Here’s what happened. We had about three weeks lead time when the SAVO team and I agreed we wanted to hold the reception and asked our new Marketing Director, Carol S. to make the arrangements with the hotel. This was the first event Carol would be coordinating for Strategic Proposals and, as you might expect, she was eager for this event to go well and took the task very seriously.

Carol immediately obtained the name of the person responsible for such events at the hotel and attempted to contact that individual, sending e-mail and phoning. For several days she received no reply, despite sending additional e-mails and phoning again. Over the next two weeks, Carol persisted in trying to reach this person, only to be put off each time. Ultimately, when we arrived at the hotel on the Monday before the start of the conference, Carol had only had the briefest of conversations with this person and had no information from her. To say Carol was stressed about this is way beyond an understatement. Trying to be supportive, I told her I was confident it would all work out.

We arrived at the hotel Monday evening and Carol met with this on Tuesday morning. This individual was very nice and polite, and apologized for the difficulty in contacting her. She presented a package for Carol’s consideration but what she was able to offer in the way of venue, food and beverage within our budget was completely unacceptable and extremely over-priced. After some discussion, she told Carol she would “see what she could do.”

On Wednesday morning, the day of the event, this individual told Carol the best she could do was to offer a 10% discount “because you’re with APMP”. Carol and I spoke and we agreed that what was being offered was still not close to what we expected and way over-priced, even with the 10% discount. Despite there now being very little time before the event at this point, I suggested Carol check into some of the restaurants nearby and see if they could do something for us.

As Carol was leaving the hotel to check out the restaurants, she encountered the manager of the individual from the hotel with whom she had been trying to work. She explained her dissatisfaction with what was being offered and the pricing. When she told him she was going to check into the local restaurants He insisted he could come up with something that would meet our needs, within our budget, and said he’d have something for her when she came back. She said she was willing to listen but was still going to check out the restaurants nearby. One such restaurant was the Hard Rock Café, immediately across the street from the hotel.

When she came back the manager apologized but said there was nothing he could do and that the package was the best that the hotel could offer and that the price was firm.

With less than two hours to go Carol came to me and explained the situation. She said she had checked out three restaurants, with the Hard Rock being her first choice. Being a big fan of music and of rock and roll in particular, it was my first choice as well. The person Carol met with at the Hard Rock, Mike, had told her to check back in 30 minutes and he would let her know what could be done.

I told Carol to pursue the Hard Rock option. Obviously stressed by all this, Carol went back to the Hard Rock with me assuring her once again it would all work out.

She came back grinning and excited. The Hard Rock told her they had a private room, with a private entrance, normally used by celebrities for major events such as CD release parties. When they told her what the room normally cost to rent her jaw dropped. It was fully four times our budget, for just the room! They told Carol that since the room wasn’t booked for the evening and as it was so last minute, they could work with her. They had put together a package that was just slightly over our budget. This was for a private room, with a private entrance, drinks at reasonable prices and a great selection of food. Carol checked with our friends at SAVO as to whether they were okay with going slightly over budget. They gave their approval and so did I.

In the end, despite all the challenges associated with dealing with the hotel and the stress it caused, we ended up in an amazing venue with a cool vibe, great food and a DJ. Our guests were duly impressed and, as we had to all but push people out the door when it was time to leave, they seemed to have a very good time.

As has often been my experience as a proposal manager, it often happens that when things go wrong, usually things eventually work out… and quite often for the better.

I was in a local store which had a fair amount of things that were breakable and/or potentially dangerous for children. Many a store I’ve been in has had a sign along the lines of “Please watch your children” or “Parents are responsible for any damage done by their children”.

This particular store had obviously given some thought to the individuals to whom the sign was directed (the parents), as well as to some potential motivators that would cause the parents to heed the sign. It read:

“Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.”

The several children I saw in the store were being held firmly by the hand and closely watched by the parents.

Are the messages within the proposal you submit as compelling to your clients as this sign?

• a record attendance at the conference, with 719 registrations
• APMP membership at a record high, with 5,100 members
• nearly 4,000 individuals accredited to APMP Foundation Level
• … but fewer than 10% of those have gone on to attain Practitioner status
• … and there are under 100 who’ve reached the highest ‘Professional’ level of accreditation.

I say ‘accreditation’ – but for some reason I can’t really fathom, the qualification scheme for our profession has just been renamed to ‘certification’ (even if not all the pages on the relevant sites have yet been updated). I’m not sure I like that: “you should be certified” may well be true for some bid/proposal people I know, but with a rather different meaning…

With somewhere over two hundred people packing the room, the session was such fun to present. If you were there, do let us know what you thought of it! For everyone else, we’re providing the tips – but we’ll spare you the somewhat-risque story that went with them (although I can email that to you if you’d like a copy!)! We hope you find some of them useful…

Flirtation

1. Find a C-level executive to act as the personal sponsor & champion for your proposal function.

2. Calculate the revenue proposals generate – and the jobs they create – and promote the ROI generated by the proposal support function.

3. Calculate a realistic yet generous budget for effectively managing proposals – without cutting corners – and ensure this is under the direct, discretionary control of the head of the proposal function.

4. Create trust with sales by producing high-quality proposals – taking away the pain, and helping them to win more business.

Resources

5. Provide your proposal staff with a working environment conducive to effective, creative work.

6. Ensure you have ready access to war rooms for proposal development.

7. Create a comprehensive library of strategic, up-to-date, easy-to-tailor pre-written proposal content and graphics.

Contract

8. Define clearly the process by which your sales staff should engage the proposal support function, and the services that will (and will not) be provided.

9. Establish a clear and measurable service level agreement in place with your sales and business colleagues.

10. Build a clear capacity plan showing the number of deals your proposal centre can support, and ensure that you have the corresponding staffing level in place.

11. Help sales to write proactive proposals to retain and extend existing contracts without these going to competitive tender.

12. Coach sales to engage you as soon as an opportunity is a realistic twinkle in their eyes, so you can undertake thorough pre-proposal planning to shape the deal in your favour.

Seduction

13. Establish a robust, active qualification process in place that ensures you only work on the right deals – treating each opportunity as qualified out until it is qualified in.

14. Develop a clear, compelling strategy to seduce your client’s decision-makers for each opportunity. If you don’t have a compelling story to tell, don’t bother!

15. Conduct a high-quality kick-off workshop to engage, inform, motivate and connect your team.

16. Design content before starting to write, working out how to maximise your scores.

Obedience

17. Document your proposal process clearly, and ensure it is understood, supported – and obeyed – by all parties.

18. Ensure that the right people are fully, quickly and willingly engaged once a deal is qualified in: proposals should be part of the role descriptions and objectives for the staff involved; insist that those taking the decision to qualify in then ensure their staff’s active involvement.

19. Clearly document and explain the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in proposal development.

20. Train all those involved in proposal development in the necessary techniques.

21. Be a proposal evangelist: champion best practices throughout the business, regularly.

Discipline

22. Adopt a disciplined approach to developing – as opposed to merely writing – content.

23. Foster the development of proposals that are a joy to read, by editing and proofreading content so that it is high-quality. Build the necessary time into your plan.

24. Use social media, as well as more traditional techniques, to share information between team members working on your proposals.

25. Establish a well-structured coaching and mentoring program for all staff in your proposal function. Mentor and / or be mentored.

26. Accredit your proposal staff – and not just to Foundation Level.

Punishment

27. Ensure that all strategic deals have strong and active executive sponsorship.

28. All of your proposal managers should be skilled in project management and leadership; train them to a high standard and give them the necessary authority.

29. Ensure that there are consequences for those who don’t meet deadlines or who don’t produce

30. Conduct reviews and approvals in accordance with a robust yet flexible governance process.

Submission

31. Submit proposals that are professional in look and feel, designed in a way which brings your story to life.

32. Draw! Ensure that all of your proposals include excellent, customer-centric graphics to enliven and explain your story.

33. Don’t fall behind the pack with your proposal output. (Think poster proposals, iPads, website submissions, bid portals, contemporary binding and packaging…)

34. Remember that production is best left to the experts – but only to experts who ‘get’ proposals.

35. Production and submission: have a Plan B…and C.

36. Consider design very early, so that your proposal documentation is consistent with other bid collateral.

Satisfaction

37. Win more.

38. Compensate your proposal staff more than adequately – salaries, bonuses, recognition, time off…

Reflection

39. Conduct effective learning reviews internally, win or lose, recognising what worked well as well as what could have gone better.

40. Conduct effective and insightful client debriefs at the end of each bid/proposal effort, ensuring that feedback on proposal quality is specifically captured.

41. Make your executive sponsor accountable for implementing actions and sharing knowledge as a result of your learning reviews.

42. Benchmark your proposal output and capabilities objectively and independently and on a regular basis.

43. Have a client audit program in place, to regularly understand and quantify evaluators’ views of the quality of your proposals compared to those of your competitors.

Commitment

44. Ensure that roles in your proposal function are filled by staff committed to a career in proposal management.

45. Attending APMP events is a right, not a privilege. Make sure your senior management understand this.

46. Share knowledge between team members on a regular basis and help them to improve their skills and knowledge.

47. ‘Will-win’ deals, not merely ‘must-win’. Get serious!

48. Celebrate success.

49. Write a list of things that would make your proposal function a better place to work. And do something about them.

50. Build a clear, costed, prioritised improvement plan to enhance your proposal capabilities in the coming year; get it agreed and secure the necessary funding.

Click here – it’ll take you at most ten minutes to complete. I scored eight out of ten, which apparently makes me a “”grammar guru”. It also means I got two wrong, which illustrates why professional proofreaders are so important on live deals even for the most competent of writers.

We are delighted to announce that the Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar, & View is renewing your fine dining experience with a highly anticipated renovation. The restaurant will be closed April 29 to August 2013, but pleased be inspired to join us for brunch, lunch, and dinner at The Café and The Lobby Bar, located on level 5.

Now, I’m all in favour of hotels updating their facilities. And, just as in proposals, writers sometimes have to look for a positive spin on bad news. I’m guessing that the following would have been the most honest story:

Perhaps the most notable feature of our hotel is its 73rd floor restaurant, with 360 degree views over Atlanta. Unfortunately, you won’t get to enjoy it as it’ll be closed when you’re here.

So, maybe they could have been more apologetic:

Our Sun Dial restaurant will be closed for renovation during your stay, but you will still be able to join us…

… or  even…

We’re sorry that our  Sun Dial restaurant will be closed during your  stay, but…

Instead, they’re “delighted” we won’t get to experience it. I’m so pleased for the guests who’ll be staying with them from September – but please don’t patronise me. Because the only way I’d be happy would be were I a regular guest (and their systems could show that it’s nearly a decade since I was last there), or if  the truth is actually:

The Sun Dial restaurant really is dire. It’s shut. You should be thankful.

There’s a lesson in this for proposal writers. Sometime we do have to break bad news to the client – that, for example, we can’t quite meet their needs in the way that they have specified. We have to shine a more positive light on things, perhaps along the lines of, “instead we do this the following way, and evidence shows that this will enable you to achieve the same goals / realise the same benefits, but in a slightly different way”. Done well, non-compliances or weaknesses in your approach can be explained in a customer-friendly way – and evaluators do actually like vendors who appear to be honest. But we have to do so without sounding arrogant, patronising  or merely downright insenstive, as the Westin managed to do with their email.

The hotel in which I’m staying for a few nights before moving across to the conference venue dropped me an email a couple of days back, entitled:

“Check out what’s happening while you’re with us.”

I clicked on it with interest: a little insider knowledge about events in town for the weekend sounded great. Theatre? A gig? Baseball, maybe – a sport that, despite being English, I love!

But the actual contents of the note? The usual, boring dull stuff: confirmation of my booking, details of transport options from the airport, advice on how to amend my reservation. Nothing whatsoever on things that are ‘happening’ – other than the rain showers that look ever-so-likely.

It struck me that there was a parallel with many proposals, where the Exec Summary promises so much – and yet seems entirely removed from the content of the remainder of the proposal. If you lure people in with the promise of an interesting and relevant story, but then offer up content that’s bland, mundane, then readers will end up deeply frustrated – and even annoyed.

That why it’s important to be thinking actively and in the “ing” rather than thinking in the “ed” and as activity done once and closed.

You shouldn’t be thinking “ed” as in qualified, planned, assigned or motivated. You should be thinking qualifying, planning, assigning, motivating, etc. In this way, we recognize that activities are ongoing, ever-changing, fluid and need to be updated as changes occur and new information is received.

It is a naïve proposal person who qualifies an opportunity and makes a decision to pursue it and then not re-qualify it as new information comes in. Inevitably, as a proposal effort gets underway, new information is garnered, both from the client/customer and internally. The qualification/selection decision needs to be reviewed in light of significant new information. Likewise with other proposal activities: You develop a proposal plan and then you continually adjust and revise that plan. Throughout any proposal development effort the plan will change many times as you adjust for real life coming in to play.

You’ll remember that the over-riding purpose of a kick-off meeting is “to inform and motivate”. Hereto, you don’t want to think of the team as informed and motivated. You need to be continually informing and motivating the team (I refer to this as “knowing when to hand out the candy bars”.)

So, when working on your next proposal development effort, think “ing”, not “ed”.

*Credit for this great tip goes to David Oliver, a member of the Professional Ski Instructor Association’s Demo team. He provided this tip during a session I was fortunate enough to attend with him as group leader. Dave pointed out that in skiing, you’re never “ed” and always “ing”. You’re balancing, edging, pressuring, etc. Great tip Dave!

“The only secret to being in control is to have it [from] the start. Retaining control is still hard but obtaining control is virtually impossible.”

He was talking about the media circus surrounding the release of the band’s new album – but the same clearly applies to proposals: if you don’t get your team working in the right way and to a clear plan  from the outset, the project is forever going to be a struggle.

We’re also very much looking forward to Bid & Proposal Con in Atlanta at the end of the month. Our topic, inspired by a certain best-selling book? “50 Shades of Great”:

Is proposal development a pleasure – or is it painful for you? Are your proposals compelling, creative and dynamic – or merely grey? Does your organization take a disciplined approach to proposal development -or does your team need to be whipped into shape?

Whether you are a proposal virgin or a proposal master, this session is sure to provide you with new insights that will help you improve the quality of your proposals and the efficiency of your proposal operations.

We’re still debating quite how far we can push the topic. Props? Audience participation? Suffice it to say that I’ll be in Atlanta a couple of days before the conference starts, and have been tasked with buying grey ties for us both before BJ arrives in town…