Why proposal professionals are better than proposal heroes

Two days before the proposal is due, just as final production is about to begin, the proposal hero looks at the document and is aghast. “It’s all wrong!” he declares. Pandemonium ensues. Papers fly. And the re-writing begins. For the next 48 hours, nobody sleeps. They are fed pizza intravenously. With no time for further review, they hand things in to final production an hour before it’s due. With less than a minute to go they click the button to submit the proposal. By some miracle, nothing goes wrong and the submission is made. Now the proposal hero leads the celebration of a job well done. It would not have been possible without him. 

Except that it wasn’t a job well done. It was a disaster. There was little or no quality assurance at the end. A submission was made, but nobody really knows what was in it. It was sheer luck that the computers needed to submit didn't go down or some other problem didn't pop up. The proposal “hero” is really a villain in disguise. The only triumph that day was the “hero’s” ego.

But didn't the proposal “hero” fix the proposal? No. The proposal had passed its quality assurance reviews. If the reviewers did not do their job, the proposal “hero” did not fix the review process. Did the proposal hero participate in the review? If not, then why? If the proposal hero did participate in the review, then it's the proposal hero who didn't do his job. And most importantly of all by far, what did the proposal "hero" do to improve the outcomes for future proposals?

But didn't the proposal hero make it "better?" What do you mean by “better?” How do you define proposal quality? If you’ve defined it, then that becomes the standard by which you measure change recommendations. If you haven’t defined it, that’s the real problem. 

The proposal hero wants you to believe that the very real submission risk they introduced was worth it for the "improvements" made. But why weren't those "improvements" baked in all the way back at the beginning during proposal content planning? The proposal hero's failure is waiting until after the reviews to suggest improvements, requiring high-risk surgery to fix the patient instead of medicine taken much earlier.

The proposal "hero" is operating at the maturity level of a college kid procrastinating instead of studying, pulling an all-nighter, and then glorifying in confirmation bias that their way is the best way simply because they passed. And you may take maturity both in the sense of personal maturity and in the sense of process maturity. But it's the lack of process maturity that is the bigger problem when it comes to proposals.

Here are some better questions to ask…

Why didn’t the proposal “hero” write the proposal that way to begin with? Oh, that’s right. The proposal "hero" was too “busy” to get involved with something as unimportant as a proposal. The proposal "hero" couldn’t be bothered with all that planning and reviewing. And yet, the proposal "hero" had plenty of time to cause a disaster at the end of the proposal. 

Why wasn’t the proposal “hero” on the review team? If the proposal hero has such great insight and knowledge, why did he wait until after the review to make changes? There is a reason why one review is worse than none. There should be a series of reviews that validate proposal quality in steps. If someone’s opinion is vital, then it’s vital they participate along the way. 

Why didn’t the proposal “hero” engage earlier? It’s not like it was easier to wait and redo it. It’s not like skipping quality assurance leads to a more reliable result. It’s not like it cost less or took less time. If it matters enough to cause rework, it matters enough to get the work right on the first draft or fix it in the first review. In fact, it matters more to get it right early, because then it can be improved instead of being submitted as a rush job at the tail end.

Since when is the best way to do things to jump in without a plan, rely on one person’s judgment, rush things, skip quality assurance, and ship at the last minute? Since when does that make someone a hero?

If your organization has done this more than once, the proposal process is not your problem. Look inward, because doing this more than once is a sign of an organizational culture problem that has taken hold like an infection and is sucking the life out of your win rate.

And here is what a real proposal hero looks like…

It’s really hard to avoid the temptation to just start writing, but a real proposal hero starts by putting together a content plan for the proposal. It defines quality as well as what the proposal should focus on. The proposal hero holds a review and stresses how important it is to make sure the outline, plan, and quality criteria are correct before they start writing. The other proposal heroes on the team pay attention and actively engage. They pick apart the plan. They disagree. They work it out. They rebuild the plan. They figure out what the proposal needs to be and get everyone on the same page.

Then the team of proposal hero writers go and write the proposal quickly and accountably based on the plan. Once. They hold another review for the draft. The proposal review heroes find that the team already addressed the strategy issues, confirm them anyway, and then turn their focus to how to improve the presentation and messaging. The team of proposal hero writers makes the changes and hands in a document, that has been validated to reflect what the company thinks reflects what it will take to win, in for final production. The proposal hero production team takes their time to make sure everything is perfect. Then they submit it. They all wait for the win, and then they celebrate.

I’ll take proposal professionals over proposal “heroes” any day. 

Give me a team of professionals and we'll consistently beat companies that depend on a hero to "save" their proposals.