Carl Dickson

We use forums in a couple of ways to support training. Every course gets an online Q&A forum. This is a place where students can ask questions ranging from technical issues to the course subject matter to the instructor's expectations. Instructors are expected to monitor and respond to this questions. It shouldn't require much level of effort and interacting with your students and having opportunities to build relationships is even more important when you are not physically in the room. Forums can also be used for exercises. A forum-based exercise usually involves posting, reviewing, or commenting on something someone else posted. They can be used to explain and explore while interacting with other students since everyone who takes a course can see the forum for that course. It is easy to add discussion topics to the course forum. Participation in a discussion can be an exercise. One way to do this is to post content, especially content that is not cut and dry or training related to making judgment calls. The more interactivity the better. But keep in mind, that if you allow signups at anytime in the future, you can get forum posts any time in the future.

The PropLIBARY Course System assigns points that students earn for completing every course item. These points are used to: Automatically generate student transcripts Show how much training a student has acquired Provide a foundation for certifying student accomplishment Provide an incentive and recognition system Each course item has a certain number of points assigned to it. The number can be fixed or variable, and is usually based on a ratio of one point for every five minutes of instruction. Quizzes are typically given one point per question, although this can could for questions that take an unusually long time to answer. The completion of most course items is self-certified and points are automatically awarded. Points can be manually awarded if an instructor will be reviewing completion. Some examples An article would typically earn 1-3 points, depending on its length. The points would be automatically awarded and show up on the student's transcript. An exercise estimated to take one-hour to complete would earn 12 points. If the exercise is reviewed by an instructor, this might be variable based on the instructor's grade. A 20-question quiz would earn 20 points, if every question was answered correctly. Integration with live events Points can be manually awarded. This means they can be awarded for offline events, such as instructor led training or even participation in a real proposal. More about transcripts Each student gets an automatically generated transcript that shows: Their total score Percentile ranking based on their score Any certifications or recognition they have received What courses they have taken Any exercises they have uploaded or quizzes they have taken as demonstration of capability Students can make their transcripts searchable. This enables managers and others to look a student up and examine their transcript. It turns transcripts into an independent record of a student's training and capability. Transcripts can be used as a way of measuring participation in training. If points are awarded for offline events, they can become a record of participation in them as well. More about certification and recognition PropLIBRARY has the capability to track student transcriptions and apply recognition for achieving goals. This can be used to implement a certification program, automatically recognizing when students have taken the training required to receive a certification label. It can also be used to automatically recognize milestones and accomplishments, such as: Being in the 90th percentile of all students Successfully completing their 10th course Participating in training every month for 6 months Being the first X number of students to complete a course The rules-based engine driving this is very flexible. We encourage lots of recognition, especially when it has value in the real world of performance and assignments.

Too many companies lead with their experience as if it’s the most important consideration for the customer. This is especially true of incumbents. The problem is that every company that’s a serious competitor will have relevant experience. Maybe it won’t be the same. But it will be enough for the customer to consider their offer. If all you put on the table is your precious experience, then you’re at risk of losing to someone with a better offering. The main reason you are at risk is that experience doesn’t matter much. You will never lose out to someone on a job solely because you had 15 years of experience and they had 17. Even a gap like 5 or 10 probably won’t matter. The only reason it matters on a resume is that companies get so many of them and do such a bad job of assessing which candidates are better from what they put on paper. In a proposal it clearer which is the better offer. But the more proposals they receive, the more they’ll focus on such details. If you are competing against dozens or hundreds of companies, take note. If you are only competing against two or three companies who will all make it to the final cut, then experience probably should not be your go to way of saying how great you are. How to lose on experience Claim that no one else can do it right without your experience. The closer you come to thinking or presenting that you’re irreplaceable, the more you hurt your credibility. Claim that anyone else will have startup problems just because you did. Your “valuable lessons learned” could also be seen as a history of making mistakes. Do you really want to stake your win on a claim that just because you messed something up, someone else will? Think that just because you’ve been doing it for a while that you do it well, or that because you’ve done it longer you are better. We’ve all worked with individuals who had tons of experience but just weren’t that good. Companies are the same. Make experience your biggest differentiator. Experience makes you qualified. It gets you considered. It can help you win. But everyone who is a serious competitor can spin their experience to not only be relevant, but advantageous. Sometimes different or outside experiences can be better. It’s true in life. It’s true in business. Focus on what does matter No one cares about how much experience you have. What they care about are what lessons you've learned and how you'll use them to improve the results they'll get. What did you take away from your experience that leads to you doing things differently from your competitors and in a better way? Don’t ever bring up your experience without explaining that. Ever. How does experience relate to value? Customers buy based on value. Even if they ignore everything you think is valuable and make their decision on price, that’s their determination of value. Saying you have “X years of experience” adds no value. Saying that "because you have X years of experience you’ll avoid a problem, do things in a better differentiated way, or produce a better result" is how you translate experience into value. What makes some experience better? Relevance. In U.S. Government proposals relevance is usually defined as size, scope, and complexity. This is a useful way of establishing the relevance of your experience in any type of proposal. But any project that produces a relevant lesson learned or that impacts the results the new customer can expect can be relevant to the points you are making about your offering. Reference vs. experience If the customer is evaluating past performance or conducting a reference check, they want to make contact with your customer and hear what they have to say instead of what you have to say. They are evaluating whether past customers you did relevant work for have good things to say about you. If they ask for your corporate experience separate from a reference check, what they really want to know is whether you have done relevant work before in a way that supports your ability to fulfill their needs. It's not the amount of experience, or even the depth and breadth. It's whether they can believe that you'll be able to deliver as promised because you've done it before with a similar size, scope, and complexity. When customers ask you to describe your experience, they are really asking whether they can trust you. It's not the description they care about, it's the proof (or lack thereof) of your trustworthiness. How to win with less experience Do a better job of establishing relevance. Talk about how the size, scope, and/or complexity of your previous work means you'll be able to produce better results for this project. Show the value of your experience and let someone else cite the number of years. Show the value by explaining how your experience has taught you to do things differently in a way that produces better results that they won’t get from your competitors. Ignore experience altogether. The only reason experience matters is that it helps the customer believe you can do the work. There are other ways to establish your credibility. Focus on the trustworthiness of your offer. Who are you? If you identify as the company with the most experience, you are at risk from someone with a better offer. But if you identify as the company that produces a better, differentiated result that comes from your experience, you have a competitive advantage. The key is to figure out what kind of better results can come from your experience and to differentiate it so that they can only get it from you. Don’t just say you have “lessons learned.” Identify what lessons you learned and how they will lead to a better result for the customer. Then be the company that delivers that result. Don’t be the one that is simply experienced.

Each and every paragraph in your proposal should make a point. Every sentence within those paragraphs should have its own point. And those points should not be about you. They should not simply describe. They should never make unsubstantiated claims of greatness. You should provide the information the customer needs, while pointing out why you are the customer’s best alternative. But what should you talk about to make those points? How do you go beyond answering an RFP requirement to make your points? What is it you should add? To help you find inspiration, here’s a list of points to consider making: Points that maximize your evaluation score. When the customer includes their evaluation criteria in the RFP, you should make your points in a way that relates to those criteria. Instead of picking your rationale out of the blue, look to the evaluation criteria for what points you need to make. What points can you make that will increase your score? Points that show why you are the best alternative. If the customer has to choose between competing proposals or alternatives, you should help them discover the reasons why they should pick your proposal over the alternatives. Think about the decision they have to make and in everything you write link your response to a point that helps them make it. Don't just simply make points that you can do the work, are qualified, and have experience. Make points that prove you are better than the customer's other alternatives. Points that explain your differentiators. People decide amongst alternatives by looking for the differences, both good and bad. Everything you write should make a point that highlights these differences. If what you are writing is the same as what everyone else might write, you should try harder to make points that highlight what’s special, or what the customer gets out of what you are writing about. Look to the reasons why you are offering what you have chosen for inspiration into why what you've chosen is best. Points that prove your credibility. Unsubstantiated claims destroy credibility. Rational points increase your credibility. Instead of just saying what you propose, try explaining why what you propose will deliver the desired results. Explain how you know. Prove that it is reliable. Don't expect them to take your word on it. Points that show how you'll fulfill the customer's wants, needs, goals, and aspirations. Don’t just respond to what the customer has asked for. Explain how your approach to delivering what they want will result in them achieving their goals. What you offer is the realization of their goals and not just giving them what they asked for. Every competitor will be offering that. You should offer to meet their requirements in a way that also fulfills the things they want or aspire to. To the customer this will be value added. And it may just be what they are really looking for. Points about the effectiveness and value of your offering. What makes what you are offering effective? What makes it a better value? Don’t just claim to be the best alternative or value and weaken your credibility. Increase your credibility by explaining what makes your offering the most effective and the best value. Explain the reasons why you made the trade-off decisions that you did and why that makes your offering better than any that went the other way. These are the reasons the customer needs to see in order to decide your proposal is their best alternative. Points about what matters. Details are boring. It’s what matters about those details that’s interesting. Making points about what matters makes your proposal more meaningful. This increases your credibility. It’s also a good way to get the customer to compare everyone else’s proposal to yours, assessing whether they recognize what matters or not as well as you do. Don't just simply convince yourself that you have the best offering. Make your proposal matter the most. Points that prove you can anticipate and manage the risks. Risks matter. But it’s not the risks themselves that a customer wants to see. It’s how your approach mitigates those risks. So making points about the problems your approach anticipates and prevents adds value. This is how you prove that you are reliable and will deliver as promised. When there are no other differentiators, being more likely to deliver as promised can make you the best value. Points that prove the customer will get what you're promising. You are just a vendor. A sales person. Your proposal is a collection of promises. And if your proposal starts off with unsubstantiated claims you’re a sketchy vendor with questionable promises. To counter this, you need to be transparent and verifiable. Don’t just say what you will do, but say how you’ll verify that it was done correctly and how they’ll be able to see it as clearly as you do with nothing hidden. Given a choice between two otherwise equal proposals, the customer will select the one that is most likely to deliver as promised. Make the points required to be that proposal.

We have a couple of tools coming out that will make it much easier for companies and consultants to find and work with each other. The beta release will be unlike anything else out there, but very simple. It won't take hours to figure out. All it will do is solve two key problems that make it easier for companies to get the help they need to win their pursuits. Did I mention simple? Simple, but useful. And given the size of our audience, we anticipate thousands of users within 60 days of release. We're not ready to make a big announcement and share all the details, but we are ready to create a list of those who want to know the moment it's available. Here are some details we can share now: For the initial release we're sticking to the markets we know best: business development, capture, and proposal consulting for US Government procurements. Other types of consulting, B2B, and international markets will get supported in the future. The initial release will be Android only. Sorry all you iOS users. Let's talk about cost. It's going to be pocket change. Not free, but pretty darn close. It won't even cover our cost of development. It's a loss leader. Consultants who are early adopters will be rewarded by getting the most exposure. Companies who use consultants will get expanded access to resources. That's about all the hints I can give you now. It comes in two versions. One for consultants and one for the companies that use them. Click the button and send us you email address to get notified when it's ready and let us know which version you want to know about. Attention Consultants: Click this button to get notified when the beta is ready to try Attention Companies: Click this button to get notified when the beta is ready to try

The PropLIBRARY Course System uses just a handful of content types for all of the course content: Articles. Use this for text with graphics and links. It can used for a textbook topic or it can be a description and a link. We use it for repurposing the content from the PropLIBRARY website. The target for this content type is 500-1500 words, but it will support much longer lengths. Formatting is limited to what the web-based editor supports. Tables can be created, but are a pain. Files. Use this for any MS-Office, PDF, or other file you'd like a student to download and read or use. You can use this instead of articles for textbook sections. You can also use it for including spreadsheets or presentations. You can use it for more advanced formatting than the web-based article editor supports. We use it for checklists, references, tables, attachments, handouts, data, etc. Presentations. PowerPoint files can be exported as images and turned into online presentations. These will not contain animations or sounds (including voice overs). For animations and voice overs, consider turning your PowerPoint into a screencast video. Since the slide will need to stand alone, you should make sure any existing PowerPoint is self-explanatory. Video. You can include video from a live presentation, a screencast, or anything else. You must have a video file to upload. If you want to point to a YouTube video, you should use an article with a link or embed. We recommend a video length of less than 10 minutes. A one hour (or longer) video is supported, but is best presented as a series of individua 10 minute videos. Exercises. Exercises can take different forms. But usually they will be implemented with either a file or a forum. You also have the option of making them self-reviewed or instructor-reviewed. But instructor-reviewed are usually limited to a set number or time period, since you don't want to be committed to reviewing a randomly received exercise for a student at some undetermined future date. Exercises that are files contain the instructions, including self-assessment guidance if the exercises is not instructor-reviewed. They can involve writing sentences or paragraphs, or correcting them. They can involve spreadsheets or presentations. Anything you can put in a file and explain. Forums can be used to create exercises that involve interacting with other students. A forum-based exercise usually involves posting, reviewing, or commenting on something someone else posted. They can be used to explain and explore while interacting with other students since everyone who takes a course can see the forum for that course. Most exercises should be scaled to require less than an hour to complete. An exercise should be used to complete a skills-based module, but they can also be used anywhere they aid in learning something. The more interactivity the better. If the exercise is a file, the instructor must create the file that the student will download. If the exercise is a forum, the instructor must create the copy for the initial post that will explain to students what they are supposed to do. Quizzes. Quizzes have several question types. The questions and answers need to be entered. You will need to create 2.5 times as many questions as you intend the quiz to have. This will create a pool of questions that can be randomized so that students can take a quick more than once. PropLIBRARY will automatically grade the quizzes and award points. Every module that is knowledge based should end with a quiz. But the quiz function can be used for progress or even fun. They can be used as a learning tool, similar to an exercise.

Course modules are like a container. All course content items go into modules. You must have at least one module. There is no upper limit. You can think of it like a two-level outline for a course. Modules are like chapter titles. Within a module you have the headings for each piece of course content. This outline is a key part of what we need to create a new course. We need to know what items go in what modules in what order. When a course starts, only the first module is open. When a student completes a module, the next module will open. We recommend that each module contain about an hour's worth of training. But this is not a requirement. Each module should end with an exercise or quiz. We recommend exercises for courses that are about developing skills (such as proposal writing) and quizzes for courses that are about learning information (such as a process). Doing this for every module results in courses that demonstrate proficiency. In addition, you have the option of creating two special modules: Before the course starts. This module is for pre-requisites, things you want the user to know before they start, or files you want them to have before the course begins. After the course completes. This module is for takeaways. After the course is over, if you want them to have a takeaway file (maybe a template, a checklist, or a tool), this is where it would go. If you want to describe your business, provide a brochure, or instructions for getting more information or continuing your relationship, this is where it should go.

Proposal writing is very different from other forms of writing. The goals are different, the methods are different, and even the word choices are different. Extremely competent professional writers often produce copy that would be acceptable for other applications, but which amounts to rather ordinary proposal writing. Ordinary proposal writing is not enough to win. So I’m constantly looking for ways to show people how to get from ordinary proposal writing to great proposal writing. When I do proposal training, here are some of the things I focus on to help people break out of the ordinary so they can win in writing. See also: Great proposals Make a point. Every sentence in a proposal should do two things: respond to the RFP and make a point that explains why it matters. Any sentence in your proposal that does not matter is one more step toward becoming a proposal that does not matter. Don’t simply tell the reader what you are offering, why you are qualified, how much experience you have, or how you will do what they asked you to do. Tell them how what you are offering achieves their goals, why your qualifications mean you will be able to deliver as promised, how your experience will lead to better results, or why the way you do things matters. Of course, when doing this, it helps to know what matters. If you don’t make the right points, your proposal will add up to nothing, even if you say how really and truly great your company is, how totally committed it is, how it's been that way for a long time. Differentiate. You can’t win if you don’t differentiate. Customers pick winners based on the differences that make one the best alternative. The points you make in your proposal writing must differentiate your proposal. Making points, even points that matter, that apply equally to everyone submitting, or that will be claimed by everyone submitting, do not help you win. In fact, they firmly fix your position as being ordinary, no matter how positive sounding you think they may be. Write from the customer’s perspective instead of your own. It’s not about what you want to say, it’s about what the customer needs to read in order to make their decision. If you simply describe your company and your offering, you’re not writing from the customer’s perspective, you’re writing about yourself. The customer wants a proposal that is about them. Their decision will be made based on how your proposal will impact them. They aren't selecting you because you are special. They are selecting you because they see something special that will be done for them if they do. You have to twist your sentences around to be what the customer wants to see instead of just writing what you think sounds good. Use other people’s words. When there’s an RFP and a formal evaluation, you are being evaluated against the words in the RFP. That means your points have to match their evaluation criteria, and you have to make those points using the words of the RFP. Instead of writing things the way you want to say them, you have to use their words. It’s more like solving a puzzle or cooking than it is like speaking. Have something to prove. Proposals provide the reasons why you are the customer's best alternative. The best reasons form a proof. All of your points about what matter that differentiate your company should prove that you are their best alternative. Without proof, your proposal is just a bunch of claims. A long, detailed list of claims will lose to a short definitive proof. You should approach every topic that you write about in your proposal as if you have something to prove. Communicate visually. A great proposal writer doesn’t have to be an artist, but it does help to be able to doodle. A good graphic communicates better than good writing. A good graphic can be used to figure out and drive what you do write. Great proposal writers build what they write around great graphics. Have a process. Before you start writing you need to know what points to make. Before you use a graphic to drive what you write, you have to know what should go into that graphic and what messages it should deliver. Before you can use the customer’s words, you have to parse them. Before you can write to the customer’s perspective, you have to understand the customer. Without the right information delivered to the right people at the right time in a chain of events leading up to the start of the proposal, a great proposal writer won’t be able to achieve great proposal writing. Someone with the potential to deliver great proposal writing will fail without the input required to enable them to do what they can do. Great proposal writing only happens at the tail end of a process. Make it add up to what it will take to win. Having a random collection of disassociated points will leave the customer wondering how to make sense of it all. Winning a proposal requires you to make all those points add up to being the customer’s best alternative. Winning in writing requires discovering what it will take to win. Proposal writing is about figuring out what to say and how to present it so that it adds up to what it will take to win. Time management. I know you’re getting pulled in a hundred different directions, but there’s this thing called a deadline… Even if you have the skills and you have the information, you have to be able to deliver on time in spite of all the distractions. You have to prioritize, and this may mean some brutal choices. But keep your eyes on the prize. See “Makie it add up to what it will take to win” above. See “Have a process” above for the most significant thing you can do to support time management. The proposal process isn't just about making things easier or improving quality. The proposal process is a time management tool. You should build it that way. What great proposal writers do is bring it all together at the same time. They do all of them and skip none of them. They do them all in every single sentence. When you put an ordinary proposal next to a great proposal, the difference is huge. Even when the RFP forces everyone to offer the exact same thing, a great proposal will clearly offer more value, be more insightful, and be more trustworthy. Literature, technical writing, advertising copywriting, social media posting, journalism, blogging, report writing, studies, and correspondence do not have to accomplish all of these things in order to be successful. Great proposal writing requires a different approach, different goals, and different methods to do something that other forms of writing don't have to do. It's not the words chosen, style of expression, or anything related to eloquence that makes a proposal writer great. It's whether they overcome all competitors in order to win.

The first step in responding to RFPs is to decide whether to bid. One you've decided to bid, then you need to plan the proposal. For some proposals, like those responding to a U.S. Government Request for Proposals (RFP), if you don't follow the RFP's instructions precisely your proposal can be rejected without even being read. This makes RFP compliance absolutely critical for winning. This is true for most, if not all, B2G RFPs. RFPs can be intimidating if you don't know how to read them. U.S. Government RFPs must follow the rules defined in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). It specifies the standard format for RFPs. State, local, and municipal RFPs often follow the same format. Understanding how to read an RFP will not only save you time, but it will also help you write a proposal with a higher probability of winning. But even though it's important to follow them, RFPs are not perfect. In fact, the opposite is true. RFPs are often released with lots of problems. Here's what to do when the RFP is poorly written or when it's too complicated to understand. It helps if you know how to interpret what you find so you can understand why the RFP was worded the way it was. For B2B proposals, this is sometimes true, but more often not. But when you are responding to a B2B RFP or even if there is no RFP, you still need to know what to look for or find out. One more note: When you write a proposal, you are responding to a Request for Proposals (RFP). People often make the mistake of saying they are "writing an RFP" when they are writing a proposal in response to an RFP. Writing an RFP is what the customer does to tell you what to put in your proposal. Premium Content for PropLIBRARY Subscribers The proposal phase of the MustWin Process starts with the release of the RFP. Here are some of the RFP specific items in our library: 24 ways to influence the RFP RFP distribution list RFP release checklist Format for submitting RFP questions RFP amendment checklist What if there is no RFP? Starting a proposal based on an RFP Parsing an RFP into a proposal outline Introduction to the compliance matrix

One of the hardest parts of writing a great proposal in response to an RFP is dealing with the fact that many (most?) RFPs are poorly written. You can't follow the instructions, comply with the requirements, offer something great, and maximize your score against the evaluation criteria if you can't understand what the expectations are or if something in the RFP doesn't match up or is broken. Give the customer some sympathy, because writing an RFP is harder than writing a proposal. Try it some time. Unfortunately, contractors still have to write proposals in response to whatever ended up in the RFP, however it got there. And it can be challenging following the RFP instructions and fulfilling the RFP requirements when they are poorly written. It's easy to get stuck and not be sure how to respond. There are some techniques you can use to respond to poorly written RFPs, and sometimes it's even possible to turn it to your advantage if you find a way to resolve the issues for the customer and your competitors do not. There are a number of problems in RFPs that I see on a regular basis. Here are descriptions of them with some advice regarding what to do about them: See also: Compliance matrix Too much detail. Sometimes the RFP tries to document every specification and sub-specification possible for even the most minute requirement. Sometimes it's because the customer doesn't trust their vendors and sometimes it's because they want to force them all to bid the exact same thing. While on one hand, the customer needs to ensure that nobody proposes something sub-standard to reduce the price, specifying the RFP requirements at too detailed of a level creates its own problems. RFPs that say “do not simply restate the requirement in the proposal” but then go on to specify in great painstaking detail exactly what you are required to comply with are a particular nuisance. It doesn't help that the more details in the RFP, the more likely they are to get something wrong. Not enough detail. If the customer doesn’t sufficiently describe what they want, it can be nearly impossible to write a proposal, let alone price it accurately. Insufficient detail limits a contractor's ability to make accurate estimates. This can result in underbidding and underperforming, or it can result in overbidding when vendors pad their estimates to make up for the uncertainty. Either way, the customer is not getting the maximum value. Contractors tend to respond to vague requirements with vague proposals. Requirements that contradict each other. Large RFPs often have multiple authors who sometimes insert requirements that are impossible to meet because they contradict each other. Usually the only way to resolve a contradictory requirement is to submit it as a question to the customer. Proposal writers can't assume that the customer has asked for something incorrectly or for something that they actually do not want. But it happens, and if you can't ask a question when it happens, then consider whether you can support both possibilities. A contradiction is an issue for the customer as well, and if you can provide a path forward for them in your proposal, you may gain points. If you can't, consider making a documented assumption. Poor correlation between staffing and activities. Position descriptions provided in an RFP often conflict with the activities required. Either the description has requirements that aren’t necessary for the activities, or they don’t specify who should perform certain required activities. If you can comply with all the requirements, then you can focus on the ones that you think will be most important to the proposal evaluators. If you have to leave any out, make sure they are ones that do not matter to the proposal evaluators. Inconsistent delivery schedules. The delivery schedules specified in the RFP often will not match up with the production requirements. Or will drive cost considerations the customer didn't anticipate. Or will test feasibility concerns. Dependencies are often overlooked. There may be better ways to make the trade-offs, but you're limited to what the RFP requires. This is another place where if you can't ask questions, documenting your assumptions may be your best option. A lack of correspondence between the instructions, evaluation criteria, and statement of work. RFP instructions often specify the outline that you should follow in your response. The evaluation criteria tell you how you will be scored, and should indicate what is important to the customer. When the instructions and the evaluation criteria don't match up, you have to modify the outline in order to reconcile them. This often involves making judgment calls that may differ from what the customer intended. The same can be true if the instructions and/or evaluation criteria do not adequately address the requirements of the Statement of Work. Missing or vague instructions, evaluation criteria, or statement of work. If the RFP does not include any instructions for how the proposal is to be formatted or organized, it makes it difficult to provide the information in a way that meets the customer’s expectations. If the evaluation criteria are missing or vague, you won’t know what is important to the customer (although that’s probably better than wrong or misleading evaluation criteria). Sometimes all we want to do is meet the customer's expectations. The customer thinks they put their expectations into the RFP. But if the RFP is poorly written, their expectations may not be clear. Unrealistic page limits. When the RFP contains many times more pages of requirements than it permits you to use in your response, you simply can't respond to them all without generalizing or skipping some. It may be impossible to achieve 100% RFP compliance or to reply in detail without simply restating some RFP requirements. Because there will be some things you have to address, you may not have enough space to say anything that adds value. Even though all bidders operate under the same limitation, if the page limit is low enough it favors those who add the least value and have the least insight. There are a couple of techniques that you can use to cope with bad RFPs: Make assumptions. If there is not enough detail, create your own and document it as a list of assumptions. If there are contradictions in the RFP, then choose one and document that assumption. If something in the RFP is too vague, then assume the detail and document that. Provide options. Providing options in your proposal lets them select how they want things to be interpreted. Sometimes RFPs limit your ability to do this. But when the costs are the same, you can usually offer "flexibility" or conduct a discovery activity and tailor your approach based on their preferences. Redefine the requirements. Find a way to interpret a problem requirement that resolves the issue, then restate the requirement in a way that subtly redefines it. Consider documenting this as an assumption. Ask questions. Ask A LOT of questions. Ask questions you don’t even need the answer to. Ask the same question three different ways. Just ask a lot of questions. And then ask for an extension because there are so many answers and not enough time to incorporate them all. Instead of making you look like you don't know what you're doing, questions can make you look thorough and reliable.

The first thing to realize when reading a U.S. Federal Government RFP is that you don’t have to read the whole thing! And you definitely don't want to read it page-by-page like a book. It's easy to feel intimidated by an RFP that’s hundreds (or even thousands) of pages long. But when you know how to read an RFP it's not nearly so bad. The format for most Government RFPs is fixed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The FAR mandates that Government RFPs be divided into sections A through M. Each of these sections has a certain purpose and must contain certain information. But only a few of these sections relate to what to bid and how to prepare your proposal. The rest relate to the contracting process. Of the lettered sections, the key ones to focus on are: Section A. First look at Section A (usually the cover page). This section is actually a form. In a box on this page is the due date. Now you know how much time you have to prepare your response. There are other details there, but they are usually reference information or details like where to submit the proposal that you may need, but aren't your first priority when trying to understand the RFP. Section L. This is where you’ll find the instructions for formatting, organizing, and submitting your proposal. This tells you how big and complicated your proposal will be, and what your high-level outline should be. If you are wondering about what will go into preparing the proposal, this is where you should start. Whether you think the outline makes sense or not, you absolutely must follow their outline. It is what the evaluators expect and your proposal may get thrown out if things are not where they expect to find them. Even if you think you have a better way to organize things, you can't be smarter than the RFP. It is better to treat RFP compliance as an absolute. Section M. This is where you’ll find the criteria and scoring system that will be used to determine whether your proposal wins. This section tells you how to write your proposal in order to maximize your score, as opposed to what to propose. Think of it as how they tell you what they think is important. Once you've read Section L and know what needs to go into your proposal, read Section M to find out what you need to say and do in each section to maximize your chances of winning. Section C. This is where they say what it is they want you to propose (often called the "Statement of Work") and what their requirements are. This section tells you what to offer, but it's the combination of Sections L and M that tell you how to present it. Don't just assume that you should write about what they want to procure. They may be more concerned with how you're going to manage the work or your qualifications, credibility, experience, risk, quality, or other things. Section B. This is where they tell you how to format your pricing and what the contract type is. To really understand how and what to offer, you'll need to look at Section B, so you can see whether they want it priced by the hour, in fixed price units, or some other way. The same thing delivered as fixed price units vs. a time and materials service may have very different proposed approaches, which impacts what you say in the proposal. It also may impact your pricing and profitability. The pricing model and your pricing strategy are often a major part of what you propose and your likelihood of winning. Some people will want to read Section B first, especially those involved in making bid/no bid decisions. And sometimes, Section J. Sometimes they hide important stuff that is critical to figuring out what you should propose in Section J, attachments. I've even seen the Statement of Work provided as an attachment in Section J. This doesn’t mean that the other sections are not necessary. Contract terms and conditions might not be exciting, but they can have a big impact on your proposal. You can read a description of the other RFP sections here. Some may have things that you must respond to, like Section K, where they put the “Certifications and Representations” (where you may have to “Certify” or “Represent” things like whether you are a U.S. firm, a minority firm, that you haven't defaulted on previous contracts, etc.). But the others are part of the legal form or contract boilerplate, and you won’t have to read them the same way you will the Statement of Work and Evaluation Criteria. They also may provide things as attachments in Section J that are critical to figuring out what you want to propose. Keep in mind that how you present the proposal will be bound by the instructions in Section L and how you will be scored is in Section M. Section C may take 50 pages of RFP to describe something that is only 10% of the score, and only 5 pages to describe something that is 50% of your score. Read Section C with the evaluation criteria in mind. Here are some additional things to look for: When reading Section L: Look for instructions regarding page count, page layout (margins, fonts, page sizes), submission method, and outline/content. When reading Section M: Look for scoring method, score weighting, evaluation process, past performance approach, and “best value” terminology. When reading Section 😄 Look for requirements (are they explained, understandable, and/or ambiguous?), contradictions (between requirements as well as Section L and M), feasibility, and opportunities for differentiation between you and your competitors. When reading Section B: Look for correspondence to the requirements and evaluation criteria. Solicitations vs RFPs RFPs are not the only way the Government buys things. They have other ways of requesting bids and procuring things. They use other contract vehicles like Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) and Task Orders issued under Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts. For commodities these can be as simple as placing an order. But for services and other things that aren't commodities, they may issue a solicitation that resembles an RFP. These solicitations may only go to certain pre-authorized companies instead of being publicly announced. They also do not have to have the same lettered section organization as an RFP. However, they will still have instructions, evaluation criteria, and performance requirements, just like an RFP. Only they may be labelled differently or not at all. The key to reading a solicitation that is not an RFP is to look for the instructions regarding how to respond and in what format, the method and criteria to be used during evaluation, and of course, the requirements that define what they want to procure. When you are done, go back and read it again While you don't have to read everything at first, you really should at some point read the whole RFP because sometimes you'll find something important hiding in those other sections (maybe an insurance requirement, a deliverable schedule, etc.). Once you've read a few government RFPs, you'll be able to do it quickly because you'll know where to skim and where to focus. Different sections of the RFP are often written by different authors, and sometimes boilerplate is inserted without adequate review. Do not be surprised to find contradictions and ambiguities. Ask questions (you should find a deadline for them in the instructions). Sometimes the interplay between the various sections can provide valuable insight into what they have in mind. Make sure you comply to the letter and give the potential customer what they want instead of what you want for them.

Understanding the content and structure of a Government RFP, as shown below, enables you to write better proposals. The content of a U.S. Federal Government RFP is mandated by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The FAR is a very lengthy and detailed set of rules that defines what must go into a Federal RFP and how it must be structured, as well as the acquisition and RFP process. Government RFPs that are based on the FAR are broken down into sections that are identified by letter (A - M). The key to reading Government RFPs is to understand what is in each of these sections. The best way to read a Government RFP is not in order. And if you know what is in each section you can go straight there and save yourself tons of time. Here is a list of what is in each section: Section A. Information to offerors or quoters Section A of the RFP often appears as a one-page form. It is essentially the cover page of the RFP. It identifies the title of the procurement, procurement number, point of contact (POC), how to acknowledge amendments, and how to indicate “No Response” if you decide not to bid. Section B. Supplies or Services and Price/Costs Section B of the RFP defines the type of contract and provides instructions for how you should provide your pricing data. It identifies Contract Line Items (CLINs) and Subcontract Line Items (SLINs) that identify billable items. It also describes the period of performance, identifies option periods (if any), and provides cost and pricing guidelines. This section is often presented and responded to in a tabular form. Section C. Statement of Work (SOW) Tells you what the Government wants you to do or supply. It provides the requirements for your products or services. Sometimes this section or information related to it is contained in a separate appendix in Section J. Section D. Packages and Marking Defines how contract deliverables such as reports and material will be packaged and shipped or delivered. While it may not impact some projects, for others this information may affect costs and raise logistics issues. Section E. Inspection and Acceptance Describes the process by which the Government will officially accept deliverables and what to do if the work is not accepted. This can also affect costs and identifies tasks you must be prepared to undertake. Section F. Deliveries or Performance Defines how the Government Contracting Officer will control the work performed and how you will deliver certain contract items. Section G. Contract Administrative Data Describes how the Government Contracting Officer and your firm will interact and how information will be exchanged in administration of the contract to ensure both performance and prompt payment. Section H. Special Contract Requirements Contains a range of special contract requirements important to this particular procurement, such as procedures for managing changes to the original terms of the contract, government furnished equipment (GFE) requirements, and government furnished property (GFP) requirements. Section I. Contract Clauses/General Provisions Identifies the contract clauses from the FAR that are incorporated by reference in the RFP. These clauses will be incorporated into the contract. While it doesn’t require a separate response, its terms will be binding. Section J. Attachments, Exhibits Lists the appendices to the RFP. These attachments can cover a wide range of subjects from technical specifications through lists of GFE. It generally is used to provide data you need in order to respond to the Statement of Work. Section K. Representations/Certifications and Statements of Offerors Contains things that you must certify to bid on this contract. These can include things such as certification that you have acted according to procurement integrity regulations, your taxpayer identification number, the status of personnel, ownership of your firm, type of business organization, authorized negotiators, that your facilities are not segregated, that you comply with affirmative action guidelines, whether you qualify as a small business, disadvantaged business, and/or women-owned business, etc. Section L. Proposal Preparation Instructions and Other Provides the instructions for preparing your proposal. These include any formatting requirements, how they want the material organized/outlined, how to submit questions regarding the RFP or procurement, how the proposal is to be delivered, and sometimes notices, conditions, or other instructions. You should write your proposal by following these instructions precisely. Section M. Evaluation Criteria Defines the factors, subfactors, and elements used to “grade” or score the proposal. Proposals are scored and then cost is considered to determine who wins the award and gets the contract. The evaluation criteria will tell you which elements are the most important for how your proposal will be scored.

See also: Winning 1. Strategic Leadership My favorite way to distinguish leaders from managers is that leaders determine what the goals should be and managers work to find the best way to achieve the goals. If you need someone to improve something, you need a manager. If you need someone to reinvent something, you need a leader. One is not better than the other. Both are needed for a successful organization. But to win proposals you need to differentiate. You can’t be the best unless you are different. You won’t consistently win if you target being better than your competition. The best way to win is to start by defining what it will take to win. A manager will create bid strategies based on what you have and what you can do to improve it. A leader will start from what it will take to win and then figure out how to be what it takes, even if that means throwing out what you’ve got or changing it completely. If you’re thinking that the right approach is somewhere in the middle, remember that the goal is not to be good enough, it’s to be the best alternative anyone can offer the customer. That means you need a leader. Not someone assigned to play the lead role. But someone who can challenge the status quo, especially if it’s a recompete. Most project managers learn to stay within the confines of their contract and preserve their resources. You need someone who can reinvent the terms of the contract. You need a strategy leader and it doesn’t even have to be the person in charge of the proposal. You can use a pursuit strategist, a capture manager, or even a reviewer to provide the necessary vision. One of the major differences between the way billion-dollar companies win their proposals and how small companies win theirs is that a large company can afford to bring in someone other than the current project manager as the capture manager. Small companies can counter that advantage by using a part-time pursuit strategist. 2. Customer Empathy You need someone with sufficient empathy to see things the way the customer sees them. You need to be able to create an offering that will delight the customer, interpret the RFP, and present things in the way the customer wants to see them. All of your strategies, the design of your offering, and the way you present your proposal should all be based on the customer’s perspective. What is the customer going to do with the information you give them in the proposal? How do they perform their evaluation and selection? What do you need to give them to come out of that evaluation on top? What other questions should drive your efforts? These are what you should base your strategies on. But beyond a leader to help you get out of the box and discover the winning strategies, you need someone who can look at your strategies and your presentation of them the way the customer will to make them reflect what it will take to win. What about other traits? There are many other beneficial character traits like being a hard worker, paying attention to detail, having good discipline, or being honest, creative, articulate, etc. There are probably thousands of articles published on good character traits for being a leader or a manager, or on the difference between leaders and managers. But when I look at proposal teams that are struggling and not just with resources, process, or knowledge, what I see is that discovering what it takes to win and getting in writing requires looking at the world differently. It requires starting from what it will take to win and not from what you’ve got. And it requires looking at it through your customer’s eyes instead of your own. You can follow procedure all day long. You can train your staff. But you also need to hire, borrow, or cultivate these character traits if you want to consistently win.

The traditional way to define roles for a proposal usually includes: A Capture Manager to define the offering A Proposal Manager to implement the process Proposal Writers to follow the process and create the proposal narrative Under this model, the Proposal Manager seeks to bring together the solution and the writers to get it all on paper. The Proposal Manager brings together the Capture Manager and Proposal Writers so that bid strategies can be articulated and used to guide the writing. And that’s where things often stumble. Who is responsible for articulating things? Is it the Capture Manager, the Proposal Manager, or the Proposal Writers? Where there’s a void, the Proposal Manager usually fills it, or assigns it. But if you’re using technical subject matter experts or project staff to work on the proposal, they may not be good at conceiving or articulating bid strategies. This is where having a Pursuit Strategist comes in handy. A Pursuit Strategist is someone who specializes in combining the technical solution brought by the Capture Manager with the bid strategies and evaluation criteria in a way that can be articulated for use in the proposal. A Pursuit Strategist figures out what needs to be said to win. One of my favorite proposal experiences was working as a Pursuit Strategist on an effort with a Capture Manager and a Proposal Manager. The Proposal Manager handled all of the logistics. As the Pursuit Strategist, I worked with the Capture Manager to identify the right strategies, then I figured out how to articulate the messages and used them to help inspire and guide the writers. It was a very effective approach and the proposal won even though the company was the underdog. Without all three roles, the proposal would not have turned out nearly as good. Either the strategies would have been articulated by people who weren’t used to thinking in those terms or the Proposal Manager would have had to take time away from process implementation and oversight and put it into message development. The Pursuit Strategist role has also worked out well at small companies who couldn’t afford that many dedicated people. As a consultant, with just a few hours instead of a full-time commitment, I’ve helped a number of businesses figure out what needs to be said to win so that their own staff could do the hard work of cranking out the pages. Usually I throw in some process guidance and participate in quality validation reviews to help a proposal team that lacks experienced proposal specialists. But where I often make the most difference is as a Pursuit Strategist helping the company discover what it will take to win. Unfortunately, the title “Pursuit Strategist” isn’t commonly used, and companies rarely request it. This creates an opportunity for companies to beat their less informed and less strategic competitors. We love helping companies figure out the best pursuit strategies and discover what it will take to win. Let's discuss your circumstances... Click the Concierge Button under the menu or call us at 1-800-848-1563.

A lot of well-meaning people give really bad advice on marketing. Instead of saying "what works for me is…" they say things like "the only way to be successful is to…" Rules of thumb aren't. Everything depends on the nature of what you offer. The “rules” are very different if: You offer a commodity than if you offer complex services or solutions. Your customers are geographically dispersed or numerous instead of being few. You are in a B2G, B2B, or B2C market. Your proposals are really quotes and your sales are really orders or transactions. Your typical sale is large enough to be a line item in the customer’s budget. The specifications for what you offer are typically defined by industry standards instead of being unique in every bid. And who knows how many other differences and exceptions there are? What works for one company may be wrong for another. This can be true even in the same market if the offerings are different in nature. Here are some myth-busting examples of great marketing advice that is horribly wrong for some companies: See also: Strategic Planning People buy from people they know and trust. The truth is that people will buy commodities from strangers if they get a good deal. And services can be commodities. It's also true that on some bids everybody is a stranger. Trust and credibility are important, but that doesn't always translate into a need to have a relationship before the RFP is released in order to win. The more complex the services, the greater the need for the customer to trust a vendor in order to select them. For some types of offerings, the number of possible providers is so low that everyone knows who they are. In a market like that, if you are a stranger you are suspect instead of trusted. If you weren’t aware of the opportunity before the RFP came out, it should be an automatic no-bid. For many RFPs, nobody knows about them before the RFPs are released. Even when companies are “aware” that an RFP is coming out and “tracking it,” they often have no real insight or advantage and waste the extra time they might have. They can be beat. But if you are competing against others who have pre-RFP insight and the customer’s trust, if you can’t offer a credible and viable alternative and do it in the limited time after RFP release, you shouldn’t waste your time bidding. The more complex the procurement, the more insight required. Task orders are always wired. Some task orders are initiated by companies who inspire the customer to procure something. On some of those, the company provided information that may have influenced the RFP. On some of those, the company might have a close relationship with the customer. This is a minority of a minority and pretty far from “always.” On many contract vehicles, customers have trouble getting more than one or two bids on a task order. A viable alternative on a task order bid might have better odds of winning than a bid on a public RFP. And if the task order announcements are short notice and difficult to respond to, that just further limits the amount of serious competition. Blind bidding task orders is quick, low cost, high risk, and potentially lucrative. But even if you can win, you might not want to play in that market. It depends on the nature of what you offer and your ability to mitigate the performance risks. Branding is critical. When you bid RFPs that are distributed publicly, name recognition doesn’t matter that much. What matters more is trustworthiness and credibility. This can be part of a branding campaign, but what you say in your proposal will do far more to make or break your trustworthiness and credibility than any branding campaign. Where branding matters is for inbound marketing. If you need the customer to tell you about their RFPs or to initiate contact, then branding is how you establish enough trust and credibility to get their attention and action. Becoming known as a thought leader will increase your chances of winning. If you sell a commodity, the customer may not care. They’ll take your advice and still buy from the lowest price supplier. If you sell a service, the customer may not care how extraordinary your thought leadership is. It depends on whether what they are buying requires a leader or an operator. And it depends on how well you turn thought leadership into a demonstration of trustworthiness. For most procurements, it’s not about being a “thought leader” it’s about whether you’ve proven you are a better vendor in a way that matters to the customer. Having a great website is important. If you have a dozen or two customers and the total number of customers you might target is only two-three times that number, you don’t need thousands of visitors to your website. And who cares about search engines? You just need to serve those customers. If you can do that with a one-page site, then great. Then again, if you’re trying to practice relationship marketing in writing and want to provide information that helps the customer, you might want to build a website that becomes part of your customer interactions. Inbound marketing is more important than outbound marketing, or vice versa. Inbound marketing is how you get the customer to come to you. If you respond to RFPs, you may not need it. For some companies, a new customer relationship never starts with the customer initiating contact. Ever. But if you are selling something very specific to customers who are numerous, widespread, and impossible to identify within their large organizations, you might be able to use inbound marketing to get them to register for your webinars or free content. The value of inbound marketing depends on the nature of your offering. Word of mouth is the best advertising. This assumes that potential new customers talk to your current customers. In some markets this is definitely true. In others, it never happens. Which are you? You should never bid blind. If you sell certain commodities, you may only be able to bid RFPs blind, without any prior customer relationship or contact. If your customers are geographically dispersed, numerous, don’t publish forecasts, don’t initiate contact with vendors, and/or only rarely procure what you offer, it may not be possible to find and build a relationship in advance. If the customer cares more about qualifications than insight, you can bid blind and win if you can prove your qualifications. What matters more than whether you are bidding blind, is whether you are bidding because you have a competitive advantage or just because you can and are hoping for the best. So what should you do? If you give advice, make sure it's applicable to whoever you're giving it to. If you get advice, make sure it's applicable to you and the nature of what you offer. Don't be afraid to do the opposite if it's based on the wrong premises. Your understanding of the nature of your offering and how your customers conduct their procurements and make decisions is a major indicator of your ability to succeed.

An ordinary proposal is a loser. Good is not good enough. Better than most is not good enough. Only the best proposal will win. Anyone can win occasionally. It’s winning consistently that’s hard. If your win rate is in the 20-30% range, you’re probably good at producing proposals. But they are not great. You usually lose. Keep in mind that if your win rate for your recompetes is much higher, then it’s also much lower for your attempts at gaining new business. For most companies, if you raise your win rate by 10%, it’s mathematically the same as adding 30-50% more leads. It’s better, actually, because it will have a lower cost of sales and consequently be more profitable. So what separates consistently winning from usually losing? Strategic Planning See also: Improving win rates Companies that usually lose prepare a strategic plan that focuses on finance. It identifies some kinds of work that the company would like to get more of. When it’s complete, it sits on a shelf. Companies that consistently win prepare a strategic plan that tells those pursuing business how to best position the company, describes the value propositions that support its strategic plans, and provides the criteria to be use in lead qualification and bid/no bid decisions. Lead Qualification Companies that usually lose qualify their leads by throwing out those they can’t win. Companies that consistently win qualify their leads by only pursuing bids where they have an information advantage. They use their strategic plan as a source of filtering criteria. Bid/No Bid Companies that usually lose paradoxically bid everything they can. Their growth strategy is usually to bid more. Companies that consistently win make bid decisions based on whether the opportunity fulfills the criteria in their strategic plan, whether they have discovered what it will take to win, and whether they have the information they need to write a winning proposal. Their growth strategies combine where and what to bid with how to increase their win rate. Pre-RFP Proposal Preparation Companies that usually lose prepare for RFP release by trying to guess when it will come out so they know when to start. Companies that consistently win prepare for RFP release by turning what they know into bid strategies and messages they can use in the proposal. Proposal Content Planning Companies that usually lose prepare a compliance matrix, turn it into an outline and assignments, and start writing. Companies that consistently win optimize the wording of their bid strategies and proposal messages based on the RFP’s evaluation criteria, and they can combine their response to the requirements with a message that adds the right value based on their pre-RFP preparations. They identify all of the ingredients required to win and use them to guide the writers and prepare a baseline for proposal reviews. They reach all the way back to their strategic plans for inspiration on positioning and their value proposition. Proposal writing Companies that usually lose submit a proposal that is fully compliant with the RFP. Companies that consistently win submit a proposal that reflects everything they have discovered about what it will take to win. Proposal Quality Validation Companies that usually lose have experienced experts decide whether a draft proposal is any good. Companies that consistently win define quality criteria that bring forward their strategic planning goals, discovery of what it will take to win, bid strategies, and proposal messaging goals. Instead of open-ended opinion-based reviews, they are checking to make sure their proposal reflects specific objectives that have evolved through every phase of the pursuit. Companies that usually lose say they have a process, but in reality they are making it up as they go along. They try to make up for it by working really hard. They treat business development, capture, and proposals as expenses to be minimized, and think they don’t have the budget to do it any other way. Companies that consistently win do everything based on discovering what it will take to win and then build their proposal around it. They track where they get their greatest return on investment in business development, capture, and proposals, and they find that an investment that produces an increase in win rate provides a huge return that dwarfs the expense. Which are you?

Imagine the customer finding a web page providing insight into the issues they face in getting what they want. What would it look like? What would they do with the information? Below are a series of topics that a potential customer would find very helpful if you published the answers. Take a look at this list as you consider what the customer needs to know to write an RFP that results in them getting what they need: See also: Pre-RFP Pursuit Ways that we can work together that don’t require an RFP How much should it cost? What matters when selecting a vendor? Pricing models that deliver the best results for this kind of service What are the minimum qualifications to perform this kind of work? Things that could cause this type of project to fail Dealing with scalability Options for risk sharing Building risk mitigation into this type of project What should be included or excluded from an SOW for this type of project? Making sure inevitable tradeoffs are made the way you prefer What makes past performance relevant to this type of work? Comparing platforms, formats, and standards relevant to this type of project What certifications should staff have to be qualified to do this kind of work? Do performance bond and insurance requirements protect the customer on this type of project? Should you require a product demonstration before making an award decision? Are oral proposals worth it? Best practices for oral proposals Issues regarding project scheduling How contractors cheat How contractors lowball their pricing What it takes to ensure a smooth transition How to handle the intellectual property issues that can impact this project How to avoid having a vendor conflict of interest negatively impact this type of work Information you need to make decisions Streamlining the acquisition process Decisions you face on the way to procuring what you need How various acquisition strategies can impact a project like this Remember, the goal is to help the customer. Writing an RFP that gets what you want is harder than writing a proposal. Try it sometime. When you put advice out there, whether it’s on the web, on LinkedIn, hand delivered, or some other way, the customer is free to take it or leave it. Do it right, and it’s a valid part of their pre-procurement research. If you don’t do this, someone else will. Someone else will help the customer decide amongst alternatives, set their priorities, decide trade-offs, and write the requirements. How much do you want to bet that what they publish will justify writing requirements that support their positioning, give them a scoring advantage, and potentially eliminate yours from consideration? If you publish information like this on a regular basis you cast a net to attract customers dealing with these issues. You begin the process of relationship marketing in writing. You become their go-to source for getting what they need. You become recognized as an insightful expert who knows how to balance the issues the customer faces. At one per week you’ve got six months' worth above.

The entire Federal acquisition process runs on content. Either you're influencing it or responding to it. At. Every. Single. Step. Long before there is an RFP, the customer has to get motivated to initiate a procurement. Content can explain the vision. When the customer is ready to initiate a procurement, they’ll have to justify it. They need content to complete it. Once they decide they’d like to move forward they’ll need: To know how to specify what to procure. Content can help them decide amongst alternatives, how to make trade-off decisions, how to articulate specifications, and so much more. To estimate and budget what it will cost. In your area of specialization, you probably know more about this than the customer does. By explaining what drives the cost, you can help them avoid writing specifications for things they can’t afford, set the right expectations for what they should get, and make decisions regarding what to include and exclude. You can publish the guidance they need to get it right. An acquisition strategy. If don’t want to be surprised by their selection of contract type and vehicle, then you need to explain the issues to them so they can make a better decision. Content marketing can help with that. To write an RFP, starting with a statement of work. In addition to being a huge pain, it is difficult to write an RFP that results in getting what you really want. It’s even more difficult when it deals with a subject where you are not an expert. Keep in mind, that it involves more than just specifications, it involves how to make trade-offs, balance risks, and more. Content can help the customer with both writing the specifications and with understanding the issues. Goals for content marketing by government contractors At every step on the way to issuing an RFP, you can publish content that will: Help the customer by anticipating the information they need and decisions they need to make. Influence the procurement by making it easy for the customer to know what to write in their RFP. Accelerate the process by assisting their research, writing, and decisions. Strengthen your relationship by providing reasons to interact and frame constructive discussions that demonstrate what you’re like to work with. Increase your chances of winning by influencing the RFP, earning good will and demonstrating your expertise and capability. Help yourself by helping your customer In a world where most of your interactions with customers are by email and in writing, you need to learn how to help the customer in writing. If all you ever do is send your customers a capabilities statement, all you're doing is helping them to fill their recycling bins. Government contractors don't usually rely on inbound sales and often overlook the value of content marketing. Content marketing does more to help a government contractor capture a pursuit than it does to bring them leads through their websites. Contractors that incorporate content marketing into their capture processes have a higher win rate than those who don't. A small difference in win rate is worth a large amount of effort.

Watching TV growing up and seeing thousands of advertisements every day has ill prepared people for content marketing. They practice sales in writing when they should be doing marketing. People only procure contracts for services and solutions from companies they trust. Content marketing is about earning trust. Sales requires trust. See the difference? If you want a high conversion rate at closing sales, don’t make your pitch until you’ve established that trust. The way you earn trust remotely and in writing is by publishing things that are helpful and prove that you know how to deliver. Sales makes claims and promises, and instead of concluding with something insightful that influences the customer’s decision, sales ends with a call to action. Each has its place. Content marketing fills the funnel with leads. Sales ends the funnel. It’s not about which is more important, it’s about having both at the right time and place. Practice sales too early in your content marketing and you destroy your credibility instead of building it. Content Marketing vs. Sales It's not about you, it's about the reader It's not about you, it's about what the reader is going to get Conclude with something insightful Conclude with a call to action Never describe yourself Features, benefits, and qualifications Proves you know how to deliver Promises delivery Earns trust Requires trust Differentiates Closes Aids customer's decision making Solicits a decision Easy to view and share Direct and targeted Attracts readers to browse and consider Drives customers to the call to action Influences Persuades Fills the funnel Is the funnel Inbound and presales Outbound Because content marketing for contracts is really just relationship marketing in writing, you can learn a lot from understanding it that can improve your proposal writing. Proposals sit in between marketing and the close of the sale. Proposals sometimes have to earn trust and sometimes have to sell. In content marketing, you shouldn’t describe yourself or your offering. Maybe you can slip them in as an example, but never as an introduction. In content marketing, your description is a footnote at the end of a piece, which someone can click to learn more if they are so inclined. In sales, it’s all about your features, benefits, and qualifications. In proposals, it’s about avoiding describing yourself and presenting your features, benefits, and qualifications from the customer’s perspective. First you must understand the subtle distinctions. Then you must perfect your timing. This applies whether you are practicing marketing, sales, or proposals.

There are so many options for publishing content that it’s easy to get overwhelmed: blogs, websites, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, email, online forums, etc. "How should you choose?" is really the wrong question. How you publish your content depends on your goals: If you are trying to attract anonymous strangers to your website, search engine optimization matters If you are trying to directly engage with potential customers, then social networking provides opportunities If you are trying to channel potential customers into a funnel with multiple stages or options, then you need to bring potential customers to a landing page with an appropriate call to action If you are trying to build an audience, then you need to consider where you want their contact information stored and how you will interact with them And don’t forget that hardcopy printing and direct mail are still options Also remember, you can publish in one place and promote from all. For relationship marketing and the pursuit of contracts, the media you publish in is far less important than the way you engage your customers. It’s the interaction with the customer, whether that interaction delivers an information advantage, and how it influences the procurement that matter. It doesn't matter whether you distribute your content on a blog, in LinkedIn posts, on Facebook, using Google+, in online forums, or via email. It does matter whether it’s an article, post, podcast, tweet, video, or even on paper. If you want to use it to attract customers, you must make it accessible and preferably shareable. A good place to start is knowing where the customer prefers to consume their media. Do they spend time on LinkedIn or Facebook? Or would a link to your website be better? Or maybe just an email or attachment? If you want to use it to capture customers, then the most important thing is that it has to be useful to the customer. Relationships rarely start because of an ad or description of your firm’s capabilities. They start because the customer learned something relevant to what they are trying to accomplish and engaged with you to explore how much more they might learn. It’s only once after relationship is established and found to be beneficial that they start considering things you might do together or the benefits of what they might procure. There is very little difference in what you are trying to accomplish between relationship marketing and content marketing. The difference is in how you go about doing it and how you get your message across. The challenges of content marketing are articulating your messages, developing relationships in writing, and producing your content. While figuring out your message is more important, a lot of struggle goes into figuring out how to produce it. The simple answer is that writers write. If they don’t, nothing gets produced. The question becomes who should do the writing. The challenge with conducting relationship marketing in writing, is that the staff who see their role as primarily about personal contact have to become intimately involved in writing the content. That’s a big shift. You can’t conduct relationship marketing by outsourcing the contacts. You can’t conduct relationship marketing in writing by outsourcing the message, presentation, and/or delivery. To embrace content marketing you have to engage the people who shape your customer relationships in the content creation and production workflows. It not only has to become part of their jobs, it has to become part of their daily routines. The result will be an integrated approach that makes both your relationship marketing and content marketing efforts more successful contributors to your ability to win contracts.

The traditional Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis doesn’t work well for proposals. It was invented to support corporate planning in the 1960s at the Stanford Research Institute by a management consultant named Albert Humphrey. The traditional SWOT model looks like this: When a SWOT analysis is used on proposals, it’s usually a part of a fishing expedition that starts without any knowledge of the customer, competitive environment, or offering design. Every time I’ve seen it used on a proposal, it was a complete and utter waste of time. It rarely collects anything of value and never really addresses the details that you need to win a proposal. But it can be fixed. It needs to be reformatted and have some things added that impact proposal writing, like differentiators and customer benefits. For proposals, try this version: Add/Delete/or Change the items below: What should we offer? How is it differentiated? How does the customer benefit? Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats If you like it, you could try doing one for each major proposal section (Technical, Management, Experience/Past Performance, Staffing, etc.). Or you could add a column for the proposal section. Under each SWOT heading, add your features and issues. But then you need to address what matters about them in a way that will impact the proposal writing. That’s what the new columns are for. Instead of a data collection tool, you might just use the table to guide the discussion. For each thing that you think is a strength, what exactly are you offering (doing about it), how does that impact your competitive positioning (differentiation), and what does the customer get out of it (how do they benefit)?

How much does it cost to do things the right way? What does doing things the right way mean when it comes to what you should offer in your proposal? Doesn't doing things the right way prevent problems? Doesn't preventing problems reduce costs? Where is the line where the cost of doing things right becomes greater than the cost of the problems? Isn't that something worth discussing with your customer? See also: Pricing Obviously preventing problems is best, but the customer usually expects there to be some problems and often cares a lot about what you do to resolve problems when they occur. What does it cost you to think that through in advance and present them with a rapid problem identification and response plan? Adding value often does not require doing anything different. It requires recognizing the value in the things that you do and being able to articulate it and differentiate it from your competition. Sometimes doing things the right way means being well organized. Does being well organized cost money? Does it save money? If you have clever ways of doing things that add value while reducing costs, shouldn't you tell the customer in your proposal? Sometimes doing things the right way just means knowing what you are doing. What does "knowing what you are doing" mean? How do you prove that you know what you are doing? How do you show that it adds value to the customer? All the things that go into “doing things the right way” are potential features for your proposal and each has benefits for the customer that you should articulate. Often doing things the right way isn’t so much about what you do as it is how you do it. Doing more and adding effort might add to your proposed cost if there aren’t offsetting savings. But doing the same thing in a better way doesn’t have to add to the cost. Here are a half dozen examples: Do it in a way that is more verifiable Do things transparently Do things in a way that is scalable Be flexible Do things that lower risk Be responsive Or anything else beneficial. Ultimately, adding value is more about why you do things than it is about what you do. When you make trade-off decisions and design your offering, you are doing things for a reason. Those reasons usually revolve around offering the maximum value for the lowest cost. You just need to prove to your customer that they are getting that.

When the RFP forces everyone to bid the exact same thing, the ways people differentiate their bids tend to be intangible. This makes it difficult for the customer to evaluate. How, other than price, do they rank the bids based on intangible differences? How do they justify selecting a winner that costs more when the difference in value can't be quantified? It's difficult, but if your proposal is full of unsubstantiated claims, you don't have a chance. Consider each of the following ways companies try to position themselves as better than their competitors: See also: Examples Experience. Sometimes it's pretty easy to show that you have more experience. But too many companies leave it there and fail to pass the "So What?" test. For your experience to become a value, it has to result in something that matters to the customer. Experience on its own has very little value. How many experienced people do you know who, let's be honest, aren't really that good? And yet, experience can make a difference. But it's the difference you want to emphasize, and not just the experience. The difference is what the evaluator can use to justify their decision. Justifying paying a higher price just because an organization has more experience is a lot more difficult than justifying a higher price because their experience matters in a particular way. Quality. If you say you offer better quality, it won't be clear what you mean. Just what does quality mean in this context? Just like with experience, quality has to result in something to matter. Does it result in fewer defects, less downtime, better performance, more durability, or what? Unlike experience, when claiming better quality, you also have to prove how you achieve better quality. What do you actually do that makes the delivery of the better result credible? That's what the evaluator will look for. The claim is meaningless unless they find it. If they do, and if you really are doing something that your competitors are not, then the result is a value they will get from you and not from your competitors. That is something they can use to justify a selection in your favor. Performance. Sometimes you do better work, but it can't be quantified. For example, maybe you recruit better staff or staff who are a better match. Whatever it is, even if you can't quantify it, you have to define it. You have to make it into a something that your competitors don't do, have, or deliver, and then link it to a value that matters to the customer. The place to start is by articulating just what makes your offering better and then by articulating why that matters to the customer. Risk. Risk is a popular topic for making unsubstantiated claims. It's so bad that you can pretty much count on everyone bidding being "the low risk provider." Or at least claiming to be. Saying that you are the low risk provider because you have more experience is just combining two unsubstantiated claims. If you work in an area where the risks and their impacts can't be quantified, then you have to give the evaluator something beyond your claim so they can make a selection in your favor based on risk. So what do you do about the risks that's special and what's at stake? If the risks are unpredictable, then provide examples. Skills. Does your staff or organization have more skills than your competitors? How do you make that credible? More importantly, so what? The customer will only care about those skills if they matter. And they don't matter... until you explain why they do. Understanding. Everyone bidding will understand the customer. Or more accurately, no one bidding is going to say that they don't. Every single one of them can parrot back what they read in the RFP and find by searching the internet. Telling the customer about themselves, in addition to being patronizing, is not a winning strategy. Besides, it's not really what the customer wants. What the customer wants is to see if you know enough about their environment to actually deliver on your promises. They care more about your ability to deliver than what you claim to know. The best way to show understanding is through results. If you get those right, then it's clear that you understand. If the customer tells everyone to bid the same results, then what matters is how you achieve them and whether it's credible. That's where understanding can make a difference. If your approach or your results are different because of your understanding, then your understanding becomes something that matters to the evaluator. There is just one thing you need to do with your intangible claims, and there are three ways to go about it: Substantiate your claims to make them credible. Substantiate your claims to make them differentiated. Substantiate your claims to make them matter. You must substantiate your claims in all three ways if you want the evaluator to be able to use them to justify selecting you. If you don't do that, you're just wasting everybody's time by saying things that make you feel better but don't impact whether you win. The good news is that most of the proposals we review don't do these three critical things. This means that doing them gives you a competitive advantage. It's also a great way to unseat an incumbent, since incumbency is also an intangible value if they don't follow this advice.

What is "content marketing?" Content marketing uses the publishing of material to achieve your marketing goals. It can be used to support inbound or outbound marketing. Content marketing has become extremely popular because of the web, where it is used primary for inbound marketing. Companies post content that brings visitors to their websites. Because of the growth of the web, sometimes this is the only form of content marketing that you hear about, with some additional references to search engine optimization. But you can use content marketing to support marketing efforts where getting people to your website is not your first priority. If you are chasing RFPs or looking to close high-touch complex sales, your website might play a minor or even non-existent role. But content marketing can still be extremely valuable for capturing contracts. How do you use content marketing to win contracts? Instead of simply being about getting people to your website, content can serve other marketing goals like building trust, influencing RFPs, establishing expertise, demonstrating insight, and convincing the customer that it's worth the effort to get to know your company. Many of the things you need to do to capture a contract can be supported with content marketing. Content marketing can help you find and qualify leads. It can help you engage leads and give them a reason to want to talk to you. It can give them information they need to decide whether to initiate a procurement. It can give them the information they need to complete their acquisition process, influencing the RFP along the way. In many ways, content marketing is just practicing relationship marketing in the internet age. Think of it as one side of a virtual conversation where you publish things that contribute to relationship building. It's not about publishing a brochure. It's about having ongoing engagement. One mistake that people make is to confuse marketing and sales. Marketing is not selling. Marketing brings customers into your sales process. The same is true with content marketing. If you try to sell in the content you are trying to use for marketing, the marketing will fail and the sales will underperform. A brochure is a sales tool and not a marketing tool. Content that engages potential customers and achieves marketing goals, like establishing trust and proving expertise, can bring qualified people into your sales process. But the content that does this can only sell indirectly. What content marketing can do is build a sales funnel. You can channel your audience into a database, events, or actions. Content marketing is far more sophisticated than putting out a brochure and saying "call me." Content marketing is about giving the customer something that proves you are an asset, so they will choose to come back for more, qualifying themselves along the way. For example: A content item can lead to people following you for more; Which can lead to people seeing webinar announcements; Which can qualify their interests; Which can then lead to contacts. By the time you make contact, you have a relationship, you've earned trust, and you've proven your expertise. If your initial content item tried to sell, it would not be nearly as effective. The trick to content marketing for capturing contracts is to integrate it into your relationship marketing practices. It's not something separate. It's not a series of printed pieces that you leave behind like brochures and data sheets. It's something you lead with. It's what gives the customer a reason to want to have a relationship with you. And once it opens that door, it still has a role to play because it's how you prove your worth, how you shape the procurement, and ultimately how you close the sale. If you fully integrated it into how you develop business and capture your contracts, then adopting it can improve your competitiveness throughout every phase of the process.

Price always matters. But price is not always the most important factor. If it was, no one would buy iPhones. With a consumer product, Apple succeeds even though their value proposition is completely intangible and unquantified. In a written proposal submitted to an organization, you’re going to need different strategies. To win with a higher price, you must convince the customer that you’re giving them something that makes the price difference worth it. In a competitive procurement, to avoid picking the lowest cost bid and to pick the proposal that costs more, the customer has to do one of two things: Decide that all the other lower-priced proposals are unacceptable. Decide that the higher priced proposal is actually a better value. What is acceptable? One strategy you can take is to prove that any approach that produces a lower price will result in unacceptable sacrifices. Just claiming it won't be enough. You have to prove it. If you are certain of the approaches that your competitors will take and what the customer considers unacceptable, this can be an effective strategy. However, companies are often surprised by a customer’s willingness to accept less to get a lower price and by the creativity of their competitors. If you are not certain, then you might want to make use of this strategy but not completely depend on it. How does the customer know which is the best value? See also: Pricing The easiest way for the customer to justify selecting a proposal because it’s a better value is when they can objectively prove that it provides value greater than any difference in cost. If they can quantify the value difference and show that it’s greater than the price difference, they have a strong argument. They might still base a decision on value when they can’t quantify the difference, but it’s a lot harder to for them to justify that decision. A good example of how this can be done relates to maintenance costs. It might be worth it to pay more for higher quality parts if it lowers the costs of maintenance more than the higher cost of the parts. In other words, it’s worth it to pay more upfront if it quantitatively lowers your costs over the long run. Another example relates to automation. Paying more upfront for an automated solution might result in lower long-term labor costs. Saving money over the long term is not the only value-based strategy that’s possible. It’s just one of the easiest ways to convince a customer that a higher proposal price results in spending less. Sometimes an offering can be better because it delivers more or produces better results that have value. It might be worth it to the customer to pay more to get more. But again, to be convincing it’s best if you quantify what they are getting and show that the value it represents is worth any difference in price. Assessing value is a return on investment consideration One way to look at these approaches is as investments that generate a positive return. The customer could take the lower price, but you're asking them to invest in a higher price in order to achieve a greater return. If you can quantify that return, it will be a lot more credible and more convincing to a customer who is skeptical when they see the term “investment” in a proposal. Value impacts your corporate strategies as well as your bid strategies It’s much easier to win by having the lowest price. But it’s much more profitable to win with a price that’s not the lowest possible. The problem is you can never tell if someone else is going to undercut your price. If you are going to compete on price and remain profitable, you have to be really good at it. And even if you are, you might want to hedge your bet and deliver a value proposition that proves your offering is the best trade-off between price and other factors. While being able to explain and prove your value proposition is vital when you expect competitors to undercut your price, it is also a good idea to do so when you’re going in with what you think is the lowest price possible. Training your organization to think in terms of value and being able to prove it is part of how you achieve a win rate that continuously increases over time.