not surprising we love our writing more than Angelina Jolie loves to fill out adoption papers—so much time has been invested.

But snap out of it lovers! There is a reason the great proposal writers and editors use the various color reviews (and depending on the size and importance of the proposal, there may be a review for every color in the rainbow). You must be objective about your own work. How do you do that?

Here are a few ways to detach yourself or develop objectivity to your own writing:

• Step away from the piece for at least one full day (that is 24 hours in proposal writer time). Having a fresh look at the writing will help you see what you could not see when you were buried in the words.
• Do it in an alternative format: if you were working in Word, look at your text in PDF. You will see different things. Never skip a hard copy review of your proposal.
• Read it aloud. You know how in your head you are a great singer, but when you actually sing out loud, it sounds surprisingly different? Or is that just me? This exercise can also work on your writing. No matter how great a writer you are, your ears are better at picking up things such as incomplete sentences, vague thoughts, or misplaced points when you read it out loud. This is also a key step in the Read Out Loud review prior to your Gold Team Review.
• Record yourself. Read it out loud again, but this time, use your computer or smart phone to record it. You will hear yourself differently, but more importantly, any inconsistencies or structural errors will be noted sooner than if re-reading the piece in your head.

Editing Someone Else’s Writing

Make no mistake about it. As much as proposal writers love their own words, nothing trumps the opportunity to alter someone else’s work. It is not because the hard work has already been done. No, it is because it is easier for most of us to edit than to come up with the first draft, however bad it may be.

In reality, editing someone else’s work is a bit of a burden. I know how painstakingly difficult it can be to get all the right words in a proposal. How do I tell the writer to remove a whole paragraph? I do not want to make them upset enough to never want to work with me again. However, the opportunity to edit someone else’s work also brings a two-way street of education. I must be prepared to explain every edit, and at the same time, the writer must be able explain why a particular section or sentence must stay. This often requires team work—give and take.

Below is a simple editing checklist from OST Global Solutions that I use for all proposal pieces, whether my own or someone else’s:

• Review content. Cover areas such as compliance, accuracy, consistency, missing information, redundancy, win_themes, and acronyms.
• Review for length and structure. This includes proper paragraph order, flow, and paragraph and section length.
• Edit and review every sentence and word. Look for passive and active voice, word use, tone, style, and a variety of other issues related to the piece.
• Look over the basic mechanics such as spelling, typos, punctuation, capitalization, use of pronouns, subject-verb agreement, and verb tense throughout the document.

In conclusion, whether you edit your own beautiful masterpiece or someone else’s, you can never underestimate the power of making yourself detached and objective. Build the time into your proposal schedule if you are the writer. Estimate a proper amount of time if you are editing someone else’s writing. Cover the basics of editing and dig deep to ensure the proposal communicates the message intended, and that the proposal will sell.

        “The objective of a proposal is not truth, but persuasion.”
        – Consultant’s Guide to Proposal Writing, Herman Holtz

Before the article, here are a few announcements:

• Professional Certification Program sale ends this Friday, February 15, 2013. If you were planning to get certified as a business developer, capture manager, proposal manager, proposal writer, or proposal coordinator, or even wanted to take multiple courses at a 60% off the total price, this is your unique opportunity. We even offer up to $2,000 credit to those who have taken our classes before (only until February 15, 2013). We will not be able to offer such a low price and credit again after this period is over. Enroll in the program or learn more at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/certification.htm.
• Proposal Editing Workshop on April 16-17, 2013 is now half-full, although the class launch sale of 35% off the early bird price (an additional $100 off) lasts until February 28 2013. Use coupon code 35PROPED. If you wanted to claim your seat, register now at http://bit.ly/aF4Dpv. The next editing class is on December 9-10, 2013.
• Upcoming February courses:
  • Win_Themes Development Workshop on February 27, 2013 that shares our fast-track methodology to develop powerful win_strategies and proposal themes. Learn more or register at http://bit.ly/UWYI6A.
  •  Foundations of Capture Management on February 28-March 1, 2013. Learn how to win a contract before an RFP hits the street. Find out more details or register at http://bit.ly/NGItZZ.

Want to learn more about BD, capture, and proposals? Get the How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of a $1 Trillion Pie on Amazon at http://amzn.to/13LUpzc. This is a book sharing secrets of how professionals get not one, but multiple multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S. Federal market using the full life cycle of business development, capture, and proposal preparation.

P.S.: If you need Business Development, Capture Management, Proposal Management and Writing, Proposal Training Support, or would like to lease a proposal space for the duration of your proposal pursuits, please call us 301-384-3350 or email service@ostglobalsolutions.com. We have more than 900 fully vetted capture and proposal managers, technical writers, graphic artists, orals coaches, editors, subject matter experts, and other proposal support. We have supported 18 out of the top 20 Federal Contractors and have won $19 Billion since 2005.

Best regards,

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
…Because There is No Second Place in Proposals! TM
https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com

Workshops and Seminars

Rockville, MD, or remotely via webcast. Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

Professional Proposal Tools and Self-Study Training

Order at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/self-study-courses

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts
- Explains how to find opportunities, write winning proposals, and get multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.

       • Task Order Manual Template
- Reusable professional tool-set (electronic template) – instant download.

       • Executive Summary Secrets
- Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.

       • How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant
- Tips to get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download.

       • A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists
- Reusable tool-set for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.

       • Proposal Resources Estimating Guide
- Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost.

       • Six Strategies to Grow Aggressively in the Federal Market
- Video course explaining how to succeed and grow in the highly competitive federal contracting market.

P.P.S.: Feel free to forward this newsletter to others who may find it useful. If you have received this from a colleague and would like to sign up yourself, here is where you can do it: https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/eZine-signup.

Here are some of the topics we will cover in this class:

• Cost volume vocabulary and basics you need to understand as a proposal manager.
• Top cost volume mistakes that lower your win probability.
• 8 cost proposal team roles and responsibilities and how they should work together for maximum results.
• Key milestones in the cost volume development process.
• Strategies for adjusting your technical solution to lower your price and get to your price-to-win.
• How to collect assumptions and why well-written assumptions are your ticket to writing.
• How you can help your cost volume lead in collecting information, plus what information is needed and why.
• What to include in the cost narrative so that it is not a tired old boilerplate that won’t get you any points.
• What to do when you are afraid that your competition is going to low-ball and underprice you.
• Stellar executive summary for your cost proposal.
• The skinny on the dreaded BOEs, when you are better off creating them, and how to prepare them.
• What specific cost strategies you can apply to get your price down to the range where you can win.
• One key step proposal managers miss that could make a difference between winning and losing.
• And much more.

Learn more or register at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/proposal-cost-strategy.php

In order to increase your win_rate, during capture, you have to learn how to take advantage of other open sources of information, in addition to gathering intelligence directly from your customers (or instead of it, if you missed the window of opportunity to talk to the customer).

Our government releases unbelievably rich and useful information via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). You can request any unclassified document, including your competitors’ contracts and even winning proposals—and get it. You can even FOIA your competitors’ losing proposals from the state and local governments, depending on the rules in your geographical area.

The government also publishes information as to who holds contracts and subcontracts for what work. It indicates the contract value in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS; see fpds.gov) and other web sites, such as USAspending.gov. Government agencies also post a slew of information artifacts on the Web that are immensely useful in preparing proposals.

Don’t ever rely on what you read in the RFI, RFQ, or RFP. You have to understand that what makes it into the requirements is only the driest, most basic version of the story about what the government truly needs. Often an agency doesn’t know how to write an RFP properly and how to express its complex needs succinctly in a set of requirements. Sometimes the well-expressed initial set of requirements has to be simplified and changed based on multiple inputs from other key players or budgetary constraints—distorting the initial intent. Often it is impossible to determine the real intent behind the requirements because there is insufficient information – on purpose or by omission. Only the person who knows the environment and the job can tell.

For example, once we got a call from a potential client who wanted to bid on construction of a child care center on a military base. They were interested in doing this because they had built similar two-story buildings before: how hard would it be to build a child care center? They were determined to bid. We started explaining to them that they had to know the story behind the story— that there is more to writing a proposal on that than just explaining the design build process they use and showing past performance (“Trust us, we’ve done this before!”). For example, did they know the site and its particular issues? They had missed the site visit that had taken place previously and hadn’t visited the base subsequently. They didn’t have any answers to develop a detailed solution. For example, they didn’t know what kind of access they would have and hours for the workers to be at that facility. They also didn’t know what kinds of specific needs the base personnel had regarding the building. The RFP only included the basics—such and such building for this many occupants. To win this bid, the client would have needed to have much more information to tell a credible story.

Presume that everything you will see in the RFP will be limited. It will not be sufficient for you to write a compelling proposal. Furthermore, as you know, the government, unlike most commercial customers, will worry about repercussions from violating procurement integrity, and will shut the door early on. This will especially be true on multiple award contracts: as soon as the government decides to issue a task order in the future, they stop discussions about it.

Unless you start way ahead of the game and engage in capture, you will be operating in a blind and silent world where you will have to use snippets of information to build a mosaic of the whole picture to compensate for your lack of knowledge. Even if you have contact with customers, they won’t tell you everything—so you will still have to search for information to fill the gaps. In the government world, as well as the commercial, the best informed player wins.

Before our article on developing information dominance over your competition, a few announcements:

• Professional Certification Program sale ends this Friday, February 15, 2013. If you were planning to get certified as a business developer, capture manager, proposal manager, proposal writer, or proposal coordinator, or even wanted to take multiple courses at a 60% off the total price, this is your unique opportunity. We even offer up to $2,000 credit to those who have taken our classes before. We will not be able to offer such a low price and credit again after this period is over. Learn more at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/certification.htm.
• Proposal Editing Workshop on April 16-17, 2013 is now half-full, although the class launch sale of 35% off the early bird price (an additional $100 off) lasts until February 28 2013. Use coupon code 35PROPED. If you wanted to claim your seat, register now at http://bit.ly/aF4Dpv. The next editing class is on December 9-10, 2013.
• Upcoming February courses:
  • Win_Themes Development Workshop on February 27, 2013 that shares our fast-track methodology to develop powerful win_strategies and proposal themes. Register at http://bit.ly/UWYI6A.
  • Foundations of Capture Management on February 28-March 1, 2013. Learn how to research like a professional analyst through a course that teaches the hands-on process of gathering information about an opportunity, and demonstrates how to connect the dots to draw the right conclusions from what you find. Register at http://bit.ly/NGItZZ.

Want to learn more about BD, capture, and proposals? Get the How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of a $1 Trillion Pie on Amazon at http://amzn.to/13LUpzc. This is a book sharing secrets of how professionals get not one, but multiple multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S. Federal market using the full life cycle of business development, capture, and proposal preparation.

P.S.: If you need Business Development, Capture Management, Proposal Management and Writing, Proposal Training Support, or would like to lease a proposal space for the duration of your proposal pursuits, please call us 301-384-3350 or email service@ostglobalsolutions.com. We have more than 900 fully vetted capture and proposal managers, technical writers, graphic artists, orals coaches, editors, subject matter experts, and other proposal support. We have supported 18 out of the top 20 Federal Contractors and have won $19 Billion since 2005.

Best regards,

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
…Because There is No Second Place in Proposals! TM
https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com

Workshops and Seminars

Rockville, MD, or remotely via webcast. Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

Professional Proposal Tools and Self-Study Training

Order at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/self-study-courses

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts
- Explains how to find opportunities, write winning proposals, and get multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.

       • Task Order Manual Template
- Reusable professional tool-set (electronic template) – instant download.

       • Executive Summary Secrets
- Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.

       • How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant
- Tips to get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download.

       • A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists
- Reusable tool-set for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.

       • Proposal Resources Estimating Guide
- Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost.

       • Six Strategies to Grow Aggressively in the Federal Market
- Video course explaining how to succeed and grow in the highly competitive federal contracting market.

P.P.S.: Feel free to forward this newsletter to others who may find it useful. If you have received this from a colleague and would like to sign up yourself, here is where you can do it: https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/eZine-signup.

Arm yourself with the real knowledge and tools you can apply immediately to capturing contracts. Master the techniques for customer engagement, intelligence gathering, win strategy development, competitive analysis, teaming, solution development, and more. This is an interactive 2-day workshop that is 40 percent lecture, 50 percent exercises, and 10 percent discussion. It will teach you real skills to raise win probability of the government contracts you pursue.

The objectives of this course are to teach participants the skills for:

• Understanding where capture fits in the business development lifecycle.
• Identifying five types of decision makers and developing relationships with the customer.
• Preparing customer profile and contact plan.
• Developing a capture plan.
• Developing a win strategy and compelling win themes.
• Identifying top competitors and performing competitive analysis.
• Identifying and vetting potential teammates.
• Postulating the requirements before RFP issuance.
• Developing Concept of Operations (CONOPS) and solution sets for proposal sections.
• Staging capture materials for proposal.
• Preparing a proposal plan.
• Preparing a capture schedule.
• Organizing the capture team.

Learn more or register at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/capture-management-training.php

Take proposal management to the next level, beyond the proposal process, and into fine-tuning of the skills indispensable for a senior proposal manager. This course covers a spectrum of the most important topics, from preparing for a proposal effort and making a bid-no-bid decision, to orchestrating a great proposal kickoff, driving subject matter experts to produce winning content, exhibiting superb leadership and management skills, optimizing proposal team performance, getting the most from the proposal color reviews, and mitigating proposal risks at every stage to reduce stress and increase win probability.

This course builds advanced skills by offering a deeper understanding of the theory and practice of proposal management, expands abilities through best practices-based methodologies, and provides tool sets for immediate implementation. It is an interactive 2-day workshop that is 60 percent lecture, 20 percent exercises and case studies, and 20 percent discussion.

Participants of this course will learn the skills for:
• Understanding how to avoid proposal mistakes even mature companies make
• Mastering tools and techniques for making a bid-no-bid decision.
• Determining whether an RFP is wired.
• Planning and managing proposal budget and resources.
• Conducting a highly effective proposal kickoff.
• Scaling the proposal process up and down for different size pursuits.
• Applying the techniques to produce the most compelling proposal content that makes a winning difference.
• Initiating and facilitating rapid solution and section development for every part of the proposal.
• Tracking volume and section progress and quality.
• Applying effective communication methods to the proposal team.
• Getting results from difficult proposal team members.
• Working effectively with remote participants.
• Mastering techniques for quickly integrating reviewers’ input into the proposal.
• Applying metrics for proposal effectiveness.
• Making use of personal and organizational proposal process optimization.
• And much more.

Learn more or register at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/advanced-proposal-management.php

The polished, professional appearance of your proposal is paramount to making a positive impression on evaluators. Every proposal needs an editor to get it in the customer-ready shape. Unlike regular editing, however, proposal editing requires skills that normally take a long time to master by trial and error—unless you take this course.

The course covers everything from developing the professional attributes of an editor, to estimating your workload correctly, figuring out the optimum workflow, integrating changes, and adding value to the content you’ve edited through incorporating compelling language. It will help you remove irrelevancies and puffed-up text, sniff out showstopper mistakes, translate ugly “proposalese” and “technicalese” to proper English, and enforce consistent style.

You will learn how to work with subject matter experts and edit their content to meet proposal requirements. You will practice editing for clarity and meaning, sharpen your ability to spot factual errors and redundancies, and organize unfocused materials. You will also learn how to infuse a consistent voice throughout your proposal regardless of the number of authors involved. This is a hands-on workshop filled with examples and exercises that will help you master the techniques for rapid and accurate editing using the available tools. It will teach you the real skills required to increase quality, professional appearance, and persuasiveness of your proposals.

To receive our discount, use the following code: 35PROPED.

Learn more about this course, including the detailed curriculum, at: http://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/classroom-training/proposal-editing-workshop.htm

Reminder:

Professional Certification Program sale is extended until February 15, 2013 since several people requested an extension due to pending management approval. To clarify, the sale is $4,980 for 16 days of courses, and we will also apply credit for the classes already taken up to $2,000 – just send us an email at service@ostglobalsolutions.com. After February 15, we will only be able to apply an academic credit for the classes taken, but will not offer the monetary credit. With multiple-pay options, sale price, and credits, you may want to take advantage of this one-of-a-kind opportunity while it lasts. Learn more at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/certification.htm.

Want to learn more about BD, capture, and proposals? Get the How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of a $1 Trillion Pie on Amazon at http://amzn.to/13LUpzc. This is a book sharing secrets of how professionals get not one, but multiple multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S. Federal market using the full life cycle of business development, capture, and proposal preparation.

P.S.: If you need Business Development, Capture Management, Proposal Management and Writing, Proposal Training Support, or would like to lease a proposal space for the duration of your proposal pursuits, please call us 301-384-3350 or email service@ostglobalsolutions.com. We have more than 900 fully vetted capture and proposal managers, technical writers, graphic artists, orals coaches, editors, subject matter experts, and other proposal support. We have supported 18 out of the top 20 Federal Contractors and have won $19 Billion since 2005.

Best regards,

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
…Because There is No Second Place in Proposals! TM
https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com

Workshops and Seminars

Rockville, MD, or remotely via webcast. Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

Professional Proposal Tools and Self-Study Training

Order at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/self-study-courses

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts
- Explains how to find opportunities, write winning proposals, and get multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.

       • Task Order Manual Template
- Reusable professional tool-set (electronic template) – instant download.

       • Executive Summary Secrets
- Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.

       • How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant
- Tips to get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download.

       • A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists
- Reusable tool-set for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.

       • Proposal Resources Estimating Guide
- Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost.

       • Six Strategies to Grow Aggressively in the Federal Market
- Video course explaining how to succeed and grow in the highly competitive federal contracting market.

P.P.S.: Feel free to forward this newsletter to others who may find it useful. If you have received this from a colleague and would like to sign up yourself, here is where you can do it: https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/eZine-signup.

Masterfully facilitate brainstorming sessions such as Black Hats, Win Strategy Sessions, and CONOPS workshops; perform advanced competitive analysis; create advantageous teaming arrangements; apply formulas to solution development; and much more. The course builds advanced skills by offering deeper understanding of theory and practice of capture management, expands abilities through best practices-based methodologies, and provides tool sets for immediate implementation. It is an interactive 2-day workshop that is 50 percent lecture, 30 percent exercises and case studies, and 20 percent discussion.

Participants of this course will learn the skills for:
• Understanding how advanced capture techniques offer an edge in a competition.
• Building strong and lasting relationships with government customers.
• Shaping opportunities and requirements.
• Facilitating win strategy development sessions.
• Turning advanced win strategies into action.
• Unseating incumbents and defending one’s position as an incumbent.
• Using seven most useful competitive analysis techniques.
• Understanding Price to Win and IDIQ competitive analysis.
• Facilitating Black Hat sessions that produce actionable intelligence.
• Applying strategic principles to teaming.
• Negotiating binding teaming agreement to protect bidder s’ interests.
• Pre-staging of capture materials for proposal development.
• Focusing the capture effort and measuring its effectiveness.
• And much more.

Learn more or register at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/advanced-capture-management.php

The FAR then states that the purpose of exchanging information is to improve the understanding of government requirements and industry capabilities, thereby allowing potential offerors to judge whether or how they can satisfy the government’s requirements, and enhancing the government’s ability to obtain quality supplies and services at reasonable prices. The FAR goes on to express the government’s desire to further increase efficiency in proposal preparation, proposal evaluation, negotiation, and contract award. The same law encourages one-on-one meetings with potential offerors.

You will find that despite this law, the govies are often worried about breaking the procurement integrity rules—so you will have to learn when to talk to them, and when not to. Generally speaking, you can talk to the government freely before they have developed an acquisition strategy (or the way they are going to run the competition) for a specific pursuit, and then the communications become increasingly limited and formal. Therefore, you want to start as early as possible before their doors shut.

In reality, your opportunity to interface with the government gradually diminishes as the acquisition lifecycle progresses. For example, when the government identifies a need and performs market research, your chances of talking to them and their openness with you are the greatest. They may be willing to meet one on one, and tell you much of what you need to know to win. Once they publish an RFI or Sources Sought, they might treat the meetings more officially if it is a large procurement; if it is a small procurement, you might still be able to talk to them freely. This will be especially true if you write a detailed response to their RFI with lots of useful advice on how they should run acquisition and what should be in the statement of work. Often the government will meet with you only in an official setting after an RFI. They will no longer accept personal meetings. They won’t necessarily disclose what they discuss with you with othe! r bidders, but the contracting officer will be there to provide “adult supervision” to make sure that the government maintains a level playing field. This presents a tougher way to build relationships.

Once they develop an acquisition plan and possibly even issue a draft RFP, your opportunities to talk with them in private will all but disappear. In rare cases, they might still set up one-on-one meetings, but now you will be under the careful watch of a contracting officer, who is interested at avoiding protests at any costs, and will enforce the strictest possible interpretation of the rules. So, unless they have decades of government experience and know the rules really well, meeting participants are unlikely to be forthcoming with information that might give you a leg up on your competition.

With a draft RFP on the street, you will still be able to ask questions and provide recommendations in writing that they might or might not make public. More often than not, they will post a public Q&A response list.

There could also be a set of official vendor outreach events such as an Industry Day, or a site visit. This will provide an opportunity to ask questions in a public forum, or even have a word with the govie at the end of the meeting. Keep in mind, though, that your competitors will be lurking, listening, and watching your every step.

After they issue the final RFP, the government will not meet with you and will not discuss any details of the procurement unless their vendor outreach event or site visit happens during the RFP phase (as is customary in certain industries, such as construction, and happens occasionally in other industries). You might still be able to weigh in on the RFP requirements, but now it all has to be in writing, addressed to the contracting officer, and published for the rest of the world to see. The customer is also likely to reject any major changes, as you should have proposed them long ago. Questions are often due by an early deadline, with little opportunity to digest the RFP. Everything is disclosed to all competitors to avoid preferential treatment.

On many multiple award contracts, the door is almost permanently shut for each task order. It is difficult to get any information on the upcoming requirements before they turn into a formal procurement. Rules vary from contract to contract, so your capture cycle has to start even earlier.

There is always a way to go through the back door and meet with the government in an unofficial setting before the draft RFP or the final RFP are issued (or in rare cases, even after). However, this is usually done only through pre-existing close relationships.

As you are building any relationship with a customer, you can only go and see the same person so often. You won’t succeed in building a relationship if you only allot a couple of months to do it—it takes much, much longer, because your visits have to be spaced out over time. Your best bet is therefore to get to the right people early.

Want to learn more about BD, capture, and proposals? Get the How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of a $1 Trillion Pie on Amazon at http://amzn.to/13LUpzc. This is a book sharing secrets of how professionals get not one, but multiple multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S. Federal market using the full life cycle of business development, capture, and proposal preparation.

A few announcements today before our article on when you are allowed to talk to your government customers:

• Professional Certification Program sale was extended until February 15, 2013 since several people requested an extension due to pending management approval. To clarify, the sale is $4,980 for 16 days of courses, and we will also apply credit for the classes already taken up to $2,000 – just send us an email at service@ostglobalsolutions.com. After February 15, we will only be able to apply an academic credit for the classes taken, but will not offer the monetary credit. With multiple-pay options, sale price, and credits, you may want to take advantage of this one-of-a-kind opportunity while it lasts. Learn more at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/certification.htm.
• Foundations of Proposal Management course (http://bit.ly/PiOYwP) on February 7-8, 2013. It’s not too late to sign up for the course starting this Thursday.
• Proposal Win_Themes Development workshop (http://bit.ly/L4eLaV) on February 27, 2013, and Foundations of Capture Management (http://bit.ly/NGItZZ) class on February 28-March 1, 2013 early bird registration is ending soon. Register this week and save $100.
• We will be soon announcing another free webinar on winning in cost proposals. Stay tuned to our newsletters for more information.
• Take our Foundations of Business Development (http://bit.ly/XJhBt6), Foundations of Capture Management (http://bit.ly/NGItZZ) and Advanced Capture Management (http://bit.ly/NP07aH) courses to learn more about interfacing with the customers.

P.S.: If you need Business Development, Capture Management, Proposal Management and Writing, Proposal Training Support, or would like to lease a proposal space for the duration of your proposal pursuits, please call us 301-384-3350 or email service@ostglobalsolutions.com. We have more than 900 fully vetted capture and proposal managers, technical writers, graphic artists, orals coaches, editors, subject matter experts, and other proposal support. We have supported 18 out of the top 20 Federal Contractors and have won $19 Billion since 2005.

Best regards,

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
…Because There is No Second Place in Proposals! TM
https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com

Workshops and Seminars

Rockville, MD, or remotely via webcast. Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

Professional Proposal Tools and Self-Study Training

Order at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/self-study-courses

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts
- Explains how to find opportunities, write winning proposals, and get multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.

       • Task Order Manual Template
- Reusable professional tool-set (electronic template) – instant download.

       • Executive Summary Secrets
- Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.

       • How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant
- Tips to get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download.

       • A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists
- Reusable tool-set for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.

       • Proposal Resources Estimating Guide
- Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost.

       • Six Strategies to Grow Aggressively in the Federal Market
- Video course explaining how to succeed and grow in the highly competitive federal contracting market.

P.P.S.: Feel free to forward this newsletter to others who may find it useful. If you have received this from a colleague and would like to sign up yourself, here is where you can do it: https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/eZine-signup.

We are normally taught to define the strategy first, then the tactics. So, intuitively, many think that one has to start with defining the win strategy first, and then you would develop action items (the tactics) to enact it. The actions that will enable you to implement this win strategy, with clear priorities, deadlines, and targets assigned to each task.

After this is all set and done, right before the RFP hits the street, or while you are preparing a proposal, the approach is to develop the win themes that are reflective of the win strategy, as a separate but related exercise. Win themes are recurring statements throughout the proposal that convey to the customer why your proposal should win, help your customer remember your proposal while they might read multiple others, and even lend them the language to justify to others why they want to award this proposal to you.

This traditional approach works sometimes, but it takes twice as long to implement. In many cases, the results are nothing to write home about—with win themes completely out of sync with win strategies.

The secret of developing powerful win strategies that shine through your win themes and make your proposals more persuasive is counterintuitive: Start with developing win themes, not win strategies; win strategies will fall out of the action items that your win themes will drive.

The way you derive good strategies is to come up with win themes, and perform a gap analysis in the process. If you cannot come up with a reason to select you for every evaluation criterion, every area of scope, and every customer desire, you need to honestly assess: Do you actually have the capability to provide the desired benefit your customer seeks? If yes, make sure you state the benefit, the feature, and prove it. If no, you have to come up with a strategy to obtain that capability, and figure out what actions will get you there. This is the inverted relationship between the win themes and win strategies. In other words, if you cannot come up with a complete win theme, you should create a win strategy, and not the other way around.

Today, we have for you a bit of commentary on the latest procurement developments, a couple of announcements, and a short article revealing our secret of developing powerful win strategies.

Procurement developments:

If you have been monitoring SBA rule-making, you probably know that SBA is planning to add mentor-protégé programs for HUBZone, WOSB, and SDVOSB firms, in addition to the wonderful 8(a) mentor-protégé that benefits both small disadvantaged and large businesses. SBA predicts that the rules will come out in March 2013. In January, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2013 that includes a provision that would allow SBA to expand the mentor-protégé program to all small businesses, along with some language on viability of mentor-protégé programs other than the SBA and DOD ones. There may be changes coming up soon—and we will keep you posted. As always, our courses and services will be up to date with the new information, as the government contracting world changes.

Speaking of the courses, here are a few announcements:

• Professional Certification Program sale had several people asking us to extend because they could not obtain their management’s approval. Because we had to extend it for several people, we wanted to be fair to everyone, and announce that the sale has been officially extended until February 15, 2013—after which we will not be able to issue any more extensions. You can learn more at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/certification.htm.
• Writing Persuasive Federal Proposals course on February 5-6, 2013 will be taught by Olessia on her own for the last time. If you would like to attend, register at http://bit.ly/I1tTrh, only one seat left.
• Foundations of Proposal Management on February 7-8, 2013 has three seats left. Register at http://bit.ly/PiOYwP.
• Win Themes Development Workshop on February 27, 2013. Learn the streamlined method discussed in today’s article, along with more secrets and efficient persuasion methodologies. Register at http://bit.ly/L4eLaV.

Want to learn more about BD, capture, and proposals? Get the How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of a $1 Trillion Pie on Amazon at http://amzn.to/13LUpzc. This is a book sharing secrets of how professionals get not one, but multiple multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S. Federal market using the full life cycle of business development, capture, and proposal preparation.

P.S.: If you need Business Development, Capture Management, Proposal Management and Writing, Proposal Training Support, or would like to lease a proposal space for the duration of your proposal pursuits, please call us 301-384-3350 or email service@ostglobalsolutions.com. We have more than 900 fully vetted capture and proposal managers, technical writers, graphic artists, orals coaches, editors, subject matter experts, and other proposal support. We have supported 18 out of the top 20 Federal Contractors and have won $19 Billion since 2005.

Best regards,

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
…Because There is No Second Place in Proposals! TM
https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com

Workshops and Seminars

Rockville, MD, or remotely via webcast. Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

Professional Proposal Tools and Self-Study Training

Order at https://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/self-study-courses

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts
- Explains how to find opportunities, write winning proposals, and get multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.

       • Task Order Manual Template
- Reusable professional tool-set (electronic template) – instant download.

       • Executive Summary Secrets
- Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.

       • How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant
- Tips to get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download.

       • A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists
- Reusable tool-set for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.

       • Proposal Resources Estimating Guide
- Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost.

       • Six Strategies to Grow Aggressively in the Federal Market
- Video course explaining how to succeed and grow in the highly competitive federal contracting market.