Proposal Land

Better RFP Responses & Management
 
Proposal Land

Run in Circles?

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He’s OK now, but in late April my husband had a cardiac arrest at home. The reason that sentence doesn’t say “my late husband” is solely because of the astoundingly quick and effective response of one police officer and the team (more police! paramedics! supervisors!) that followed him a few minutes later.

That has led me to think more about emergency response and my limited capacity therefor in the last two months than I did all together in the previous 73 years. Not smart (the lack of earlier thinking, I mean, not what I’m doing now). From personal failings we now move to corporate ones. Organizations, after all, are full of people.

Of course most businesses have on-site first-aid kits (some, tidily stashed on a shelf where you need a ladder to get at it); many/most public buildings these days have AEDs. (Do you know where they are in the places *you* frequent?) Many/most businesses also have some sort of contingency plans. I know because I’ve edited them: lists of actions to be taken in both fast-moving and slow-moving disasters. Floods, power outages, pandemics, attacks by armed brigands. OK, that last one maybe depends on where you live and do business.

But do many/most businesses have contingency plans for what they’ll do when a customer complains? When a hundred do? On the same day? When a production line goes down and orders are going to be late? When a major supplier of essential goods or parts is attacked by armed brigands? When a big electrical storm hits a site where they deliver services to customer personnel?

Seth addresses this question today: And when it breaks? It’s definitely worth the 30 seconds it will take to read. It’s worth the hours it will take to figure out your answer, and the days/weeks/months to put your answer into action.

When you’re not smack dab in the middle of an emergency, spend some of your time getting ready for one. What will you do when it breaks?

What does this have to do with proposals? Just this: Clients ask about your contingency plans, sometimes. You should tell them about your contingency plans, always. And, boy, is that ever easier when you actually have some.

 

Pick One: Leverage or Panic

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Read Seth today.

Waiting for trouble
means that you’re going to spend your days dealing with trouble.

That is all. (That is me, channeling the PA announcements in MASH, the movie.)

OK, not quite all. I knew a manager like this once: a person who let a project get to crisis mode before intervening. Hi, ho, to the rescue!

I’ve known processes like this, often.

We can do better. Truly.

 

YES

 

The “YES” was me. The question was someone else.

Do we have to tell the truth?

The all-caps of that YES in print captures my tone. Back in the day, it didn’t seem like a question that should have to be asked in a business meeting on the strategy for a proposal. It still doesn’t. But some folks think all marketing communications is lying.

Just in case I hadn’t been clear, I went on.

Two reasons.
First, it’s not good to lie.
Second, they won’t be fooled.

And, indeed, customers–whether the corporate and government behemoths we were selling to, or the individuals that many companies are selling to–will not be fooled. That is, we might get away with it once, but we cannot lie our way to enduring success.

So think about the messages you might want to hear and know you could rely on.

Do we make mistakes?
We do.
And when it happens.
we work hard to make it right.
Here are three stories about that . . .

Or maybe this.

Do we offer the highest-quality widget
that you can buy?
No.
But we think it’s the best value
for these five reasons . . .

And so on.

And if your customers can’t handle the truth, then find new customers. I know, I know: easy to say, hard to do. But it’s nowhere near as hard as getting into a downward spiral with your customers. Proposals are not a con game, and we are not con artists.

Continue reading“YES”

War Is Hell; Proposals Shouldn’t Be

 

But the new brigades [comprised of novices] are dysfunctional—with uneven leadership, missing equipment and entire battalions of undertrained, ambivalently led new recruits who have a bad habit of abandoning their brigade at the first opportunity. – Forbes

Undertrained, ambivalently led, prone to going AWOL. Sounds good, eh? Not.

You can read the whole piece, here, about how Ukrainian politicians are a lot like politicians everywhere: going for the showy gesture over the prudent/proven approach. (The bit about executives overriding field commanders is also not new: think President Johnson’s micro-management of the Vietnam War.)

Here’s another lesson from the real world for executives or proposal managers who are assembling proposal teams: A team of newbies is a disaster waiting to happen, and not likely waiting very long. What to do instead? This:

  • Nurture newbies by assigning them to work at least under experienced managers; preferably, with established teams who can provide good mentors.
  • Increase your corporate capacity by adding at least one newbie to every team, thereby embedding proposal expertise in more people. Do this independent of workload – this is a training activity, not a production one.

Going When It’s Time to Go

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Seth wrote about orchestras today.

. . . if the performers wait for a leader in their section to go first,
every entrance and every attack will be muddled.
You need to go when it’s time to go,
not wait to follow closely behind.

I wrote about them a while back. They really do have lessons for proposal teams (as do most areas of joint human endeavour).

P.S. Just remember that the individual members of the orchestra and the proposal team aren’t deciding the timing on their own: They both look to the person serving as the conductor. Well, that’s the way it’s designed to work.