Competitive analysis is your measuring stick against the rest of the world. To use a boxing analogy: your form may look impressive when you are boxing a punching bag, but it cannot hit you back. There are also no surprises and no unknowns. Ultimately, to see what you are made of, you have to beRead… Read more »
Graphics focus boxes, paragraph order, structure, text layout, and flawless spelling and grammar are all the necessary attributes of a great proposal. After spending years in proposal management, however, I have noticed that one important attribute, readability, is often overlooked. Since editors frequently refrain from making in-depth content edits, it is the technical writers’ taskRead… Read more »
Before the article… (A couple of announcements you might find useful) Workshop in 1.5 weeks: Foundations of Federal Business Development. September 11, 2012, 9.00am-5:00pm, Rockville, MD. Gain understanding of the Federal Business Development (BD) lifecycle, and learn how to navigate the U.S. Government marketplace, perform strategic BD planning, market analysis, federal marketing, pipeline development, opportunityRead… Read more »
Foundations of Capture Management workshop on September 25-26 Foundations of Capture Management workshop will arm you with real knowledge and tools you can apply immediately to capturing contracts. You will master techniques for customer engagement, intelligence gathering, win strategy development, competitive analysis, teaming, solution development, and more. This is an interactive 2-day workshop that isRead… Read more »
My 7-year-old daughter, when working on a puzzle, knows to glance at the whole picture first, before starting to assemble the pieces. So, her process is to study the picture, and then find a corner piece to which she then starts adding pieces. We, as adults, sometimes forget to take a step back and lookRead… Read more »
Many of our clients shared with us their frustration with their current state of business development (BD). They either weren’t growing fast enough because they weren’t bidding on enough projects that were in their sweet spot, or they had wasted money going after poorly qualified opportunities that they had no chance of winning. All ofRead… Read more »
What separates outstanding proposal managers from mediocre ones is the ability to lead their teams in developing winning content on top of running a smooth process. No matter how compliant and attractive the document may be, most often it is the substance that will distinguish a winning proposal from the rest. Many proposal managers relyRead… Read more »
Win themes have three main functions in a pursuit: 1. In the capture phase, win themes are a first step in defining win strategy (and not the other way around). They help create customer messages to position the company; identify competitive advantages; and document the real reasons the company will win. 2. During the proposal,Read… Read more »
Consultants often get the blame for high proposal costs because their fees are an obvious big-ticket item. Many business developers tell me, however, that when they tally up the proposal costs at the end of the proposal effort, it is not the consultants that blow the budget. Surprisingly, it’s the in-house employee costs that takeRead… Read more »
As a proposal manager getting a proposal plan approved, I always found it difficult to get my management to approve a budget that was based on 40-hour weeks for employees and 50, 60, or even 70-hour weeks for consultants. It just didn’t look good: a consultant often cost more per hour than an employee, andRead… Read more »