Posted by Jon

Friends asking casually how I'm doing - perhaps wondering why I've been somewhat incommunicado -  are used to hearing that life's been crazily busy. But even by my standards, the past month's been ridiculous. My longest spell at home between trips in the past five weeks - weekends included - has been 28 hours. 
 
There's been some non-work stuff. Wonderfully, yet slightly bizarrely, I conducted the wedding ceremony for two dear friends - after they'd done the legal niceties a couple of days before. Other highlights: Richard III in Leicester cathedral, where said king is buried; discovering the wonderful Suffolk town of Southwold, and enjoying some amazing Hungarian wine.
 
But mostly, what's kept me busy has been running 15 courses in a month, for a total of 253 staff - including salespeople, bid / proposal specialists, subject matter experts and senior executives. And each event has been different, with client-specific agendas and case studies. I've presented on numerous different topics: three variants of our award-winning masterclass, for different companies. Sessions on executive summaries and qualification, and a "practical writing skills workshop". An intensive "winning proposals and pitches" event for a global sales team's annual kick-off, at Leeds Business School. A rather lovely new course on "Leading Winning Proposal Teams in a Virtual Environment" (updating some of our existing content to reflect the latest thinking and research). All of this alongside three APMP certification workshops around the UK.
 
I'm exhausted just writing the list. But I'm exhilarated, too - because for those courses on which feedback forms were completed - according to the client's preferences - the average scores have been (in order) 98%, 99%, 93%, 94%, 98%, 95%, 100%, 95%, 96% and 96%. We also had a 100% pass rate for the candidates on the APMP Foundation courses. It’s been a whirlwind month, but amazing to think I’ve inspired so many people to think differently about proposals – and that they’ve rated the events so highly.
 
I'm slightly concerned, though, that so much training has taken me away for a few weeks from working on live deals and running projects to help clients to improve their proposal processes. And our training only works so well because it's not delivered in a vacuum: it's not a theoretical approach but one grounded in our day-to-day experiences of helping teams to win.
 
So although there's a fair amount of course delivery booked into my diary for the rest of the year - as well as the opening keynote at the biggest bid/proposal conference of 2017 in the Asia Pacific region - I'm itching to get my sleeves rolled up. Talking about it and inspiring people is so rewarding. But doing gives me just as much of a kick as discussing.
 
And, in the meantime, I’m taking a few days off to recover – and to spend some time with my wife, son and cats!

 Posted by Jon

I posted here a few days back about Strategic Proposals' latest survey - soliciting bidders' views of buyers. (Have you contributed yet? We've had several hundred responses. It'll only take three minutes via this link. Thanks!)

In writing that post, it struck me that we haven't really spent much time here on The Proposal Guys discussing our other key online tool. We launched the Proposal Benchmarker back in March, seeking to share much of our long-standing benchmarking methodology free, online, with any teams wanting to assess and improve their bid and proposal capabilities.

You can access it here: www.proposalbenchmarker.com . The tool's pretty self-explanatory, although there's a rather neat little video starring our colleague Graham Ablett if you want a little guidance - in itself, a good example of some of the work of our UK design team!

A shade under 100 questions. Making you think honestly about how you fare against best practice and against your peers in the world of winning work. Generating not only a tailored report that you can use internally to celebrate your achievements and seek buy-in for any necessary changes - but also lots of data that we'll use later in the year for a 'state of the nation' report into bid and proposal management.

We're really proud of it - and happen to think there's nothing else like it available in our profession, never mind as a free resource. And we've had wonderful feedback so far from the many people who've completed it. You can do it individually, or it makes a great centrepiece for a team meeting in which you fill it in together.

We'd love to see how you fare. And we hope you'll enjoy completing the questions and seeing the results.

Posted by Jon

It was great to see the list of winners of APMP's "40 under 40" awards this week - recognising some of the most talented younger people in our profession (and making me feel old in the process!). Particularly, I was delighted that our very own Kim Panesar - graphic design manager for Strategic Proposals in the UK - made the list. Much deserved!
 
So too did other friends, including several people I've had the pleasure of training and supporting over the years. And it made me stop and think about the two most powerful coaching interventions I had in the early days of my own career.
 
The first came from a negotiation guru, back in my procurement days at Barclays Bank. All of the buyers were tasked with preparing a half hour presentation about an upcoming negotiation with a vendor. Mine was packed with the latest and best industry research. I looked at the detail of the current contract. I analysed spend and usage patterns. I reviewed the supplier's performance. I compared their current pricing to external benchmarking data and to deals with other vendors selling into the bank. There were tables, graphs, numbers galore.
 
I presented. I sat down, happily. And was asked: "What football team does their account manager support?"
 
To which I confessed: "I have no idea. And, what's more, I have no idea why you asked."
 
That led to a wonderful discussion about the importance of emotion as well as logic in influencing - and the role of relationships and trust in the buying and selling process. They're messages that have stayed with me throughout my time in bids and proposals.
 
A week later, the expert was back on site, coaching some of my colleagues. I slipped an envelope underneath the door of the room he was using. Inside: a plain piece of paper, on which was written simply: 'Wycombe Wanderers'!
 
The other game-changer came a couple of years later. I'd just moved from procurement to proposals, appointed to the management team of one of my erstwhile suppliers to "stop us losing large bids". I arrived on day one, confident and raring to go.
 
My new boss - the business unit director - greeted me, and apologetically observed: "I'm afraid we don't have a desk for you yet. I suggest you go and camp out in the hot desk area on the sales floor for a couple of weeks.'
 
Deflated, I headed upstairs to sulk. And proceeded to learn more in the next fortnight of what makes salespeople tick than I could ever have imagined.
 
It was only a few years later that I realised what he'd done. "Of course we had a desk," he laughed. "But it was the cheapest and best sales training I could think of for someone who'd just swapped sides from procurement."
 
Two questions, then:
- who do you turn to for ideas and inspiration, and to use as a sounding board?
- have you ever spent a week sitting in your procurement department - never mind sales - observing what buyers are really like?

Posted by BJ
As some of our readers will be aware, I am a Certified Professional ski instructor and I teach skiing on the weekends.
​
My specialty is teaching “never evers”, those who have not skied before. The lesson for these individuals starts with the basics. They learn how to walk around in ski boots, they then use one ski and walk around on a flat area, then put on two skis and again walk around on a flat area. Still on the flat area, they are introduced to the various positions used to for stopping and turning. They even practice falling sown and getting up (a lot more difficult than you non-skiers might think.) Once they are reasonably comfortable on snow that is flat, they then go to an area where the snow has a very gentle slope.

Posted by Jon
Presenting to a group the other day about proposal strategy, I posed a challenge to the team. “Take a pen and paper,” I requested, “and write down the three or four key themes from your last proposal.”

I stopped them about thirty seconds in. One or two had immediately written their lists. The rest were floundering: looking to the heavens for inspiration, scribbling the odd note, but clearly unable to spontaneously recall the story that they’d embedded in the most recent document they’d produced.
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Would you pass the test? And if not, isn’t it time you for you to shine a brighter spotlight onto the need to develop a clear and compelling strategy in your proposal process?

Posted by BJ
Many of our readers will be familiar with my dog Jack, as I’ve talked about him in many posts previously. Jack has also co-presented with me at both the Noreasters annual Symposium and at the annual APMP International Bid & Proposal Con.*

As those of you who have read about or met Jack will know, he is very well behaved and responds to a great many commands. This is due to the training he and I have done together as well as our attending many training classes (Jack has passed the American Kennel Club “Canine Good Citizen” test, a standardized test of temperament, behavior and socialization).

Posted by BJ
Many of our readers have attended a training course (or courses) that Jon or I presented. Those who have attended one of our workshops may recall that we usually ask participants to share what they have learned during the session.

We typically hear such things as, “I now understand the roles and responsibilities of the various individuals involved and why it is critical that we all understand and respect our respective roles and responsibilities.” Or “I have a much greater appreciation for the importance of an Executive summary and the role it plays in influencing the person review my proposal.”

On a recent workshop, when I asked if someone had a significant learning that they wished to share, a young man excitedly raised his hand and waved it to get my attention. I asked him to share what he had learned he said, “The coolest thing. I found out that you don’t have to drag the cursor over a word or sentence to highlight it, you can just click on it and it automatically highlights the word or sentence. That is SO much easier and it’s going to save me tons of time.”

Just goes to show that there are a great many levels of expertise with the tools we all rely upon on a daily basis (and varying levels as to what will get any one person excited.)​

Posted by Jon
​A fascinating example recently of the need to cut one’s losses and walk away from a deal, even after being selected as the preferred supplier.

The client in question wanted us to run a series of training courses in a far-flung land. Pricing was agreed, terms and conditions discussed, dates provisionally scheduled in diaries. And then… And then: just a few ‘minor’ tweaks to the Ts and Cs were proposed by our client contact. A few highlights might raise your eyebrows as much as they caused us to raise ours.

We’d obviously be happy to provide them with electronic copies of all our materials, and grant them unlimited permission to reproduce and reuse these at no cost. Those travel expenses they’d offered, all along, to pay? Actually, we’d need to cover them after all.

Posted by BJ
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I suppose I should have been quite flattered to be in the audience when someone used one of my exercises at a conference at which I was presenting. I wasn’t.

One of the exercises I’ve used for many years is “Stand Up If”. This exercise is one I learned from Izzy Gesell, author of Playing Along*, and adapted with his permission. When Jon or I use this game, we give credit to Izzy.

I suspect many of our readers will be familiar with this exercise, wherein statements are made and participants are asked to stand up if the statement is true for them. The individuals then remain standing till the next statement is read. If it is also true for them, they remain standing, if it is not, they sit down. This causes an up and down movement in the room that creates great energy. This is typically used for introduction purposes in workshops or presentation and Jon and I have delivered this many times at APMP events and used it to kick-off workshops we’ve presented.

Posted by Jon
Early on when running a proposal, I ask members of the team to visualise success. If they all have a clear and consistent picture in mind of “what good would look like”, then the chances of them “doing good stuff” will be that much higher. The process should be less painful, too, as they work with a common goal to which they’ve each committed.

One team I worked with recently was struggling to get their minds in gear on this topic. We’d tried the usual tricks: we’d brainstormed, we’d used post-its, we’d visualised the evaluators reading the document, we’d drawn pictures – but to no avail: nothing really clicked.

So I tried an alternative approach the following morning. I copied the back covers of a selection of paperback books – novels and non-fiction. I asked the team to look through them and study their composition. A headline to catch the eye, a plot synopsis, an author profile and a few gushing quotes seemed to be the common features.

And then I invited the team to write their own perfect back cover for the proposal they were about to write. And it worked like a dream!

Yet I was minded to push the concept a step further. Most evaluation teams will produce some form of internal briefing note about each bidder’s proposal. That summary, it struck me, is broadly akin to a book review.

So, what if we asked proposal contributors to write a ‘review’ of the ‘book’ they’re about to produce – specifically, the review they’d hope would be written by the customer’s chief evaluator? That’d make them think about structure, style  and story of the proposal they were about to develop – and might well unlock some fascinating insights.​