Carl Dickson

Proposal teams are great at filling voids and getting things done without proper direction. They’ll complete the proposal no matter what. And that’s part of the problem. If they have to, they’ll water things down to gain acceptance. If they have no choice, they may even fake it. They are quite good at making the most of their circumstances, but they can’t read minds, and their authority is limited. Make things clear and your people will work more quickly and be better focused on winning instead of working around indecision. There are things that need your involvement. They don’t require a lot of time. But they do require decisions that the proposal team can’t make on their own. The team will do the work, but they need you to decide: See also: Roles Who defines quality and leads the review process? Proposal quality is too important to be left to opinion. Getting a group of people, no matter how experienced, around a table for a review without any definition of proposal quality is no way to achieve it. One of the key functions of the executive level is to define standards. Proposal quality should be defined in a way that can be validated so the reviews will be effective. Your entire proposal review process succeeds or fails based on how you define quality. But if you don’t do this before the writing starts, then don’t bother. Changing the definition of quality in the middle is worse than a consensus driven subjective and undefined concept of quality. If you feel the temptation to jump in at the end and fix the proposal because they don’t understand your vision for proposal quality, that’s your failure and not theirs. Who is responsible for identifying contributors? The proposal team can identify what is needed, but they don't own the resources required to get things done. They need help, both with identifying relevant resources and with obtaining their participation. Especially when it requires crossing organizational boundaries. Who is responsible for identifying, articulating, and approving bid strategies? If you wait until the proposal to figure out your bid strategies, or if those involved in the pre-RFP pursuit show up without anything to differentiate your bid, it's probably too late. Even though the proposal team should participate in articulating the bid strategies, someone else needs to be responsible for bringing the winning strategies to the table, and doing so at the start of the proposal. If the proposal lacks solid bid strategies, that should not reflect on the proposal team. Working out who is responsible for bid strategies and when will have a huge impact on your win rate. Who decides whether to cancel the proposal? The person who approved the bid almost never wants to cancel it. When a bid goes bad, a ton of money and effort usually gets wasted as a result. The proposal team can tell when the plug should be pulled, but who's going to listen? And if it’s worth continuing anyway, who’s going to explain why? Who is responsible for making decisions regarding contractual matters? What terms and conditions are acceptable? Who’s responsible for knowing what the small print means? Who is responsible for regulatory and other compliance? When, where, and how does that review take place? Who is responsible for making sure contributors meet their deadlines? Expectation management is crucial. The proposal team is responsible for setting the right expectations. And then others are responsible for fulfilling them. What happens when they don't? You can leave it to the proposal team to try to exert pressure while doing the proposal, or you can help with expectation management. Who is responsible for making sure teaming partners make their deadlines? If you have subcontractors or teaming partners contributing to the proposal it can be like pulling teeth to get their assignments completed. The people who network with them don't want to be the bad guys and enforce the schedule. Who's going to step in with enough clout to get the attention of staff at another company? Who makes decisions regarding what is being proposed? Who is responsible for determining what to offer, as opposed to how to describe it? Who is involved and who has the final say? With authority comes responsibility. Someone needs to define the offering competitively and on schedule for the proposal team to do its job. Who makes decisions regarding proposal content and presentation? Should it say this or that? Be organized this way or that way? Who can make changes? And who has the final say? Instead of letting games and power struggles figure it out, just put it on the table and tell them straight up. Isn't it interesting how many are all about "who?" Your staff can figure out "what" to do. But "who" does things is usually best decided higher up on the org chart. This means you. The proposal team can figure out what to do. But they can’t assign resources. They can't decide among themselves who has the final authority to make decisions without a consensus. They can negotiate with other staff to get what they need, but this takes time and often results in somewhat less than what they really need, which has a negative impact on the proposal. As an executive, you can have as much impact on your organization’s win rate as the proposal writers, without ever setting pen to paper. All you have to do is be decisive, and clearly communicate roles and responsibilities. If you are decisive, your win rate will go up. If you are indecisive, your organization will produce watered down proposals, do it more slowly, and with more risk, resulting in a lower win rate.

It’s a pretty common mistake. When you’re under schedule and budget pressure, it seems like starting from a page that already has some words on it should be easier. It seems like such a waste to spend all that time, effort, and money on preparing a proposal for only one use, so it must save money to use it as a starting point for the next proposal. Unfortunately reusing your proposals will end up costing you far more than it might save you. The economics of recycling proposal narratives are not what they seem. And you ignore them at your own peril. The best approach to take for proposal writing is making it a return on investment (ROI) decision. If you focus on lowering costs you are probably not making the best investment decisions. Even though there is a cost savings by recycling proposal content, it will be less than the negative impact on your win rate multiplied by the anticipated revenue. It’s just the way the math works out, and I encourage you to explore the numbers. Unless you are dealing with a low-margin commodity or an offering priced too low to cover the cost of a customized proposal, I find the numbers almost always favor maximizing customization around your bid strategies. Especially when you run the numbers across multiple bids. Let's look at some numbers See also: Reuse If your total proposal cost is 1% of anticipated award of the opportunity, and you can lower the cost of the proposal by 10% by recycling previous proposals, the total savings is 0.1% of anticipated award. I’d argue that you won’t see even a 10% cost savings because reuse requires far more editing than people realize. But let’s pretend that 10% savings is real. Now, how much will proposal reuse lower your win rate? And what will that cost you? All it needs to do is lower your win rate by 0.1% to eliminate the savings. Consider two proposal approaches: Lower costs by maximizing reuse Skip any theoretical savings from reuse and apply it to maximizing the customization around your bid strategies If you take the second approach and it only improves your win rate by 1%, it will produce 10 times the ROI that reusing your proposal content might. If it improves your win rate by 10%, you get 100 times the “savings” from recycling your proposals. My goal in business is not to achieve a low cost and a low rate of return. My goal is a high rate of return and the costs required to bring me that return are welcome. If your goal is also to maximize ROI, but you aren't structured to prepare the proposals required to achieve it, you might want to rethink your business model. You should ensure that the investment you make in customizing your proposals around your bid strategies is efficient and is not made in a way that is frivolous. But efficient means achieving the win rate needed to produce the desired ROI. If you customize the proposal around poorly thought-out undifferentiated bid strategies, it will not increase your win rate. What should you do about it? If you are focused on organizational development instead of a single bid, then you can look at the increase in win rate as compounded interest. You can also look at proposal reuse as compounded negative interest. This means you want to train your organization to avoid reuse and invest in learning how to write proposals that maximize win rate. You want to train people to make sound decisions based on understanding the economics of their win rate, and not to take what looks like the easy path if it lowers your future ROI. The value in your previous proposals is in the ideas and approaches, but not in the narrative. I’d go so far as to consider scanning your proposals and storing them as images so people can’t recycle the narratives. Let them see the steps in the approaches, but force them to put those steps into the context required to win the current bid. Or extract those approaches and turn them into proposal recipes. Just don't copy the narrative that was optimized to win in a different context. Proposal reuse is a trap that will prevent you from maximizing your ROI If you don’t start your proposals knowing what bid strategies to customize the proposal around, you can’t achieve your ROI goals. The only way reuse increases ROI is if your profit margin per sale won't cover the cost of doing a proposal and you have to cover that cost through volume. If you care about ROI and don't sell a commodity, you can’t pursue bids opportunistically. You need an information advantage to have something to customize your proposal with. Your approach to prospecting should not be about finding leads, but should only look for leads where you can develop an information advantage. Focusing on ROI forces you to create an organization that bids to win, instead of one that bids a lot, and uses easy to submit low probability of winning recycled narratives to do it.

The easiest corporate strategy for growth is to bid everything. Proposal professionals hate this strategy because it results in a low win rate that they expect to get blamed for. It also increases their workload for little gain. But the undeniable fact is that you can win business by bidding opportunistically. That’s what makes it so tempting. The result is a certain… tension… See also: Bid/no bid decisions Whether you should bid opportunistically or strategically is a simple return on investment calculation. Add up your costs of bidding and compare it to your wins. The problem with opportunistic bidding is that it results in low win rates. When you bid without an information advantage, you bid at a competitive disadvantage. Your cost per win goes up as your win rate goes down. And the ones you win are probably the ones where your pricing was lowest, resulting in lower profit margins. Opportunistic bidding leads to higher costs and less profit. But it also results in more profit than you would have had if you didn’t bid anything. Every time I've run it with real numbers, I find that the impact your win rate has on your profitability makes investing in a high win rate the better investment. For example, at a 10% win rate, you'll need three times the number of leads as a company at a 30% win rate, just to hit the same revenue. All that opportunistic bidding is often great amounts of energy spent uselessly. The idea that opportunistic bidding produces more revenue than you would have had without it is an illusion. At a 30% win rate you’ll achieve twice the revenue of a company with a 10% win rate, and do it with half the leads and a lower cost of bidding. There is no doubt that you can win some business with an opportunistic approach. The question is whether that's the best ROI. The answer will not be the same for everybody. Consider: The closer you get to a commodity service, the less important trust and other factors become, the more important price becomes, and the more bidding in volume can pay off. If the size of your bids does not cover the costs of customizing your bids, then while win rate will remain critically important, you will not be able to afford strategically pursuing each opportunity. In certain niche markets, customers buy without advance planning or announcements. Some things are purchased by a customer only once and customers are widely dispersed, making targeting impossible. But even putting aside the importance of win rates for a moment, it’s a strategic question that determines whether opportunistic bidding will destroy your company: Does opportunistic bidding lead to growth, or does it plateau when you run out of leads that are easy to find and bid? For opportunistic bidding the only path to growth is to find more low-hanging fruit than you lose. Forever. The idea that opportunistic bidding can get your foot in the door is an illusion. Opportunistic bidding is not a way to jump start a business or something you can switch from when “you are ready.” If you can get the business without a customer relationship, then someone else can steal it from you the same way. Opportunistic bidding requires a business model that can survive high levels of churn. If you run a non-commodity services business, rapid turnover will kill your business. When you run out of easy leads, you will be unable to replace the revenue at the same rate. That’s when things go bad quickly, because you’ve built an organization that structurally, culturally, financially, and otherwise is incapable of the investment required for strategic pursuit. You can’t switch on a whim to strategic business if you don’t have the right processes, the way people think they are supposed to do things is all wrong, you haven’t mastered long lead time pursuits, your win rate is abysmal, you can’t cover the costs of strategic pursuits, and you habitually start too late. Every time I've seen it tried in a non-commodity services business, opportunistic bidding led to a crash that was most often resolved by selling the business and not simply reorganizing it, but replacing it with a strategic organization. The difference between a strategic organization and an opportunistic one is that maximizing win rate is a higher priority than maximizing the number of bids. Investing in a high win rate means doing things like relationship marketing, developing an information advantage, and perfecting your lead qualification and proposal processes. A strategic organization doesn’t focus as much on chasing leads as it does on winning them. But a better way to look at it is that investing in win rate means hitting your numbers without any opportunistic bids. You can indulge in opportunistic bids in a strategic company. You just can’t depend on them. To be strategic you have to build an organization that hits its numbers by achieving its win rate targets and constantly raising them. Opportunistic bids can be pursued if they are paid for by sunk cost resources and don’t conflict with strategic bids. If you have resources sitting around not pursuing strategic bids, then you may not be as strategic an organization as you think. Even when those resources aren’t working on a bid, they should be investing their time in increasing your win rate.

Proposal recipes work best when they reflect the specifics of the way your company does things and its circumstances. They can also help prevent your authors from reinventing the wheel. But you have to be careful when you make them specific that they remain applicable to all your bids. Luckily the question format facilitates this. You can include options that may or may not be applicable by how you phrase the questions. Instead of finding the balance between generic and specific, you can get as specific as you need to. Proposal recipes are also a great tool for bringing together the best that every part of your company has to contribute. For example, inter-departmental expertise and coordination can be leveraged by adding questions to your recipes that prompt the author with what to say, do, or remember. You don’t need people to contribute manuals, slide decks, or narrative to create recipes. You just need to know the key issues so you can insert a question that prompts the author to look into it. If you get to proposal reviews and people ask things like, “Why didn’t we include information from so and so?” you can insert a question into your recipes that will prevent the oversight in the future. Not only that, you can anticipate the need and track down the information or prompt the author with what they need to do to get it. The following list gives you some considerations you should apply to every recipe to ensure that it is fully customized: See also: Guidance for Using Recipes Business line specifics. What does you company do or offer? What does the author need to consider about that? What should they consider when designing the offering and writing about it? Customer specifics. If you bid to the same or similar customers frequently, you can add questions that reflect the customer’s concerns and preferences. Procedures. What relevant procedures has your organization already developed? What policies may impact what you say in the proposal? Terminology. What terminology do you and your customers prefer? What’s current? Recipes should prompt authors to say things the way you want them said. Bid strategies. How do you typically position your company and offering? What strategies do you employ in common circumstances? What strategic lessons learned has your organization accumulated? Resources. What people, equipment, facilities, technology, tools, assets, etc. exist in your organization that might be relevant? Points of contact. Who should proposal writers contact for more information, to obtain decisions and approvals, or to coordinate? What information should proposal writers deliver as well as potentially receive? What forms or other tools might help? Institutional knowledge. Has your organization done things before that are relevant? What does your organization know that is relevant? What practices has your organization developed? What preferences does it have? What lessons learned has it accumulated? Data. If data can be anticipated and doesn’t change frequently, it can be inserted into your recipes. For example: the number of locations your company has, its employee turnover rate, etc. If the data does change rapidly or the data required isn’t consistent enough to accumulate it in advance, you can still identify where to go, which tools to use, or who to get the data from. Inter-departmental coordination. A staffing plan might require coordination with your human resources department. Subcontracting, logistics, fulfillment, supply chain, invoicing, timekeeping, and many other functions are handled by specific departments in some organizations. If you want proposal writers to coordinate with them, you can use the recipes to prompt it. The recipes can prompt proposal writers with the who, what, where, how, when, and why of the coordination. Graphics. You can anticipate that many of the issues faced in common proposal sections can be communicated visually. Even if you don’t have the information to draw the graphic in advance, you can inspire the proposal writers by showing them the kinds of graphics that are relevant.

The goal of a proposal recipe is to accelerate proposal writing and inspire your staff to write better approaches. Proposal recipes suggest topics to write about, instead of providing topics that are already written but in the wrong context. A proposal recipe avoids providing you with a narrative you can recycle. Instead, proposal recipes ask questions about everything that should go into the narrative. When you answer the questions, you not only create the narrative, but what you write is customized for what it will take to win the current bid from the very beginning. Instead of starting your proposal with a blank screen, the questions in a proposal recipe get you started explaining the right things and putting things in the right context. By suggesting ingredients, it accelerates how quickly you arrive at knowing everything that should be addressed in your section. People spend more time thinking about and discussing their proposal sections than actually writing them. A proposal recipe gets you past that more quickly so that the writing can actually be accomplished. Creating a proposal recipe requires identifying the questions people should answer in their responses. The trick to creating the right questions is to use the questions to both give information and guide people to consider the right things. Proposal recipes typically address: See also: Guidance for using recipes What should be included in your solution, process, approach, or response What you need to know before you can write your response Options you should consider How the context impacts what you should write How issues could impact what you write Ways to add value to your response Potential ways you could use graphics to enhance your message A proposal recipe shouldn’t tell you what the steps in your approach must be. Instead, a proposal recipe should ask about everything that might go into your approach, so the author can quickly assess what is needed for this bid. A recipe should ask about various options so the author can decide what is applicable. A recipe should ask about how aspects related to the customer, opportunity, competitive environment, or RFP might impact what you need to write about. A proposal recipe should ask about any potential issues so the author can determine what to do about them. A recipe should ask about approaches that might add value. Or it might ask about how visuals could be used instead of words to make your points. There is a fine line between asking you to consider an option and suggesting things for your consideration. Suggestions are fine, but everything in a proposal recipe should be formatted as a question in order to avoid leaving the impression that the recipe is telling the author what to write. In order to end up with a proposal that is fully customized around what it will take to win, recipes help the author work more quickly without giving them the end product. The authors decide the sequence, wording, what’s applicable, and what adds value. A recipe identifies the ingredients and ways to prepare them, but the author is the chef. It’s also important to remind the author that they are not limited to what it says in a proposal recipe. If a proposal recipe inspires you to think about something that adds to the proposal but that the recipe didn’t address, then it’s doing its job of helping you figure out what to say in order to win.

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Read the proposal and make it sound better. The end.p.s. If you are not precise and careful, making a proposal sound better can actually hurt your chances of winning. Changing the wording of proposal headings and requirements can get you thrown out for non-compliance without even being read. Even if you don't get thrown out, it can hurt your score when customers search for keywords or strings in the RFP and can't find them in your proposal. Their words may be archaic or awkward, but they need to be there. Especially in the headings. See also: Proposal quality validation When you mark up the draft proposal and change headings that were based on the RFP, people will see that you didn't even read the RFP. That could bring the credibility of your other changes into question as well. The same holds true when you make changes to keywords inserted from the evaluation criteria or other sections of the RFP. This not only confirms that you didn't read the RFP, it also shows you didn't attempt to read or score the proposal the same way the customer will. When you replace the wording of focused bid strategies with nice sounding pieces of fluff that you think have broader appeal or less risk, you may be watering down your proposal to the point of making it meaningless. Everything in a proposal should be based on what it will take to win. Everything should make a point related to RFP compliance and be worded to optimize the evaluation. If you can make it sound better while doing that, great! When you make recommendations to add things to a proposal that is already over the page limit without identifying something to take out, you're not thinking about how to win, you're just putting that burden on someone else. Backing into the proposal by editing it down is a bad strategy and a sign of a review failure. It is much better to build the proposal from the beginning with intentional trade-off decisions based on what it will take to win, scaling it to fit the page limit. Don't add things on the assumption that they can somehow survive the editing that will be required to bring it all back down to the page limit. And whatever you do, don't assume that if you start with a bunch of recycled narrative, the strategies and points that matter to this bid will somehow be discovered through editing. Here's what people really need from you when you review the proposal... The proposal team needs validation of specific things. They need to confirm decisions regarding strategies. They need to know whether what's being presented is the best offering the company is capable of. They need to know whether they've left anything out or overlooked anything. They need to know whether they've achieved RFP compliance and if what they wrote is optimized to get the highest evaluation score. They need to know if the proposal reflects all of the customer insight the company has and whether the competitive positioning can be improved. They need confirmation that the proposal is written from the customer's perspective instead of simply being descriptive. In short, they need to know whether the proposal reflects what it will take to win. Is there anything about what it will take to win that isn't adequately addressed? Text corrections, tweaks to the wording, and random improvements are secondary. Wordsmithing is best done by a professional editor and not a senior review team. But validation is a critical part of creating a proposal that reflects what it will take to win. They need your strategic double-checking and second-guessing of the bid strategies in order to produce a proposal that will beat all potential competitors. The proposal team doesn't need your opinion about the writing. They need you to show up prepared and having read the RFP. They need your due diligence and above all they need your proposal quality validation. And will greatly appreciate receiving it. Premium Content for PropLIBRARY Subscribers The MustWin Process includes a methodology for reviewing proposals called Proposal Quality Validation. It explains how to figure out how many reviews you should have as well as how many reviewers you need. And it can be implemented as a forms and checklist driven review process. It also provides sample criteria to use for proposal reviews.

What you should propose is different from what you should write. You should avoid doing them both at the same time. Figuring out what to you should offer is something that you should do, and validate, before you start trying to describe it in writing. You should be able to describe what you intend to offer regarding the following items before you start trying to figure out what to say about them. See also: Content Planning Best Practices So how do you figure out what to offer before you start writing about it? Here are some things to consider: What would you like to offer? Identify the components of your offering. Break it down. What's in? What's out? Decide so you know what to describe when the writing starts. If you are offering a tangible deliverable, then what is it composed of, what parts does it include, and what are its features? If it's an approach, then what are the major steps and what are its features? Itemize the details. Itemize the things you're going to need to price it and write about it. You don't need to explain (yet). You just need to account for it so that you can validate the offering and then explain it all when the writing starts. Price to win. Add up what you've got so you can decide what you have to change before you commit it to a written narrative. If you have designed an offering that will cost more than the customer can afford, then you have lost before you've started writing. If your offering is not cost competitive, you need to decide that before you invest in writing difficult to change narratives about it. What does the customer require? Comply with their specifications. Make sure your offering design complies with all specifications and fulfills all requirements. If your offering isn't compliant, you need to fix that before you start writing about it. Don't start by writing a response to every requirement. Instead perform a review to ensure that the offering is capable of complying with them all. Once you have fully validated your design, then you can write the narrative responses required. Make sure you can address everything in the RFP. What will you need to address about your offering? Does it require research or additional details? Does it require changing what you are offering before the writing starts, or is it just additional items you need to make sure you explain once the writing starts? Optimize against the customer's evaluation criteria. How will the proposed offering be scored during evaluation? Does it need to change in order to receive the top score? It's often balancing the goal of getting a top score with having a winning price that results in disastrous changes after the writing starts. Performing that balancing act before you start writing is crucial for successful proposal development. Does your offering reflect the customer's perspective? Address what matters to the customer. Whether it's in the RFP or not, the customer is part of the requirements. If your offering design does not matter to the customer, then it's not a good offering design. You need to be able to explain what matters about your offering design, and do it from the customer's perspective instead of your own. Identify your competitive differentiators. The customer will make their selection based on the differences between the alternatives. Winning requires having the best differences in order to be the best alternative. Design in your competitive differentiators and then validate the design before you start writing. Articulate your value proposition. Being the best alternative means offering the customer the best value. Even if the customer only considers price, it's because that is their highest value. Understand what the customer values and make your cost/benefit trade-offs decisions accordingly. You need to be able to articulate your value proposition in order to validate your design. But articulating your value proposition does not mean that you start writing the proposal. It is part of getting ready to write the proposal, so that the entire document can explain and support why your value proposal makes you the best alternative. Premium Content for PropLIBRARY Subscribers We have prepared training materials you can download to help you guide your staff through implementing these recommendations: 24-Slide PowerPoint presentation on How to make figuring out what to propose simple A simple checklist in Microsoft Word summarizing the action items

Just because you really want to win a proposal, does not mean that you need to go about it in a complicated way. There may be a lot to do and a lot to think about, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need to have a complicated proposal process. Unfortunately, figuring out how to best simplify preparing proposals may not be obvious. In an effort to simplify their proposal efforts, people often do things that hurt their chances of winning. It turns out that the complexity of a proposal effort is driven primarily by two factors: How many people do you need to contribute to the proposal? Developing a proposal with other people involved means you need planning, estimating, progress tracking, quality assurance, and all the other aspects of project management. Are you willing to invest in winning? Even though we want to believe that every proposal deserves a heroic effort to win, some have a higher priority than others. The effort you put into research, planning, and quality assurance depends on that priority. If you are doing the proposal on your own and managing your own priorities, you can greatly simplify things and balance the desire to win with the effort it will take. If you are forced into doing a proposal without the resources you need, you might also be forced into simplifying things. Mythbusting: Templates are probably not the best way to simplify a proposal effort See also: Making proposals simple We've brought all the information we've written about recycling proposal content and using templates together into this Topic Hub. The bottom line is that in almost all cases they reduce your probability of winning. Only you can decide whether reducing the effort is worth sacrificing your win probability. Most of the content on PropLIBRARY is written to maximize your chances of winning, even if it takes more effort, because we've found mathematically that's usually the best investment. The purpose of this topic hub is to help people with simple approaches that still maximize your chances of winning in cases where the MustWin Process is overkill. Checklists and recipes can simplify without killing your chances of winning Checklists can help you quickly figure out what to write, without reducing your chances of winning the way recycling proposal narrative or using templates will. They remind you, help ensure that you don't leave anything out, and prompt you with things to consider. The right checklist can make winning in writing checklist simple. Instead of copying an outline or following a template, here is a simple approach to a proposal outline that is based on the customer's point of view. If you want to get just a little more sophisticated, here are 16 ways to organize your outline. And when it comes to writing, instead of templates or recycling proposal text from a previous proposal, try a Proposal Recipe to accelerate the writing in a way that maximizes your chances of winning. Simplifying proposal writing The difference between ordinary proposal writing and great proposal writing doesn't require more effort if you understand how to write from the customer's perspective. Here are 8 simple things you can do to transform ordinary proposal writing into great proposal writing. People often struggle with just getting their proposal started. Once you do that everything can fall into place. So here is a two-part strategy for writing great proposal introductions. If you are stuck because you're not sure how your proposal should look, then here is an article that should greatly simplify things for you so you don't have to worry. Telling your story, crafting your message, and articulating your proposal themes, can also be made simpler. Sometimes it's not really the writing that's the problem, it's figuring out what your win strategies should be. So here are three simple steps for formulating your win strategies. There's really only one thing that you need to do in order to win all of your proposals. And if these tips aren't simple enough for you, you can transform your proposal writing with just a single word. If it takes too much effort to write a great proposal, then aim for simply not being awful Sometimes you can make a big improvement without rebuilding your entire approach to proposal writing. Here are 6 ways to simply avoid writing an awful proposal. In addition, here are 8 simple indicators that you’re going down the wrong path before you lose your proposal. Simplifying the proposal process Thinking about the proposal process as a series of some huge number of steps is counter-productive. An effective proposal process is based on achieving a few goals. That's it. There are elaborate ways to achieve those goals, and there are simple ways. Which is best for you depends on your circumstances and preferences. But it's the goals of the process that matter and not the steps. When you think in those terms, then it's possible to consider what the simplest, easiest proposal process to get started with might be. Another aspect to consider is your role, because your role impacts your perspective, and where you should start to improve your proposals. If you are doing the proposal on your own, you might be tempted to go without a formal process. This is generally a bad idea, because you still need to achieve the same goals as described above. But even without a process, having clear and simple criteria to assess your proposal quality can make it possible to achieve a quality proposal, without having formal reviews. And if you do have a review process, here is one simple thing you can do to greatly improve your proposal reviews.

The purpose of the recipes in this area is not to teach you the best way to do proposals, but rather to show you how to overcome obstacles, cope, or even cheat when you have to do proposals the wrong way. Sure, if you want to win you need to do everything you can to achieve the best practices. But what about when you’re starting late on a bid where you don't know the customer, aren't sure what to bid, can't get the information you need to write a winning proposal, have to bid because someone in authority says you have to, and it's all you can do just to survive the experience let alone win it? We're not talking about lying, breaking laws, failing to comply with regulations, or ignoring ethical standards. We’re talking about leaving the best practices that don’t apply in your circumstances behind, in order to get something submitted. If by some quirk of circumstances you cheat and win, that’s just luck. You can’t cheat on every proposal and be competitive. At least not against companies that are employing the best practices. Doing proposals the wrong way can help you make a submission on time. The techniques in this area turn the best practices on their head. But if you cheat on a good proposal, you will probably ruin it. On the other hand, when all the best practices in the world won’t help you, maybe these will. And when you learn to recognize these techniques, it will also help you improve the proposals you are trying to do the right way.

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The MustWin Process ensures that everyone knows what is expected, based on what role they play in the pursuit Roles are defined functionally. If a person performs more than one role, that person is responsible for all of the responsibilities of each role. Managing expectations is critical for people to work together to win a business opportunity. If the expectations need to change, it is your job to communicate that and stay in the discussion until everyone agrees on a new set of expectations. Leaving flawed or unrealistic expectations unaddressed is no way to pursue a MustWin opportunity. See also: Roles The MustWin Process defines roles functionally. You may have one person performing more than one role. If you do, that person is responsible for all of the responsibilities of each role. There are no economies of scale here. If one person does not have the capacity to fulfill both roles, you need to add staff. On the following pages, we provide a description of the responsibilities for each of the following roles: Executive Sponsor Business Development Manager Capture Manager Proposal Manager Process Administrator Production Manager Writers Subject Matter Experts Graphics/Illustrators Reviewers Production Staff The role and responsibility descriptions are followed by a form where you can identify who will be fulfilling each role. Business Development Manager Capture Manager Executive Sponsor Corporate Support Graphics Specialist Process Administrator Production Manager Proposal Manager Proposal Writers and Subject Matter Experts

Ingredients What steps will you take to get ready to start the project? Will you take steps to prepare before the contract is even awarded? What is the schedule for implementing the plan and its duration? What hardware, software, equipment, purchases, procedures, and staffing that you will put into place during the Transition Period? What staff that you will use to implement the Transition Plan? What will you require from the outgoing contractor (if any) or from the client? What transition risks do you anticipate? What certifications, sign-offs, or acknowledgements will be required to recognize when the transition period is over and performance at full specifications begins? Approaches An important goal for most Transition Plans is to minimize the disruption for the customer. Another important goal is to minimize the length of the Transition Period. The customer, after all, wants the proposed offering, and typically wants it right away. When you are taking over from another contractor, you may need to make assumptions regarding the transition of documents, equipment, etc. It can be difficult to account for knowledge transfer and getting up to speed, especially if you are counting on an outgoing contractor. Nonetheless, this is what you have to do if you want to beat the current contractor. If your project involves a large number of staff, you may need time to recruit and hire them. If there is an outgoing contractor, you may be able to hire some or all of their project staff. Sometimes the customer will want to retain the existing staff and sometimes they won’t. You should work closely with your customer to determine which staff you will try to retain and which you will replace. You may or may not be able to achieve the outgoing contractor’s cooperation when hiring project staff. Strategies The best way to minimize disruption and the length of the transition period is to do as much of it as possible before the office contract start. Some of the things you may be able to do before the contract start: Speak with the customer regarding transfer of documents and other information. Create draft written procedures. Identify all staff by name. Hire staff (at risk) or at least execute contingency hire letters or letters of understanding with prospective employees. Purchase equipment (at risk) or at least source equipment providers. If you really want to win, it is a good idea to do as many of these things as possible before the proposal is even submitted. This way your proposal shows that you are ready to start with little or no disruption. If you are the incumbent contractor, then you should point out that you will not need a Transition Period. If the RFP provides for one anyway, point out that you will be able to take advantage of it to make improvements, while ensuring no disruption or break in continuity of service.

Ingredients Describe your organization, staffing, tools, and resources for: Human Resources Accounting/Finance Payroll Contracts Legal Information Technology Call center Shipping/Receiving How will the customer benefit from the support each can provide to the project? Approaches Corporate infrastructures are assets that may be worth pointing out to your clients, especially when they differentiate your proposal from the competition. When a particular project will rely on your infrastructures, you can describe them to make the case that you have thought through the needs of the project and offer an integrated solution. If you are a large business, it may not be newsworthy that you have dedicated human resources staff. However, if you are a small business, it may reinforce the credibility of your claims regarding being able to staff a large project. When describing your infrastructures, it is important to do more than simply identify them. You should describe how the client will benefit from your having them in place. A Human Resources department may enable you to do a better job of recruiting and retaining staff. Your accounting system may enable you to ensure accurate invoicing. In-house legal counsel may enable you to streamline union negotiations. Infrastructures also lend themselves to illustration. You can use a simple organization chart, you can show a pyramid with the project supported by the infrastructures, or you can use a pie chart to show that the combination of infrastructures plus the project team are required to deliver a total solution.

Ingredients What resources and supplies you will need or provide? What is their manufacture, delivery, and/or storage method? What resources uniquely qualify you for this project? How will the customer benefit from your resources? Are any of your resources exclusive to you and not available from other bidders? What resources and supplies will the customer need to provide? How will resources and supplies be procured? How will resources be allocated across the project’s timeline and locations? What is the supply chain required for you to make deliveries? How you will manage the supply chain logistics? How will you manage the supply chain finances? What supplier supplier relationships are necessary? What will you keep in inventory and how you will stock it? How and where you will warehouse the inventory? What software, tools, or tracking systems you will use to manage the supply chain? Approaches The supply chain can be illustrated with a flow chart. A table can also be used to itemize the resources and show quantities, source, inventory, client benefits, etc. Strategies This section can be written to demonstrate a key theme that you think is important to the client, for example: Immediate availability Low cost Reliability Low risk Any illustrations, tables, or narrative should enhance the credibility of the theme. If you have capabilities and resources beyond those required, you may wish to point them out for added value.

Ingredients Where, when, and how will they need to participate in the project? What will be the customer’s role and responsibilities on the project? What decisions will the customer have to make? Will the customer be required to participate in any reviews? What resources or commitments will be required from the customer for the project? Will you need access to any customer information, systems, facilities, or people? How will you manage customer expectations? What you will do to encourage a sense of partnership with your customer? Approaches Customer involvement is usually not a separate section. You may choose to call it out under its own subheading if your approach is an advantage. Or you might simply address it within the narrative everywhere that it is relevant. Strategies Some customers want to be involved in every aspect of a project; some want no involvement. Some want to outsource an entire function, others want to outsource only certain activities. This makes addressing customer involvement tricky. You can maximize their involvement, or minimize it, but the only way to know the best approach is to know you customer. If you don’t, it may be best to take a flexible approach that balances the two.

Ingredients What tools/methodologies will you use for: development, design, workflow, configuration management, process automation/management, program management, collaboration, budgeting, record keeping, time keeping, tracking systems, customer relationship management, and document/knowledge management, etc. How does what you plan to use align with what the customer is already using? How the customer will benefit from the tools, methodologies, and techniques that you will use? Approaches Sometimes a methodology can be the focus of your approach. For example, a company might feature its ISO Quality Assurance program, its Capability Maturity Model recognition, or its use of a technique such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Some methodologies also incorporate the use of software or tools. You can highlight your use of a methodology or tool in the section of your Technical Approach where it is relevant. You can also include a separate section on Methodologies, Tools, and Techniques in your Management Plan to reinforce your company’s adherence to standards. Strategies It is important to remember to describe the benefit to the client of any methodology or tool you feature. If the tool will enhance productivity or quality, then detail how that will happen. If the result is that you are lower in cost, more reliable, or better than your competition in some other way, you should explain how your customer will realize those benefits. If your methodology can be illustrated, be sure to include the graphic and organize your narrative around it. The narrative description should focus on the benefits that will result from the methodology and not on the details of implementing the methodology. Another way to use methodologies and techniques is to provide a list of standards that you comply with. This list can be provided as an exhibit and provides a place for terminology, sound bites, and the latest buzzwords. Caution: Unless you provide a statement to describing how it is used and how the customer will benefit, the list may have little real meaning. But it does provide a quick-and-easy approach to compliance and name-dropping.

Ingredients What performance metrics will you use? What is the baseline you’ll use to measure performance against? Will you use any industry benchmarks for comparison? What are your minimum performance standards? How will you collect and track metrics data? How will you record or document the collection of metrics data? How you will analyze metrics, report, and present any findings? How will the project benefit from your use of metrics? What level of effort will be required to collect, assess, and present the measures, and how can it be streamlined? How you will measure productivity, efficiency, and utility? How will you know if you’ve met your customer’s requirements? How do the performance metrics of what you are bidding compare to those of your competitors? Recommended Approaches Performance metrics are the units that you use to measure service delivery. They can require a lot of thought, because it can be difficult to measure outcomes that are not tangible. For example, consider: How do you measure the progress of software development? How do you measure the quality of software? Performance metrics can be used to measure productivity and quality. They can also be used to establish performance standards and enable you to measure success. Performance metrics are typically addressed in the quality plan. They can also be cited in the relevant sections of the proposal as the criteria you will use to measure output, outcomes, and ultimately success. Strategies Measuring progress, quality, and success can be a competitive advantage over those who don’t. But when everyone uses metrics, it’s no longer enough have have measurements, you need the best measurements. If the RFP specifies performance metrics and standards to be achieved, then meeting them makes you merely compliant and not exceptional. To be exceptional, you have to raise the bar. Look for metrics that either already meet or will be able to meet that exceed the requirement. Then raise the requirement and draw attention to it. If there are performance incentives and penalties, then raise the penalties on the ones you know you can meet. If there aren’t any, then add them. People have an instinctive reaction to avoid penalties. Embracing them (especially when you’re confident you won’t trigger them) can be a competitive advantage. Remember, the customer has to trust you to buy from you. Measurements, especially when backed by incentives and penalties, make your claims more tangible and believable.

Ingredients What is your approach to risk analysis? What risks do you anticipate? For example: human resources, legal, financial, economic, technological, facilities, safety, strategic, organizational, process, and completion risks. How do you identify, categorize, and prioritize sources of risk? How you will mitigate the risks? Do you have any relevant historical data regarding risks? Will any risks be shared between you and the customer? How you will monitor your risk management performance? What are your contingency plans for risk-related problems? Approaches Risk mitigation can be incorporated into every section, be a separate section, or be a combination of the two. When risk is addressed in each section of the proposal, the focus is on risks related to that particular topic. When risk is addressed in a separate section, the focus is more on the nature of risk itself, and how you approach risks in general. Within each proposal section, you can provide a table identifying potential risks. If risk mitigation is a separate section, you can provide a table that identifies the risks for the elements described in each section of the proposal or each phase of project activity. Every time you identify a risk, you should provide an approach to mitigate that risk. When describing your risk mitigation approach, you should describe how you will identify risks. While you may already know some of the risks, there may be others that you won’t know about until you start. If overall or unknown risks are a concern, then you should describe how you will identify these risks over the life of the project. Once risks are identified, then you can describe what you will do to mitigate them. Since risk mitigation often requires trade-offs, you should describe how you will balance the trade-offs and what your priorities will be in managing the risks. You may also wish to present a table showing response escalations based on various contingencies. You should pay particular attention to risks affecting the schedule, risks that can lead to cost escalation, and risks that might result in failing to meet the specifications or requirements. Sometimes the client can be a source of risk, such as if they fail to decide on requirements in time or change the specifications after development has started. In these cases, it may be appropriate to share risks with the client. Strategies Risk mitigation can be extremely important to clients. They know that things go wrong. They may even expect this, and be more concerned with your plans to address that, than they are with your ability to perform simply according to plan. Often the incumbent knows more about the risks on a project than other bidders. One strategy incumbents follow is to make sure the customer is aware of all the risks and imply that if their competitors don’t they may not be able to deliver on their promises.