I’m running a course this morning, see, and as always arrived at the venue a little early. “Joe and the Juice” is a couple of doors away – and I’m customer number three. Ever, today being their first day of operation. And I’m watching as the six staff get set up.

The guy in the pink shirt’s just come in with a selection of trendy magazines from the newsagent next door, setting them out for  customers to read. A chap in a coat is checking that a colleague knows how to work the juicing machine. A lady in black’s chopping fruit. The boss is proudly taking photos. The pride, enthusiasm and anticipation are palpable.

And I wondered… What would your proposal operation look like if you could start from scratch? How many staff would you need, with what skills and attitude? What equipment would you have, and what would your working environment be like? How would you work together – to produce really great results that surprise and delight a growing customer base? What would be playing on the soundtrack?

I won’t pretend that you’ll be able to make your vision come to life – but if you don’t take time to dream, how can you ever start to move on from wherever your team is today to open the doors to the way you’d really like to be able to work?

One of the exercises I’ve used for many years is “Stand Up If”. This exercise is one I learned from Izzy Gesell, author of Playing Along*, and adapted with his permission. When Jon or I use this game, we give credit to Izzy.

I suspect many of our readers will be familiar with this exercise, wherein statements are made and participants are asked to stand up if the statement is true for them. The individuals then remain standing till the next statement is read. If it is also true for them, they remain standing, if it is not, they sit down. This causes an up and down movement in the room that creates great energy. This is typically used for introduction purposes in workshops or presentation and Jon and I have delivered this many times at APMP events and used it to kick-off workshops we’ve presented.

At this recent conference, someone attempted to use this exercise. I say attempted because the exercise was so poorly delivered and so corrupted that it bore little resemblance to the original exercise, save for the name, which was displayed on this person’s presentation slide (with no credit given).

The person delivering this exercise didn’t explain the rules of the game and it was obvious people weren’t sure what was going on. He began by just saying, “Stand up if you are attending this conference for the first time.” He then said, “Okay, sit down if you are a new member of APMP. What? Confusion rained and it continued to go downhill from there.

During one statement, while people were standing, this person spoke at some length about the conference and during this time those participants who had been standing sat down. He then said “Okay, now raise your hand if…” Excuse me? Raise your hand? In Stand Up If? That’s not how the game is played…and it certainly caused some confusion among the participants.

Suffice to say, the exercise did not go very well and I was not happy to see the exercise used and abused in this manner.

So, am I writing this just to complain? No. I’m writing this to point out a few important things related to the reuse of content.

Whether you’re using an exercise that you’ve participated in or, as is more often the case in the proposal world, re-using content, ALWAYS:

1. Always get permission when using someone else’s intellectual property.
2. Give appropriate credit.
3. Last but not least (and in fact perhaps most importantly) don’t change the content in such a way as to diminish its quality and associated impact.

*Stand Up If and other great improve exercises can be found in the book Playing Along by Izzy Gesell (available through Amazon.com or from www.izzyg.com)

Some are a little risqué, but the site’s perfectly safe to read at work. Here are a couple of examples to give you a flavour:

“Today, I texted my college boyfriend to tell him how terrible I felt about cheating. He replied saying he was so relieved because he had been cheating on me with a girl in his dorm. I was talking about my math exam. FML”

“Today, I brought my little sons into work with me. I introduced them to my boss. She said to my shy kids, “You boys don’t know me, do you? I’m Janice.” The older one lit up and said, “Oh, I know you, mommy complains about you all the time.” FML”

“Today, I realized how invisible/forgettable I am. At work, I went to ask my supervisor what I was working on today. My supervisor admitted that he forgot I was working today. My supervisor is my brother. We drove to work together this morning. FML”

“Today, there was a meeting at work. I had to give a presentation to my boss and the other attendants. My first subject was on how my 5 year old son got to my briefcase and replaced the contents of it with crayons and a stuffed teddy bear. FML”

I wondered what the proposal equivalents might be. Here are a few ideas:

“I had the team working all over the holiday period so we could get the document in by the January 2 deadline. I just noticed that the submission date’s actually January 22. FML.”

“Today, we did a final review of our 1000 page proposal. One of the reviewers noticed that the RFP required responses in Ukrainian. Our document’s in English. It’s due in tomorrow. FML.”

“Today, I bumped into one of our account managers in the staff restaurant and told them that we were making great progress on the proposal for their client that’s due next week. They looked surprised, and asked whether I’d had the email two weeks ago stating that the customer concerned has cancelled the project. FML.”

This individual said that my comments and suggested changes had been very helpful and that when incorporated, had resulted in a much stronger questionnaire.

The person finished by thanking me for, “…imbibing confidence in me.”

Though I hadn’t suggested that the questionnaire needed so much work this individual should consider turning to the bottle, I guess that’s one way to get confidence. ☺

According to www.dictionary.com:

im-bibe (verb, bibed, -bibing)

1.    to consume liquids by drinking, to drink. He imbibed great quantities of alcohol.
2.    to absorb or soak up, as water, light or heat. Plants imbibe moisture from the soil.
3.    to make or receive into the mind, as knowledge. She imbibed the beautiful scenery.

Please could you describe your current role?

As Sales Director for Xait, I am responsible for XaitPorter for new and existing clients, in addition to partners/resellers. All sales people at Xait are also responsible for training and follow-up of their clients.
This means that we need to deliver what we promise when presenting XaitPorter to prospects.

How can proposal centres go about making their proposal processes more efficient?

I believe that most people would agree that there are several things that can make their proposal processes more efficient. Biased as I am, I would look at the tools you have at hand. Do you have the correct kit in your toolbox to deliver as required?

In addition, surprisingly many contributors to a proposal merely want to get their bit done and are not concerned about making it easy for the prospects to understand. Giving the proposal participants a better understanding of what is expected of them and more guidance, could go a long way.

How do you respond to those who claim that, “It’s all about price”?

I would say that while there can be some truth in the statement, normally prospects look at the value of your proposal compared to price. If you can’t convince your client that you give them more value for money than the competitor, maybe you should start looking closer at your proposals? Are they compliant AND responsive?

What’s the worst (or funniest) proofreading error you’ve ever seen in a proposal?

This was in a previous job when the law firm White and Case was replaced (mistakenly) with Whore and Case. The lawyer whom received the proposal luckily took this fine and replied; “A lot can be said about lawyers, most of which is true, however I would prefer if you referred to us in the future as White & Case”. By the way, we won the contract.

If you had to recommend one book to proposal managers, what would it be? (It doesn’t have to be specifically about proposals!)

I would recommend the article “A Bidder’s dozen – Golden Rules for Winning Work” by David G. Pugh, published by APMP in 2002. Excellent article.

Thanks for your time, Kris!

One such show was Sandy Becker, a children’s show which was shown in the greater New York City area (I’m guessing those you who are around my age and grew up in the New York area may also fondly recall the show.) This show featured several characters, all played by the very talented Sandy Becker. One such character, a favorite of mine, was the Big Professor.

The Big Professor would select and answer questions submitted by children, (and I suspect a few parents). The person whose question was chosen to be answered on the air would receive a prize.

As it happens, a cousin of mine submitted a question that was selected and answered by the Big Professor. Her question was, “What makes popcorn pop?”

Steve commented that the Big Professor was our version of Google. This got me to thinking and I decided to Google this question and see what would come up.

As you might suspect, I got a few hits (1,220,000 actually) and had all sorts of information literally at my fingertips. (I also got 780,000 for Sandy Becker and for Big Professor videos.)

As one who grew up in the middle of the industrial age and is now in the Information age, I continue to be amazed at the both information available to us and the speed at which we are able to access it. A favorite question that I ask when I wish to get a conversation started is, “What will the world be like when our children (grandchildren) are our age?” One can only imagine.

Another question that this raises is, given the changes in availability of information, “What will RFPs/Proposals look like in the future? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

- “The core list of products in PRICING represents WHATEVER IT REPRESENTS and is not a comprehensive list of products.” (What???)

- “During contract implementation, you will receive fluid communication from your business development manager.” (I don’t think I want to know any more!)

- If there’s a problem with deliveries, they’ll advise the relevant warehouse who will make certain “that the correct quantity of product is stored to ensure further disruption”. (Ensure??!!).

Still, I’m not immune from the occasional howler myself: when we printed off a batch of our work for review, I’d mentioned the client’s ‘manufucaturing’ site. That almost feels like an example of BJ’s newordology, for those moments when things go wrong in the factory…

Sporting my new cap, I took some time off to go on safari to the local zoo. This elephant tickled my ear – how rude! Unfortunately my hectic globe-trotting schedule didn’t allow for a trip to the Kruger Park game reserve to see the rest of the animals known as the Big 5. And I’ll have to save Cape Town for next time. They say Table Mountain and the wine-lands are amazing. And the garden route sounds worth exploring. I fancy a pony trek in the Drakensberg and a beach holiday on the wild coast to unleash the wild panda within. I’ll be back for their first APMP conference!

Refreshed after my safari, I took the time to inspire Wendy Word, a local proposal witch. In my absence, she will continue the work I started. I shared with her some secrets on how to motivate bid teams in the dead of night and discouraged her from making potions for them to drink. Instead I showed her how to make a mean cup of coffee and explained what Red Bull does.

Wendy Word in turn told me about the NOSE she uses for persuasive proposals, and the 10 tips she trains nFold customers to use. I thought she meant her own pointy nose, but was too polite to ask. I’d forgotten all about Need Outcome Solution and Evidence to make my proposals more client-focused and differentiated. It never hurts to re-visit the basics, so I decided to brush up on Tom Sant’s persuasive methodology by reading his classic and his latest books. I liked his concept of avoiding the pseudo-languages: fluff, guff, geek and weasel, in “The Language of Success” and found it an easy read. Even my emails have improved.

As a famous bear, I’m quite used to the Paparazzi by now. But even I was stunned by how eager the local journalists are to meet me. Here I am motivating for a radio interview by phone. I have a few meetings planned with the local business community before I leave. And I’ve managed to round up a few more subscribers to my blog. Wendy Word has started a blog of her own. I guess we’ll compare notes from time to time. It’s great to have a new friend in proposals, even if she is a witch. And I guess that’s why the South Africans started the local chapter of APMP. There’s nothing like moral support to cheer one up. It’s nice to know you’re not the only bear trying to meet a proposal deadline – doing the impossible, with the unwilling, for the ungrateful.

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It’s really made me stop and think about our own presentations and those we help our clients to put together. We make no claim to be graphic designers, but we do get pretty actively involved in the process of developing, planning and rehearsing proposal presentations. Most of the PowerPoint packs I see (and, hey, why do presenters always default to a slide presentation?) are based on fairly similar design principles, with a corporate logo floating around somewhere on each page of a standard template comprising three common components:

• an area for the heading
• space in the middle for the main graphic (at least no one’s using clip art these days!) and text (often the dreaded bullet-point list)
• a footer, often with the page number, copyright statement and similar.

This book’s ethos is all about simplicity. It’s full of examples of high-impact designs that break free from these conventional ‘wisdoms’ and make it far easier for the reader to absorb information – with bold, striking, full-screen graphics and far, far fewer words.

As Garr writes in the book, “We’ve learned some ineffective habits over the years. The first step to change is letting go of the past.” It strikes me that we’re at a tipping point with presentation design, and this is the first book I’ve seen that really captures what I think great presentations are going to look like in the coming decade.

He proudly reported that this proposal scored #1 in overall points. He also said that a large number of vendors had actually submitted “responsive and responsible” proposals, and in fact, less than 10 points separated the top 8 bidders.

Wishing to learn more, Jeff reviewed the score sheets and the competitors’ submissions. Of note was the largest single-category point loss on his proposal: the proposal only received a half point (out of five possible) because the client deemed the proposal “barely compliant” with the municipality’s small business inclusion requirements. Jeff states:

“I wasn’t happy about the lost points, but satisfied that I’d done my job as a writer and proposal manager. However, as a consultant I now have valuable information that supports what I’ve seen as a growing trend, first in the nonprofit world, and now moving to commercial funders. Everyone seems to be placing more and more emphasis on collaboration and community, and they are rewarding organizations that get it!”

Jeff also noted that he was glad to be a part of our community, and appreciates our advice, encouragement and our supporting and sharing proposal best practice. Glad to have you Jeff, and congrats on your win!

You can read more about Jeff’s other takeaways from this proposal experience on his blog.