What makes them tick

11/23/2007

Posted by Jon
Yesterday we posted the frustrations that our panel of proposal professionals from around the world experienced in their roles. Today we’ll turn the tables to look on the bright side, since we also asked them to describe the single most rewarding aspect of proposals in their organisations.

Barbara’s response was succinct: “Winning!” I love that: indeed, I’m often heard to comment that I don’t turn up to work in the morning because I enjoy losing!

David picks a similar theme: “The most rewarding aspect of proposals is the win! Nothing is more motivating that a big win from a proposal you developed…. At the end of the day, winning is all that matters – unlike my daughter’s school who believe that ‘trying hard’ is most important!)”. (Reminds me of the feedback at my own son Benedict’s first-ever school parents’ evening, that he was ‘very competitive’. Yes, and…?)

Robin picks not only “wins”, but also “win bonuses”!:

A couple years ago I got my senior leaders to agree to bonuses on RFPs that turned into contracts. This is great extra incentive to the writers. I am also empowered by my organization to give individual awards at whim and even grant up to 10% of an employees’ salary in company stock. There’s also comp time, flex time and work from home options that are very rewarding.

The culture of the organization is also key to employee satisfaction. The company is full of people that want to do their best work and the company tends to hire qualified people that fit the culture. This helps to minimize the frustration of getting subject matter expert cooperation or co-worker support.

We are also encouraged and compensated for continuing education and advancing our skills (i.e. APMP membership, conferences, courses). And we have fun! We work hard and we play hard. People ask me all the time if I have any openings in my department because we know how to have fun.I have to remind them that they also have to work their butts off, but they’ll have fun doing it. It all goes hand-in-hand with work/life balance.I want people to be passionate
about their work and happy to be here.

I often describe the proposal team as being in the game of job creation. After all, the proposal is a critical part of winning the deal, and winning business not only helps to secure the futures of existing staff, but also potentially creates vacancies for new roles to deliver to new customers. Along similar lines, Lesa views the most rewarding aspect as being:

…knowing how much we contribute to the company’s bottom line is very rewarding from a team perspective. In 2006, RFP wins represented $100 million in new or retained revenue for our company (total annual revenue for our company is about $2 billion).

From a manager’s perspective, I find it very rewarding to watch the growth and development of the proposal specialists on my team as they move from being tactical to strategic (e.g., go from writing “compliant” proposals to crafting “compelling” proposals that really get the big picture and hone in on each client’s specific needs).

Jeff picks out another of the things that gives me a buzz from working in the world of proposals:

“Every proposal we get is like solving a mystery or a puzzle: Who is this company; how is our relationship with them; what are their real issues; how can we win the work; where can we get the information that needs to go into it? Solving the mystery, along with working with teams of lawyers and marketers to solve real client issues, are the most rewarding parts of proposals in my organization.”

Lisa feels extremely fortunate to -

be part of an organization that is paying close attention to the proposal process these days, which includes paying attention to the people who create proposals and the people we work with. Many improvements have been put in place lately that enable us to better perform our jobs, and the improvements keep piling up.
Our manager is very keen to the idea of the critical interrelationships between our team and the sales team, as well as others throughout our area of the business, and recent initiatives have included a push for higher quality information from salespeople before a proposal is written, as well as a more formal definition of the bid/no-bid process.

The last word goes to Roisin again:

In the early hours of the morning, as you stand there in your crumpled suit, hair standing on end like some form of deviant, nothing looks as pretty as a glossy document, bound, packed, and glistening with the excellence bursting from within. Or perhaps it’s a mirage, a hallucination. After all, you’ve been there for the last twenty hours. Or maybe it’s thirty. You lost count after breaking into the cold pizza.

But when it’s reverently handed to the courier, with admonishments of ‘Be careful with it now, its very important’ and you sign that little slip, there is a deep sense of satisfaction and pride as you watch it begin its journey to the client, like watching your first born head off for their first day at school. And it feels good. You did it – you negotiated, you yelled, and sometimes you begged, but you made it!

Thanks again to the Panel for such thought-provoking and entertaining contributions. Their next challenge will be coming their way very shortly – and do feel free to comment with your own suggestions for topics you’d like them to debate.

4 Comments

Barbara Esmedina

3/26/2016 04:37:43 am

Wow. I want to work for Robin!

Richard Worsham

3/26/2016 04:37:55 am

After 25 years or more of proposal writting I surly agree that ‘winning’ is important – it may be your next job! However, for the proposal writer who makes a living at this rather unique profession you cannot survive on winning alone. If winning is the only thing, or the most important thing, then you may be subject to periods of sever depression that then affect your next proposal effort. The corporate mantra we hear often is that this is a ‘must win”! I would say that they are all must wins – as the writer of the article said – we are not doing this to lose. However, my daily challenge that I put to myself and those working with and for me in ‘Proposaland’ is let’s do the best we possibly can to write a ‘winning’ proposal. Let’s develop the best strategy, the most gripping graphics, understand every nuance of L & M, and make sure we develop a reviewer friendly, anwers the mail above and beyond proposal. Then, winning happens!!!
Why do I say this? Becasue I have written hundred of proposals and have gone through the same hundred or so source selections – which by definition, is a subjective process. Meaning that the outcome is subject to the whims and opininions of the evaluators – and finally the SSA. You can write the ‘best’ proposal and lose. You say that is impossible – no, it can happen and does. Why, because business development and proposal writing is as much an art as it is science. I don’t want to go against conventional proposal wisdom but I have ‘thrown them over the fence’ (it was still a good proposal but did not go through all of the ‘professional’ proposal hoops) and won – and I’ve worked on teams of a cast of thousands (20 and 30’s anyway) where we crossed every ‘t’ and dotted all the proposal process ‘i’s’ – and we lost.
So, I’ve said all of that to say if you base your professional performance and capabilities on just ‘winning’ – then you may be in for a roller coaster ride in “Proposaland’. You can only do the best you can – and that is for the truly professional proposal writer often a monumental effort of non-stop work for 20 or 30 or more days at 10-16 hours a day – so I’m not talking about slacking. And, winning has multiple factors over which you may not even have control. For instance, the government may be leading you along becasue they need a competitive field. Or, you may be the technical volume manager and have no control over the cost volume – or vice versaa. Then, even if you have written the winning technical and management volume and the cost is wayyyy to high, you lose. When applying for proposal work I have often been asked (I would say by people who don’t understand proposal and BD) – ‘What is your win rate?’ In fact, many of the larger consulting firms advertise based on win rates. My response is, OK, if you give me complete control over the entire proposal, including costs, and the ability to change your cost structure to match this oppportunity, and other less than postive management or techncial aspects of your company, I will still write the best proposal possible – but I can’t guarantee a win – but I could do much better. You know, I have’nt found a company that is willing to do this yet.
There are too many factors invovled in ‘winning’ to stake your life and professional reputation and emotional health on ‘winning’ alone. Do the best job you possibly can and never stop making the proposal and the part you are responsible for better until it is out the door. Then you will know that you have done your part and the best job possible. For the professional proposal writer, winning is a bonus – not the ultimate goal.

Jon

3/26/2016 04:38:05 am

Hi Richard

Thanks for such a detailed and fascinating comment. I think we’re probably in absolute agreement with one another: you’ll find lots of past posts on this blog discussing the proposal professionals’ impact on the “win”. I do still agree, mind, with those on the panel who reckon there’s nothing quite like the high of winning a bid.

The best even a great proposal can do is to put your organisation in pole position to win a deal as part of an effective overall campaign. We’re incredibly dependant on the raw materials we’re given to work with (including the solution and price), and on sales skills, such as sniffing out the right opportunities, building the right relationships, understanding the real customer landscape, conditioning the buyer, presenting and negotiating.

BJ and I are doing some fascinating work oh this very area at the moment, and we’ll share this here on the blog in due course. We both certainly hold the assertion that “proposal management is both and art and a science”, as stated in APMP mission statement, close to our hearts.

Barbara Esmedina

3/26/2016 04:38:17 am

Allow me to elaborate on what I find satisfying about winning. I have had the opportunity twice in my long career of working for companies that “get it” as BJ would say. Companies that really want to win and know what it takes, (which really starts at the very top). We had ample budget, resources, and time (although we still chased the FedEx plane down the runway). We plotted and planned, crafted and polished. Nothing is more satisfying than throwing everything you have into a project that is top priority for everyone involved. It is knowing you won because you completely blew away the competition with your effort. Winning is far less satisfying when your effort is only a small part of a fragmented process.

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