Proposal Land

Better RFP Responses & Management
 
Proposal Land

Better Clients

Better clients challenge you. They support you.
They spread the word. They pay on time.
They pay more and expect more.
Everything else will take care of itself
if you focus on getting better clients.
Seth’s Blog

Better Clients: Getting Some

It’s easy to say and hard to do. I worked as a freelancer in Proposal Land for almost half my career and my highly selective modus operandi was to accept work when it was offered.

Why?  My first concern was always getting enough work. For a long period, I was also unaware of what better looked like. Didn’t it work like this everywhere? Then I was unsure of my ability to get better and still get enough. Maybe unsure of deserving it.

But better clients really *are* a joy forever.

Better clients challenge you. They support you.
They spread the word. They pay on time.
They pay more and expect more.

Even one of those traits would be worth selecting for; the truth seems to be that they often travel together.  I’ll add one more.

Better clients make it easy to do your best work.

And who doesn’t get up in the morning wanting to do that?

Better Clients: Being One

The flip side of all this is the companies that hire Proposal Land freelancers. Maintaining specialized proposal resources in-house just doesn’t make sense if there are long gaps between bids, but hiring them is not like buying a widget. You can’t just pick one off the shelf at random and slot them into a gap. Well, you can, but you can get better help by being a better client.

Challenge them. Support them.
Spread the word. Pay on time.
Pay more and expect more.

 

Term: Proponent

Company submitting a bid; used extensively in DB/DBFM contracting.

To be distinguished from “successful proponent,” which is the winner. This distinction can clarify whether work noted in the draft contract (for example, submission of a plan) is part of the response requirement (and, therefore, to be submitted with the proposal), or part of the SOW (and, therefore, to be submitted after contract award).

And no, response instructions should not be in the draft contract, but have been observed there, nonetheless. Sigh.

Two Things

To do great and important tasks,
two things are necessary:
a plan and not quite enough time.
Wish I’d Said That, John Robson Online

Hahaha, eh? Every proposal team knows about the “not quite enough time” part. Not every team seems to know about the “plan” part.

Sorry. Had to do it.

Yes, in addition to not-quite-enough time, you also need da plan. Something like this:

  • Scope the work of responding to the RFP.
  • Schedule the work.
  • Assign resources.
  • Assign more resources, including technically conversant people who can supervise/support the work of others but not do any writing themselves. (This step is often missed).
  • Reduce the work by simplifying/standardizing the response before anyone starts writing. (This step is almost always missed.)
  • Go forth and do great and important tasks without damaging any staff.

 

A Man Walks Into a Bar – Riff #3

An Oxford comma walks into a bar,
where it spends the evening
watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.

OK, grammar posts are bad enough, but punctuation? Come on.

Wait just a minute. Punctuation has a purpose: It helps the reader understand what the sentence means. The first time through, dagnab it.

In a proposal context, I’d say that’s it: Anything more than that is misplaced effort. That means any strongly held editorial opinions about colons versus dashes, and semi-colons versus periods should be left at the door. Of course there are legitimate distinctions in the use of these marks, but this is a speed-and-feed environment: We’re not writing literature for the ages. Or punctuating it.

So what’s with the joke? Well, although it purports to be an example of confusion caused by the lack of an Oxford comma, it isn’t really.

The Oxford comma (or serial comma)
is a comma placed between the last two items
in a series of three or more.
The Write Life

The trouble with this sentence starts earlier, and every editor I know would and should add a comma between “watching television” and “getting drunk” to make it clear who was imbibing to excess.

An Oxford comma walks into a bar,
where it spends the evening
watching the television, getting drunk and smoking cigars.

Good? Well, better. Oxford-comma adherents would also do this:

An Oxford comma walks into a bar,
where it spends the evening
watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

Does that make it easier to read quickly? I think so, although maybe just by a hair. If you think so, then add that final comma. Pretty simple, eh?

But.

During planning sessions, I’ve had partner company managers ask intently whether we’re using the Oxford comma and tell me that it’s essential we use it consistently, by which they mean “always” or “never.”

Thppt. In my own writing I use it when, IMHO, it’s needed for clarity, and I don’t bother when it’s not. I use it when I want to signal the reader that another element of a list is coming: when someone might read the last two items as one. I also use it when the elements of said list are a bit, ahem, wordy, and I don’t have time to shorten them.

Here, yes:

Our procurement system uses competitive principles in the bidding process, accessible information sources, transparency in the evaluation of bids, and clear documentation at all stages.

Here, meh:

Our procurement system will deliver grommets, gudgeons, grapples and gribbles.

But.

In a proposal, consistency is part of professional presentation: consistency in colour palette, terminology, writing style and, yes, punctuation. If your executives or reviewers believe in always/never consistency, then you’re pretty much stuck with the Oxford comma everywhere, because never using it is not an option.

Proposal writing tip

Sorry about that.

If you really hate the Oxford comma or resent spending time adding them to someone’s text, consider replacing lists of three or more items with bullets. That takes time, too, but makes list elements even more obvious, and text faster to read/scan.


The afore-referenced writing site cites a case where a contract interpretation turned on the absence of an Oxford comma. Considering that proposals form part of the contract (albeit as the document with the least precedence), clarity matters.

Term: Project

In some industries (including the Canadian military in many instances), “project” refers to the entire body of Work executed under a contract and the contractor’s associated organization and resources. In some industries, however, “project” refers only to small-p projects: time-limited activities to accomplish specific goals (for example, construction or renovation projects, information technology development projects) and executed under a project-management discipline and methodology.

Although the meaning is usually clear from context, the use of “project” to refer to an entire contract’s worth of Work seems to drive small-p project managers crazy. Their objection may stem from the increasingly professionalized understanding of small-p project management, with its formal certifications, training programs, and procedures—much of which seems to have little home in the former type of project.

However, on rare occasions the meaning of “project” in an RFP is not immediately clear from context: People with different assumptions/expectations of standard usage can end up talking at cross-purposes on a proposal team. (Well, arguing, really. Yelling maybe. Not that I’ve ever seen that.) The usual issue is whether reporting and management standards that apply to the whole body of work under the contract also apply to each small-p project. This sort of confusion must be straightened out, soonest, by careful reading of all RFP references to “project” and by a question to the client if necessary.