And unfortunately there really is no magic lamp you can rub to make your proposal suddenly appear neatly bound on your desk.

Typically the bid manager leads the proposal preparation, review and delivery. Often this person is usually the project manager. And it’s vital that the bid manager is involved right from the beginning of the proposal process.

Once most of the clarifying questions have been completely answered the bid manager calls the proposal team together and goes through the Request for Information(RFI), or Invitation To Tender (ITT) and agrees:

• who will write answers for which which section
• who provides details of the solution
• what further materials are required and who is responsible for getting them
• the deadline for submission of all materials
• the review date for the proposal draft

Mid Size Software Consultancy Proposal

Taking as our example a medium consultancy the bid manager might expect something like the following to be produced:

• The prospective project manager – produces project plans, risk register and change control strategy
• The application development managers for each application provide software background and answers to specific questions in the RFI or ITT
• The application development managers also provide expected costs for software changes, implementation and ongoing maintenance
• The accountant provide annual accounts over 1,2 or 3 years (depending on whether they’re requested)
• Sales staff write the proposal summary with the bid manager
• Sales staff to provide marketing collateral to support the proposal
• Experts in the conversion of existing data provide details of conversion, what is covered and, crucially, what is not covered
• Planned hardware provider provides upfront and maintenance costs and availability dates for hardware
• Technical architect to provide overview of solution
• Optionally proposal team to create a presentation for delivering the solution

Small Company Proposals

Small companies still need to provide the same information that a medium sized company does. The only difference is that there’s likely to be, at most, two people getting materials together and writing the proposal.

Any smaller company that intends writing a number of proposals would be best advised to ensure that they get together material and put it in one place so that proposals can be written more easily.

Delivering The Solution

Finally, once the proposal has been written it must be reviewed.  The solution must be carefully checked for feasibility and cost. In addition it’s important to ensure that the solution is “good enough.” Sometimes software can be developed that actually does much more than the client wants or needs. That is a complete waste of time and money for both parties.

Look once more at the RFI, or ITT and check what method of delivery is required. Do they ask for 3 bound copies? Maybe they want the document emailed or sent on a USB stick? What ever method make sure that you provide the proposal in that form.

And lastly, during the whole process, make sure you keep backups as you alter each part of the proposal.

Next time I’ll talk about who should deliver the proposal and when it needs to be delivered.

Table of contents for Better Proposal Writing

1. 10 Questions To Create A Great Proposal
2. Proposal Teams – Who’s In Them?

10 key questions for producing a great proposal were listed in my previous article, (10 Questions To Create A Great Proposal).

Now we can look at the questions “Who’s Involved?” and “What Do They Want?”

Who’s Involved?

You may find it tempting to simply allocate the responsibility for producing a proposal to one person.

And that’s OK, provided the proposal will affect only one area of your company, ever. And the person managing the creation of the proposal understands that particular area as well as the people working in it.

Normally a proposal tends to require involvement from a number of different areas in a company.

Mid Sized Consultancy Example

Let’s take an example. Say you’re a computer consultancy responding to a tender request for the provision of a new set of Financial Back Office applications, including sales, purchase and all financial ledgers.

The people likely to be affected in a mid-sized consultancy organisation could include:

1) The prospective project manager
2) The application development managers for each financial back office application
3) The accountant responsible for project profitability
4) The sales staff responsible for winning the business
5) Experts in the conversion of existing data
6) Representation  from the planned hardware provider (internal or external)
7) Representation from other interested parties to extend the sales possibility of the proposal.
A technical architect
9) The staff who will create the report and the presentation

The reason so many staff are required is that any one of those can affect the production of the proposal document. Proposals tend to be produced in very short timescales. So If any are on holiday during the creation their input would be missed, or the proposal would have to be cancelled.

Again, the application development managers know which products are suitable for the proposal and if a new release is due and when.

The data experts are able to advise on the conversion of existing data and, crucially the complexity and time to create data conversion suites to convert the data from an existing format to the proposed format.

The accountant is there to ensure that the proposal has all the costs included, if any cost is missed it could end up with the consultancy taking a loss on the project.

In a nutshell everyone is there to provide information to ensure the smooth production of a proposal. Often they will need to give further information, or write part of the proposal, and each persons input needs to be dovetailed into an overall timetable.

Responses From A Small Company

What would a small company do to respond?

Obviously they wouldn’t have the number of people I listed previously. However, they would have all the roles I listed. So for example a small software development company could have one application development team leader who is also the data conversion expert and is also the technical architect and defines the required hardware for any project.

The owner might be the person responsible for checking costs are correct and for the sale and for assessing  the potential for further sales and the person who prepares the proposal.

The Right People Are The Right Number To Respond

In the end everyone who needs to be involved to produce a good proposal are the people who should be involved. And this is the “proposal team.”

If they can’t get involved think again about whether to respond to the proposal.

What Do They Want?

Before anything else the whole proposal team must read the proposal and consider if from their own area of expertise and then from any interactions they might need with other areas of the business.

The team should then meet to decide whether the prospect has worded the proposal to slant it towards a specific supplier – yes, it does happen! In which case you need to be very careful as to whether it’s worth replying with a proposal.

Also, if there’s a guide as to the expected price of the project the team need to decide whether it’s feasible to provide a solution at, or near, the price suggested.

Once the team has decided whether it’s worth producing a proposal they should discuss each element of the proposal and note whether any clarifying information is required from the prospect.

The second is to really understand what the prospect is looking for, both in the solution they’re searching for and also whether there is actually something else that is better that the proposal team’s expertise can assist with. This process also tends to throw up questions.

Using Clarifying Questions

Then there are two ways of dealing with clarifying questions. The easiest is for the sales staff and appropriate representatives of the proposal team to visit the prospect and ask them and any others that may crop up from the replies.

Meeting the prospect is almost always the best choice as it allows you to demonstrate interest in the project and to show you’ve considered it thoroughly and to deepen the relationship with the prospect

The other choice is to contact the prospect via fax or email or through a joint supplier meeting or meeting a single representative of the company. None of these is ideal as other companies often find out the questions you’ve asked when they’re documented.

In my next post I’ll write about what we need to produce a proposal and how we can deliver the solution.

Table of contents for Better Proposal Writing

1. 10 Questions To Create A Great Proposal
2. Proposal Teams – Who’s In Them?

The key questions to ask to produce a great proposal are as follows:

1. Where’s It Come From?
2. Are We In?
3. Who’s Involved?
4. What Do They Want?
5. What Do We Need?
6. How Can We Deliver?
7. Who Should Deliver?
8. When Do We Need to deliver
9. What Do We Deliver
10. Where Do We Deliver

Let me explain them a little further…

Where’s It Come From?

Where a Request for Information or Tender comes from is very important. If it comes from a journal such as OJEC in Europe it requires much more effort than if it comes from a current client who is not looking elsewhere for the work to be done and just wants a rundown of what is needed and the costs.

If it’s a response from a previous customer it may be treated differently to a current customer, or to a prospect you’ve been trying to deal with for years.

The source dictates how much resource and effort you need to put into the next 9 questions.

Are We In?

The very first question to ask is whether we actually want to commit our time and resources to answer the request for information (RFI) or reply to a tender. For example,if we lack industry knowledge that makes it impossible for us to deliver there’s no point in putting effort into responding.

Also, will the prospect meet with you if you’ve queries is an important point as there’s usually some questions that are best answered by face to face meetings.

It’s rare that one person in your company is responsible for making the “Are We In?” type of decision, so it’s best to have a meeting of all interested parties to decide. And if the decision is to go ahead the same group of people can answer many of the required questions.

If the decision is not to go ahead all that needs to be done is to document why, so the company can learn from the experience and also write a letter to the prospect thanking them and explaining why you’re not going to go further with the project.

And one thing to remember is that if the company you’re responding to dramatically changes their RFI or Tender request you may want to meet up again to see whether you wish to respond now.

In my next post I’ll write about who needs to be involved in replying to an Request for Information (RFI) or Tender.

Table of contents for Trade Shows And Events

1. How You Make Your Trade Show or Event Successful
2. How You Can Make Or Break Your Event
3. Making The Most Of Seminars, Events and Exhibitions

Help People Interact

There is continued discussion about the use of interaction in meetings to maintain the interest and attention of delegates. Chris Elmitt of Crystal Interactive reviewed the feedback of 4,867 of their delegates and published the results in June 2007 in a report titled “Inside The Mind Of The Delegate.” The results showed that good interaction could massively improve perception of an event, compared to any other aspect of that event.

In his summary Elmitt noted that for “Interactive Excellence” you needed to give interaction significant agenda time and commit to making it work.

The other key point about interaction was that many delegates want to network, to meet like-minded people, to discuss the ideas they hear and to generate new ideas in discussion. Typically events provide minimal networking during the day and most of it is relegated to the evening when delegates are too tired.

To help your attendees make the most of your event offer frequent breaks and mini workshops which help people to get to know others and breakdown barriers to communication. If you’ve allocated people to tables in your venue then ask them to sit at a different table after the break and not with people they’ve already met and that can also help the networking.

Using Workshops

Workshops are a great idea for getting people involved and interacting. However, make sure that whatever you ask them to do is useful and can be achieved in the time you’ve allocated, otherwise you’ll have a bunch of annoyed and frustrated delegates on your hands.

Also make sure that what you ask them to do is clear. Provide a slide with the main points if it’s a big exercise. Alternatively make sure you speak slowly enough for them to take down what you say as notes. Then give them a time limit and some guidance on how they might use that time.

Finally, make sure that you warn them that they have 1 minute or 5 minutes remaining and finish as you planned.

Using Breaks For Networking

Whilst it’s useful to provide breaks for people to network you must help them overcome barriers to meeting people. After all some people are reticent, others are involved with the people they’ve brought or with the new friends they’ve made and others are flitting around like butterflies.

So give people a task for the break. So for example, at the coffee break say that, “you must meet up with at least 3 people you’ve never talked to before and listen to their business and give them one idea to improve it.” Or you could say, “go into the break go and find out one interesting thing about 3 people then come back and I’ll ask ‘x’ of you to share what you’ve found.”

Digital Events

As the Digital Age continues to apparently increase the amount we have to do, the will to travel to a venue lessens.

People can hold video conference calls or even hold meetings in virtual worlds such as “Second Life.” In fact we’re no longer limited to Second Life there are other massive online life experiences you can get into. And in all of them you can hold company meetings or public seminars. The only drawback of course, is whether your audience is on Second Life or its brethren.

Information exchange type meetings can use webinars, where the speaker can show slides and connect with the delegates through the Internet using specialist service providers like WebEx and Microsoft Live Meetings.

And there are so many free teleseminars floating around the Internet that you’d be unable to listen to them all before you died of old age. Teleseminars you put on should be aimed at your prospects and customers or your employees. And any telesminar should be knee-deep in providing an education.

IceRocket tags: events, workshops, networking, second life, Webex. Microsoft Live Meetings, Skype

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How often have we heard that muttered at seminars, workshops and during supplier presentations?

Why don’t people say exactly the same about overhead slides or flipcharts?

Because let’s face it a lot of companies do presentations in the worst possible way.

Am I qualified to know?

Well I’ve sat on both sides of the table. I’ve presented lectures, seminars, workshops and sales presentations.

And I’ve also been on the receiving end of exactly the same from others.

Often people fill their presentations with ‘Me’ messages. They talk about “how their company is number 1”, or how “they’vè increased profits year on year”, or that “the MD was a well known Blue Chip company CEO”.

So what?

Then they go into their product, it’s features, how good it is and what it can be used for.

Again, so what?

They tell you the structure of their company, they give you company accounts, they tell you about great projects they’ve known and loved.

SO WHAT!?

Who cares? Only the people with the egos in that company. The people who are getting it in the neck from the presenters couldn’t care less.

Instead, there is a better way to present:

1. Tell a Story
2. Use bullet points – don’t read from the slides
3. Use “Grab Them By The Balls” headlines
4. Tell them about historic data that relates to their industry and their company

Tune in to the radio station they’re all listening to … WI2FM (What’s In It For Me).

Present to that audience and then it doesn’t matter what you’re using to present your message gets heard. And acted on.