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Carl Dickson

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  1. You may have heard the phrase “winning the battle and losing the war.” Did you know it has relevance in business development? Well, it does when business developers focus only on winning the next contract — winning the battle — and give little consideration to winning many more contracts with the same customer. On the other hand, experienced developers focus on building lasting customer relationships to provide a solid foundation from which they can win both the battles and the war against the competition. Lasting customer relationships allow us to gain insight into and to shape their wants and needs, to mold their expectations, and to influence their requirements. Such relationships permit us to help them understand the benefits, features and advantages of acquiring our solutions and using our capabilities. By interfacing with the customer early and often in the pursuit of business, we can support the customer in building a long-term answer to their needs. Plus, we improve our competitive position along the way by learning more about what they really want and by convincing them that we’re working on their behalf. When building customer relationships, there are three goals to keep in mind: Create your relationship based on trust and dependability. Deal with your customer equitably and ethically. Always deliver what you promise the customer. Become their “Go To” team. Work with them as much as possible. Frequent customer assistance will grow your value to them. Of course, be mindful of any impacts that you might have on their schedules. Continually refine your understanding of their requirements. Integrating and verifying what you can gather about customer wants and needs will cause you to identify both the root causes of their actions and their real needs. Gather what you can about their problems/issues; what they truly value; and what pre-dispositions they might have in how they do their work and what they want to acquire. As you go about achieving your goals, strive to appreciate how the customer views the acquisition process under their management. Here are five ways to gain that appreciation and build relationships: Listen, Listen, Listen. If you’re intent on selling your company, your product or yourself, you may not hear what your customer has to say. If you let them, your customers will tell you how to win against your competition. Make inquiries in an interested/inquisitive way demonstrating that you’re focused on helping them to achieve their objectives and to get what they truly wish to acquire. Take the time to uncover their real “hot buttons”, or the things that keep them awake at night. Not all customer wants and needs become readily apparent early in a relationship. Frequent customer interactions are urged as part of Goal 2 above. During these interactions, always present yourself or your team as well-informed and educated on the topic being discussed. By doing this, you’ll increase the chances that the customer will view you as having placed their needs at the top of your “To Do” list. Extend your customer understanding into several levels of detail. Knowing the details of what steps the customer goes through to make their purchases may have a significant impact on the success of your business pursuit. Understanding who the actual proponents of the proposed program are could make your customer contact efforts efficient and cost-effective. Studying the funding source for the acquisition might allow you to uncover follow-on opportunities or the potential for transitioning a proposed one-year contact into a multi-year procurement. Pursuing good customer relationships will increase your competitive position. We urge you to employ the goals and ways suggested above, and to look at them as starting points. If you achieve these goals and then go beyond them to develop your customer relationships, you will continue to come out on top of the business competitions you enter. Good luck!
  2. Consider these three scenarios: Your project manager says that the customer likes you and that there haven’t been any complaints lately. Your business development manager says you should bid an opportunity because “the contracting officer said we should bid,” and is going to send you the RFP. An executive at your company wants to bid an opportunity because he used to play golf with an executive at the customer. Does the customer really like you? Do you have a competitive advantage? Should you bid? The only honest answer is “I don’t know.” There is as much reason to disregard each situation above as there is to accept it. Project managers don’t want to say that the customer doesn’t like them. Business developers tend to want to bid every opportunity they find. And as for executives… well let’s just say that having played golf with someone who may not even be involved in the procurement probably does not translate into an advantage. Something else you need to consider is that a great relationship with one person at the customer does not necessarily translate into any influence over the procurement selection. Is that person involved? Who else is involved? Does the customer have an internal consensus regarding what to procure or are there many opinions and/or power struggles going on? Does it matter (and will it impact the evaluation) if one person at the customer says they like you? So how can you tell when the customer likes you and when that translates into a competitive advantage? For winning business through proposals, it all comes down to whether your relationship with the customer gives you an information advantage. If you have a great relationship with the customer, but you don’t understand their needs any better than anyone else does, then unless that person gets to make the selection, your relationship doesn't matter. A great relationship with a customer that doesn't provide the information you need is not a competitive advantage. On the other hand, even if your relationship with the customer is limited, if it translates into an understanding of their needs that exceeds what’s in the RFP and gives you an advantage over your competitors, that matters a lot. So ask the project manager above about the customer's preferences, how they make trade-offs, issues they face, trends, etc. If they can’t have a discussion with the customer and come back enlightened, then your bid won’t be more insightful than anyone else’s bid. Ask the business developer above what the contracting officer told you that they didn’t tell everyone else. Ask the executive above the same questions you asked the project manager. In the off-the-shelf process documents we sell, we've built the entire pre-RFP intelligence gathering process around getting answers to questions that provide the information you need to prepare a winning proposal. Whether the customer “likes” you or not isn’t one of the considerations. Either you get the information you need or you don't. Information is vital to writing a winning proposal. Does the customer want a centralized or decentralized approach? Do they want to empower their field offices or control them? Do they see technology as a way to mitigate risk or a source of risk? Do they want to reduce staff or protect staff? Are they more concerned with short term or long term issues? Do they want a solution that is specialized and stands alone, or do they want something that's fully integrated? Do they want you to directly manage the project/staff, or do they want to directly manage the project/staff themselves? Questions like these are usually not answered in the RFP. And yet they are vital for proposing the right offering, describing it in the right context, and knowing which benefits to emphasize. Guess wrong and you lose. If the customer likes you, you’ll be able to discuss these subjects, get the answers you need, and gain the insight that will enable you to write the winning proposal. This is especially true when writing government proposals. After the RFP is released, the rules may not let them speak to you at all, and if they do they may have to say the same thing to everyone else. But if they like you, they will talk to you before the RFP is released. And if they really, really like you, they may even stretch the rules and talk to you after the RFP is released. This only works if you bother to ask the right questions. A major reason we structured the pre-RFP portion of the process the way we did was because of how often companies arrive at RFP release unprepared. If you're counting on the customer liking you and are unprepared, without the answers to the questions you need, then instead of trying to win a competition, you're looking for a gift from someone you know less well than you think you do. So forget about whether the customer likes you and focus on getting the information you need to write the winning proposal. You can measure your likelihood of winning by your ability to get that information. In fact, in our process documentation, we show you how to turn the pre-RFP process into a metrics and measurements system that really can quantify and predict the likelihood of your ability to win.
  3. Before an RFP is released, there’s a lot of information to gather to ensure that your pursuit of the business is successful. This information or intelligence gathering effort is usually a team effort with many people contributing in a variety of ways. As we all know, a cost-effective way to gather information is to place telephone calls to customer points of contact to make direct inquiries on specific topics, to set up meetings, or to follow up on meeting action items. When you plan these calls, always have intelligence gathering as a primary or secondary objective. With that in mind, what should you ask the customer when you’ve got them on the phone? About Contacts And Decision Makers How are customer names spelled? What are their correct titles and office codes? Who will influence the source selection? (Users, Individual Requirement Stakeholders, Source Selection Authority, members of the Source Selection Evaluation Board, Program Manager, Contracting Officer, etc.) About The Program What does the program plan need to achieve? Are there specific program objectives? What does the customer intend to buy? What type of work will be performed? Where will the work be performed? Are there small business “set-aside” requirements? About The Requirements What are the customer’s exact needs? What requirements have been identified? (Technical/Technology, Management, Security, Key Personnel, Cost/Price, Past Performance, Teaming, Use of Government Labs/ Facilities, Security, etc.) What is the most meaningful in terms of value to the customer? What are the customer’s “must haves”? (Hot Buttons, priorities, immediate needs, overriding issues, etc.) About The Evaluation What evaluation criteria have been developed? How will low cost/price be evaluated? About The Budget Who is funding the program? When will the program receive funding and what profile will it have? About The Schedule What’s the schedule look like? (very near-term, until award) Are there any important dates to keep in mind? (Industry Day(s), bidders conference, draft/final RFP, questions about the draft/final RFP, proposal delivery, award, Contract Readiness Review, etc.) About The Contract Is there an approximate contract value and period of performance? (one year, base year plus option years) What type of contract is planned? (firm fixed price, cost plus award fee, etc.) Is it a single award or multiple awards? Is this a Master Contract? (also called Indefinite Delivery/ Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ); blanket, period or panel contract; task order or basic ordering agreements; or Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs)) About The Deliverables Is there a list of deliverables? Has a Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL) been developed? About Their Buying Procedures How should the procurement process be described? How will the procurement be managed? What is the stage of process development? What similar products/services were acquired recently? (agency, value, award date, etc.) Other Things To Ask Will the topic of Organizational Conflict Of Interest (OCI) be addressed in the RFP? Will an OCI Plan be required? Should a Security Management Plan be prepared? Will Government Compliance Training be required? If an incumbent is present, are there any performance issues? Intelligence gathering to strengthen your pursuit of business can be divided into several types and can serve a multitude of purposes. When combined with Readiness Reviews from the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process, you can make these questions a measurable part of how you prepare to win an opportunity before the RFP is released.
  4. No matter how comprehensive your methodology for managing customer contacts is, once you get in front of the customer anything can happen. That is why, in addition to the tools and approaches we recommend for guiding customer contacts, we have provided the list below of lessons learned from our own encounters. They were compiled by Bob Kelly, a business development and capture consultant with 21 years as a U.S. Naval Aviator and Projects Officer and 17 years as a business developer for Lockheed Martin. The items on the list are not in any particular order or grouped, categorized, or converted into precise steps. And yet they can be just as important for achieving successful customer contacts as the steps in your process. Treat every “scheduled” customer contact as valuable time that you may never get again. Plan each aspect of the contact from body language to what you hope to walk away with. Know what you want to get out of the contact. Know what you want the customer to get out of the contact --- make it worth their while. Act sincere and respectful at all times regardless of how you’re received. Show up prepared with primary and back-up methods of presenting your information. Be ready for the unexpected – whether it’s hand cramps from taking lots of notes on critical information or complete customer silence that could be described as deafening. Educate the customer – if you tell them something they don’t already know, solve an issue they have, or help them avoid a future problem, their confidence in you, your company, and your products will grow. Listen well and give the customer your full attention regardless of what they want to talk about – if the conversation strays, find an opening to nudge the dialogue back on course. Develop messages to the customer to improve your position regarding the opportunity at hand, and to build long-term customer relationships. Learn as much as you can about their expectations and preferences. Keep track of action items, especially those that require follow-up. Anticipate potential outcomes and be prepared with responses. A “Thank You” note for the use of customer time is usually appropriate. In case of an “unscheduled” encounter with a customer, each member of your Capture Team should have at the ready an “Elevator Speech” – information that can be presented in the time it takes an elevator to go to the next floor.
  5. A Blank Purchase Agreement (BPA) is a simplified method to supply a federal agency’s anticipated repetitive needs for products and/or services by establishing an account with a qualified source of supply. BPAs are normally established with General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule contracts. The BPA is an approved mechanism for ordering any item on the Federal Supply Schedule including information technology products and services. The purpose of the BPA is to decrease costs, reduce paperwork and save time by eliminating the need for repetitive, individual purchases from the schedule contract. A BPA does not obligate the federal government to place orders. A BPA does not guarantee revenue to the supplier. A BPA may be used in conjunction with a negotiated, fixed-price or cost-reimbursement contract. Federal agencies are no longer restricted by dollar limitations when placing orders under a BPA. Orders may exceed the $100,000 maximum order limitation. BPA's eliminate contracting and open market costs such as: searching for sources, developing technical documents, solicitations, and evaluating bids and offers. While a BPA supplies an agency’s recurring/repetitive needs, the agency takes advantage of quantity discounts, saving time and reducing paperwork. In the past, individual orders under a BPA could not exceed the maximum order limitation. GSA empowers and encourages federal agencies to seek price reductions beyond Federal Supply Schedules for large orders. Federal agencies may order sufficient quantities to meet annual ordering requirements. Agencies may use the BPA as an ordering device for field offices, allowing them to place orders directly with the supplier. In doing so, the entire agency reaps the benefits of additional negotiated discounts. Finally, the agency will reduce the administrative burden of submitting numerous purchase orders. Summarizing, no better tool is available to federal agencies for purchasing products and services than a Federal Supply Schedule BPA. The BPA creates a purchasing mechanism for the federal government that works better and costs less. Some of the many benefits of BPAs follow: Very competitive pricing Unsurpassed delivery Complete product/service lines Ease of ordering procedures
  6. A capture manager is responsible for winning a business opportunity. The capture manager will probably not be the initial salesperson, but will get involved as a dedicated resource once a company decides to pursue a lead. The capture manager assigned will then oversee the opportunity pursuit through award, unless a decision is made to no-bid it somewhere along the line. Typically, the capture manager works on selected opportunities and oversees bid strategies, pricing, teaming, and proposal strategies. A major focus for the capture manager is to manage the transition from opportunity discovery to the proposal process where the opportunity is closed. Often, the capture manager must sell the opportunity internally as well as to the client in order to get the resources necessary for pursuit and proposal development. Usually, the capture manager gets involved after the lead is qualified and the company makes a formal decision to pursue it. The capture manager acts on the behalf of the executive sponsor for the opportunity. The capture manager identifies the resources required to pursue a bid, establishes any infrastructures required, processes, and plans necessary, and manages their execution. Sometimes the capture manager acts as the proposal manager and sometimes the proposal manager is a specialist who works with the capture manager to create the proposal document. Sometimes the capture manager will be the project manager designate. However, this is usually not the case because capture managers are business development oriented, where project managers are usually technically oriented. Also, project managers are rarely available to dedicate their time starting in the pre RFP stages and continuing through award. The capture manager should be an accomplished business developer who understands project management, contracts, and proposal development. The capture manager should have some familiarity with the client in order to be conversant in their terminology, policies, organizational structure, etc.
  7. Products and services are a mixed bag. Some are downright necessities. If my toilet explodes, I need a plumber. If your child wakes up with a high fever, you need a doctor. Raging termites, aching teeth, and lawsuits also require services that are necessities. But most products and services are more luxury than necessity. I often hire a young man to mow my lawn. But if he's on vacation one week, I'll get my out-of-shape self out there and push the mower myself. Businesses buy out of necessity 90 percent of the time. Consumers feel a purchase is a necessity more like 30 percent of the time. In many cases consumers could do the job themselves or make the product. More often they simply want to buy to save time and trouble. It's important to think about how your product or service is considered by customers. Do some consider you a necessity while others figure you provide a luxury? This can figure in how you promote your business and write your advertising. Necessities should be promoted as an affordable solution to a pressing problem. Stress your competence and caring. Promote luxuries by pointing out how much better the customer's life will be after she buys. Stress how your product or service saves time, money, and hassle. There is an old saying among advertising professionals: When your ad stresses everything, you stress nothing. Let me give you an example. Lots of web sites list every single benefit their product or service can give you. You're faced with a long, long list of bulleted points. Kudos to these sites for putting their features and benefits in easy-to-browse bullets. But they would do far better to focus their sales copy on just a few key advantages. People tend to skip over copy that tries to stress every feature and aspect of a product. Even worse, many people simply skip over copy that tries to cram in too much. Make a list of the top three things about your product or service that seem to impress customers most. Create a headline for your copy that extols the virtues of one of your advantages. Then have your copy introduce the other two points. This keeps your sales copy from becoming overburdening with too much for busy customers to think about. Of course, many serious prospects want all the information they can get. Save your complete list of features and benefits for a second all-you-can-read page. Stressing the main points and advantages of your product works well on your web page, but it's a great way to structure a radio or television commercial, too. Radio and television are excellent buys for many small businesses. It's pretty affordable to advertise through these mass media outlets, not to mention they also allow you to advertise to a very specific audience. Radio stations format their programming for certain age groups and life styles. Whether you want to reach blue-collar men between the ages of 25 and 35, or white-collar women over 50; there is a radio station for you. Cable TV systems are dramatically increasing the number of channels they offer. New low- power TV stations are popping up everywhere. Soon, thanks to new digital technology, regular broadcast stations may be able to split their single channel into several. All these new channels need advertising to survive. Many are offering very affordable rates easily in reach for small business people. Start by calling the sales departments of radio and TV stations. Ask about rates for advertising at different times of day. Also ask about package deals, where you get a price break for buying a number of spots over time. Keep in mind the kinds of audiences you'll be reaching. After you have all of this information, you can look at the demographics of your audience and decide if it would be better to push your product or service as a necessity or a luxury. Remember to stress the most important points for a better response.
  8. Preferably before the RFP ever comes out, you should be assessing the potential competition on a proposal. Because a proposal is a competition, you need to score higher to win. In order to boost yourself, or even lower them, you have to know who they are. In the early stages, any one who is a potential teaming partner is also a potential competitor. If there is an incumbent contractor, they are definitely a competitor. If this is a new contract, consider everyone else working for that customer, especially those who do work in the same field as the contract. Next look for companies who do similar work for similar customers. Often when an RFP is released it will include a “bidders list,” or list of companies that the RFP was sent to. This list also includes competitors --- but beware, there are ways to obfuscate this list to hide you identity from others, and all those listed will not bid. Once you’ve settled on a list of potential competitors (even if by type instead of by name), the next step is to compare yourself with each of them. This requires knowing something about them, and this is a key reason why business developers spend so much of there time networking. When comparing yourself to the competition, here is a list of things to consider: History with this Customer Type of procurement Technology/Scope of work Strengths/Weaknesses Technical Management Cost Staffing Past Performance Strategies/Approaches Technical Management Teaming Intellectual property Cost Probable Discriminators Themes Win strategy Suitability of location and logistics If a draft or final RFP has been released, also measure against the evaluation criteria. Once you have completed the above, usually formatted as a table, then you can start applying the intelligence you’ve collected. At this stage you are likely to find overlap and redundancy. Start by categorizing and grouping the results. Once you’ve got similar items grouped together you are ready preparing how you will incorporate the intelligence into the proposal process. First, identify action items. Are there any items that need further research? Should you reconsider a decision to prime or sub the opportunity? Should you modify your teaming strategies to better address (or incorporate) the competition? Next, prepare statements of your strengths, defenses against you weaknesses, and “ghosts” that subtly show the weaknesses in your competition. These statements are how the exercise above actually makes it into the proposal. Finally, you should allocate the statements to the outline. This ensures that the statements are made at the appropriate times in the document. The result is a proposal that shows your strengths, mitigates any weakness you have, and informs the evaluators of problems with the competition.
  9. When we first saw the chart for Chesapeake's pipeline, it had about 30% of the leads that it should have. We expected that, but it really helps to be able to visualize it. One of the first things we did was purchase access to the database of Federal contracts distributed by Eagle Eye Publishers. This database would enable us to: Identify all current Federal contracts in the areas that Chesapeake is interested in and target their recompletes. Schedule and prioritize pursuits based on contract expiration dates. Identify agencies to strategically target, based on the amount of relevant services that they purchase. Determine whether Chesapeake's business targets are achievable in the markets they have chosen. Research competitors who pursue the same types of contracts. Identify potential teaming partners. There are other databases that could be used. Most information technology (IT) firms use databases from Federal Sources or Input. Since Chesapeake is not an IT contractor and we could not find any databases specific to their niche, the Eagle Eye database made the most sense. It cost a few thousand dollars, but it gave us immediate leads. To make use of the database, Chesapeake: Sent people to Eagle Eye's training, so they could make the most of the investment. Set up criteria to define contracts they would potentially be interested in. Prepared a list of potential contracts that were at least 3 months but not more than a year away from contract expiration. Extracted all the information available from Eagle Eye for opportunities on the list. Called to verify key pieces of information like the current contracting officer and contract expiration date (Contract modifications, option years, etc., can change the date). Entered the opportunity into Chesapeake's opportunity tracking system. Assigned someone at Chesapeake as the Business Development lead and set Readiness Review deadlines. Many of the contracts that were on the initial list were dropped by the time an initial contact was made to request updated information. But it was still enough to take Chesapeake from 30% of the leads it needed to 50%. Chesapeake also formalized their business development process, using an early version of the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process. This did several things for them: Gave their business developers clear goals regarding what questions to ask and information to seek. Set deadlines to accomplish their intelligence gathering and positioning goals. Provided oversight to make sure it happened. By giving their Business Developers clear goals and deadlines, they got more out of their contacts. In the past they did not do much outreach beyond calling the contracting office when an RFP was announced. But now they were tracking leads months in advance and were seeking program contacts as well as contracting office contacts. When they called, they had a specific agenda and weren't wasting anybody's time. What they found was that instead of just the one opportunity they knew about, each personal contact led to multiple opportunities. Soon they went from 50% of the leads they needed to 70%. In addition to exploiting the Eagle Eye database and personal contacts, the next area they focused on was to leverage their teaming partners. Chesapeake often bids with teaming partners, some huge and some small. Being more strategic in their selection, and discussing more than one opportunity at a time ("I put you on my team for this one, you put me on your team for that one"), resulted in additional opportunities. When they got strategic with one of their larger teaming partners, they found areas that Chesapeake specializes in that the larger company needed. And a larger company would rather solve all related problems at once than have to find another company to team with each time. These relationship-based opportunities took Chesapeake from 70% of the leads they needed to 90%. And we haven't even talked about growing their existing customer relationships yet. Typically most Government contractors look for 10% growth from their existing contracts alone. Filling its pipeline took Chesapeake a few months. But they arrived at the start of a new year with 90% of their new leads already identified. As the new year passes, those leads will all move from the lead identification stage to later stages or get dropped. In order to maintain their pipeline, they need to replace on average 1/12 of the opportunities in the lead identification stage. For Chesapeake, filling a hundred million dollar pipeline was intimidating. However, maintaining it by adding $10 million a month in new leads, while much less intimidating, is ultimately where the hard work will be.
  10. The big question on the mind of Bob Rogers, CEO of The Chesapeake Center (Chesapeake), was, "How do I hit my backlog number?" For a contractor, "backlog" is the future value of contracts. It's money you know you've got coming. In order to stay flat, a contractor must win enough new business to replace its backlog as time goes by. Your backlog can sustain you (for a short while) even if you don't win any new business. Since the procurement process takes so long (from lead identification through contract start can easily take more than a year), the backlog number can tell you more about a company's health than its revenue number. Chesapeake had a target backlog it wanted to grow to. To get Chesapeake's backlog to where they wanted it, they needed to win some business. The old approach of looking for RFPs and then bidding them wasn't working. Instead of watching their backlog work down to nothing, they knew they had to do something different. One of the first things we did was to create a pipeline. If you do the math on a pipeline, you'll find that win rate has a major impact that goes all the way back to the number of leads you need to identify. If your win rate is higher, you will achieve the same amount of revenue, with fewer leads. And vice versa. If you want to achieve a high win rate, you need to be selective and you need to arrive at RFP release prepared with a competitive advantage. You need to challenge the leads you are pursuing, and put the burden of proof on the sponsor to demonstrate that the chances of winning are good and that they are ready to bid with a competitive advantage they can articulate. In parallel with your pipeline, you should have a process to ensure that you are ready to bid when the RFP is released. Failure to do your homework towards being ready to bid with a clear competitive advantage is a good reason to "no bid" an opportunity. Instead of assuming that you should bid every opportunity you see, we assumed we would drop a significant number of opportunities when we set our targets. Chesapeake's initial pipeline was based on guesses and assumptions, because while we had a list of opportunities being tracked, we had very little useable historical data. We assumed a 33% win rate. That's the figure that most Government contractors use. In some markets it can be higher or lower. I suspect that 33% is not based on any real data, but it's the number most people cite (probably to hide the fact that they really don't know). Depending on the phase, we assumed either only 66% or 75% would make it to the next phase. In other words, at each stage, we expected to drop at least 1 in 4 of the leads we were tracking at each review. The result was close to a 9:1 ratio between projected wins and leads identified. In other words, for $10 million in targeted wins, we identified nearly $90 million in leads. At the lead identification stage, we started with a target of $90 million At the lead qualification stage, it reduced to $60 million (33% of opportunities dropped) At the intelligence gathering stage, it reduced to $45 million (25% of opportunities dropped) The target number of bids submitted dropped to $30 million (33% of opportunities dropped) The target for wins was $10 million (33% win rate) We used targets like these to get us started, while collecting data that would enable us to refine the percentage dropped at each stage and revisit the targets. We used Microsoft Excel for data and analysis. For each stage, Chesapeake set goals using the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process. This provided a list of questions or goals related to intelligence gathering and positioning to be achieved in order to demonstrate readiness to bid. Each Readiness Review provided an opportunity to "no bid" opportunities. At each review we were expecting to drop at least 1 in 4 of the opportunities reviewed. After about 6 months of collecting data, we began to revisit the targets based on real-world data instead of our assumptions. For Chesapeake, it will probably require at least 12 and maybe 18 months to have sufficient data to change the targets. This could vary company to company depending on how many bids of what duration you pursue. The key advantages to this approach are: Meaningful targets. By tracking the number of opportunities considered and dropped, you can replace the assumptions with real world percentages and achieve meaningful targets. Improved Diagnostics. You can tell a lot just by looking at the graph of the pipeline. You can tell more by how it changes over time. Sustainability. If it takes a year or more from lead identification to award, then it will take a year or more to recover from a decline in business. During the time you are recovering, you are essentially living off your backlog. Maintaining your pipeline means that you always have a supply of new leads that are far enough along to ensure a steady stream of bids. Growth. You cannot grow by living off your backlog. You need to get ahead. The pipeline can help you achieve that. Beating your targets will also result in growth. Improving your bids and not just tracking them. A small change in your win rate makes a big difference. Going from 33% to 50% (a 17% change) results in a 33% percent drop in the number of leads required. Or with the same number of leads the same 17% change in win rate results in 50% more new business. By linking the pipeline phases to specific goals to ensure readiness and having specific plans to "no bid" opportunities at each phase, you arrive at your bids with more intelligence, better positioning, and a clear competitive advantage. This is how you boost your win rate.
  11. Most companies use whatever reports their spreadsheet or database spits out as the basis for how they track their leads. Their Business Development meetings are often an exercise in going down the rows of the report and reading across. They throw in a little commentary and occasionally assign an action item. All in all they are not very effective. People include opportunities that shouldn't be there, just so their report looks "full." The real status isn't clear. It's easy to hide and emphasize what you want. Companies continue to bid every opportunity they see, rather than be selective. People continue to use FedBizOpps, Input, or Federal Sources as the only places they get leads from. Better reports can enable better oversight and lead to more business. Try thinking about it this way: Why do we have the reports in the first place? The reports we have should answer the key questions needed to manage the pipeline. These questions include: Are we going to hit our revenue target? The answer to this is determined by multiplying our win rate by what's in our pipeline and any new leads we've added. The best report format is a chart that shows this visually. A chart with two bars will do this: one for the target and one that includes the existing pursuits and the new leads. If the second bar is lower than the first, you've got some work to do, and management should be asking what you are doing to identify new leads. If the second bar is taller than the first, you are ahead of the game and congratulations are in order. Is our pipeline healthy? Next, take a look at what is in your pipeline. We recommend breaking the opportunities down by pipeline phase (In the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process we hold a Readiness Review at the end of each phase). You might also want to look at it from a calendar perspective. Typically, this is the only perspective companies use. They focus almost exclusively on how many submissions are expected in each quarter. While this is necessary for calendar-based financial projections, it doesn't help you make sure that you are preparing to win those opportunities. If you really want to see the health of your pipeline, you also need to see it by Readiness Review to see how many opportunities you have at each stage, so that you determine whether what's in your pipeline is mature and you are positioning properly to win. Are our pursuits on track? After looking at the pipeline charts, you should look at the status of individual pursuits. Most companies treat this as a subjective exercise, and many simply ask "what's new?" for each opportunity. We highly recommend that you identify specific goals for each phase so that you can compare opportunity status against the goals. The CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process provides specific questions that should be answered and action items to be completed in each phase in order to ensure that the company is prepared to win the bid when the RFP is released. Are we winning? The next chart to consider is another stacked bar chart. The first column is for the submission target, broken down by expected wins and losses based on your anticipated win rate. The second column is a stacked bar with a row for each submission, adding up to the total value of submissions. It shows whether your submissions have reached the target. The third column is a stacked bar with a row for each win. Even if you reach your target number of submissions, this may not result in enough business if your win rate slips. Using stacked bars also lets you see if the mix of big vs. small opportunities is healthy. Collectively they show whether your submissions and opportunities won meet your targets. Keep in mind that with all of the reports/charts mentioned above, you can (and should) look at the data two ways — the number of opportunities and the value of the opportunities. Dollar values can be misleading when there is one big opportunity and a bunch of little ones. Or you might appear to be hitting your numbers, but because it is with just a few large opportunities in the pipeline, a loss or two can be devastating. The right reports, presented using the right visuals, will make the health of your business development activities apparent. Good reports will also facilitate oversight, which will in turn lead to better preparation and ultimately higher win rates.
  12. A pipeline is a way of classifying opportunities through stages until they are awarded. A pipeline answers the question, "How many opportunities do I have to pursue in order to win a certain amount of business?" Pipelines are typically defined in stages: How many leads have you identified How many leads are you pursuing How many leads are you bidding How many leads did you win There is no set standard for how you categorize the opportunities in your pipeline, so every company does it differently. But the main idea remains the same. What matters the most is you can start to calculate your targets. Start with your win rate. Out of the bids that you submit, how many bids do you win? You can use that percentage to tell you how many bids you must submit in order to achieve the amount of new business you want. Once you calculate how many bids you need to submit, you need to know how many leads to pursue in order to achieve that amount of bids. Not all opportunities become RFPs. Some get cancelled by the customer, others you may decide not to bid once you learn more about them. A pipeline helps you determine whether you are pursuing enough leads to end up with the amount of new business you require to sustain or grow your company. Once you know how many leads you need to pursue, you can calculate how many leads you need to identify, in order to select that amount for pursuit. The result is a large number of opportunities that you must identify and consider in order to select some number to pursue and some smaller number to bid. Of the ones that you submit, you will only win a portion. To create a pipeline, first categorize the leads you are tracking. Then prepare a bar graph with the total for each stage. What you should see is a large bar for identified leads, and in each stage that follows, the bar should get smaller. When you categorize your opportunities this way, it forms a pipeline that can tell you about the health of your business development efforts. If you see a lot of leads at the end, but few at the beginning, then once you submit them you don't have enough leads and will be living off your backlog. If you see a lot of leads at the beginning, but very few at the end, then either you just kicked off a major new business development effort or people are feeling the pressure and throwing a bunch of unqualified leads into the system to make it look like they are doing something. Or both. Your backlog may take a short term dip, but if the leads are good it should come back up when the leads become bids. If you business is in trouble, the quality of those leads is a big "if." If all the bars are the same height, then either you are not being selective enough and are passing leads from stage to stage unchallenged (ultimately bidding a bunch of low-probability leads that will consume resources and lower your win rate), or you are being too selective at the front end and only tracking opportunities that you know with certainty that you are going to bid.
  13. The ex-CEO of a subsidiary of L-3 Communications that I did some consulting for asked me if I would talk to a company called The Chesapeake Center that he was trying to help. Chesapeake has one foot in the commercial sector and one foot in the government contracting sector. They are a small business in transition to becoming a mid-sized company. The informal approaches to business development they had been following were no longer working. They knew it was time for them to become more sophisticated, they just didn't know how. Bob Rogers, CEO of Chesapeake, was kind enough to give me permission to write about our experience working together. Over the next few issues, I plan to tell the story of how we implemented a completely new business development process at Chesapeake. It's a good story because it touches on every aspect of business development. For CapturePlanning.com, it was invaluable to be able to put early drafts of the MustWin Process documentation into people's hands and see what they did with them. We often went back and modified forms and instructions to make improvements based on what we saw people doing. However, most of the problems we ran into were fairly common. In each of the coming articles I'm sure you'll see things that resemble what happens at your company. Most companies already have a business development capability to some degree. Most efforts at improvement are incremental and build on what's there. You may end up changing your entire process, but at least your people have some understanding of the terminology used. When you are introducing a business development process to an organization that has never had it or when you are completely starting over, it's much more difficult. People have to learn the terminology and the process while executing it. If it's not handled carefully, the experience can be traumatic. My first meeting with Chesapeake was just about getting to know each other and assessing each other's capabilities and needs. Consultants are usually asked to find and/or pursue business opportunities for companies. But when the consultant leaves, they still may not have any more capability than before. Sometimes consultants provide training, but this is usually a one-time event. What Chesapeake needed was someone who could help them develop the processes, staff, and infrastructure to have a business development capability of their own. One of the things Mr. Rogers liked most was how I helped the subsidiary of L-3 Communications create a new proposal group. The approach that I took was to coach and mentor a group of relatively inexperienced staff, providing experience and expertise until they became proficient and self-reliant. I started by providing them with a couple days per week of oversight and on-the-job training. Over a year or so, as the staff became more capable I eased back to a day a week, then a few hours a week, then a few hours a month, until they could stand on their own. This turns out to be a very cost-effective approach. Hiring experienced professionals is expensive. Consultants are even more expensive. A little bit of quality review, process design, and guidance can help make up for a lack of experience. A part-time consultant isn't as much of a cash-flow hit, especially if it's handled as a transition to a fully functional capability. Chesapeake, however, needed a lot more than just a proposal group. They needed a full end-to-end business development function developed. When I met with them, their Director of Operations was doing their business development. He was bright and capable, but there are only so many hours in a day. The company was quickly growing to where it needed a full time Director of Operations and a Director of Business Development. In addition to staff resources, they also needed a business development process and the reporting/oversight required to ensure that business development fulfills the company's strategic vision. At the time Chesapeake contacted me I was working on documenting the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process. Chesapeake agreed to be a "beta tester" for the process. This gave them immediate and low cost access to the process they needed. Luckily, when I started working with them, they didn't have any immediate proposal deadlines. This enabled us to focus on pre-RFP process issues. We began by looking at their business development pipeline and putting a process into place for qualifying leads, gathering intelligence, and positioning the company so that they have a competitive advantage when the RFP is finally released. We used the pipeline analysis to set goals for business development, so that we'd know how many opportunities of what size we'd have to be able to handle. Then we implemented a series of reports and reviews to track business development performance. This included both filling the pipeline and procedures to validate and ensure RFP readiness. Only then were we ready to look at the proposal process. As we implemented the new processes, we often took baby steps. We settled for major improvements over perfection, but making sure that they got even better on the next one. Once people got used to the process, we were able to raise the bar. But what really helped was that they got to see the benefits of the process and how all that "up front planning" stuff really becomes necessary at the back end. When you're still at the front end, it's easy to question why the "extra steps" are needed. The implementation process is still ongoing. Now that Chesapeake has a pipeline, they are trying to fill it. As they do, they gain experience with the process, learn more about their needs, and find ways to make improvements. Each of the next few issues of the CapturePlanning.com newsletter will have an article that digs into the details of the process implementation for each aspect of business development, describes the challenges that Chesapeake faced and overcame, and presents the challenges that it is still facing.
  14. Some people that you may want to seek out include: The customer’s program managers. As a project manager, you will probably have most of your customer interactions with managers at similar levels. These people may be important sources of information and may initiate procurement requests, but they may not be the ultimate decision maker or approval authority. Decision-makers. It is extremely important to figure out who the decision-makers are at the customer. Decision-makers have the authority to approve procurements. This may vary according to the value of the procurement. The decision-maker must agree to your proposed solution or it will not be approved for implementation. People involved in contracts, purchasing, and budgeting. The contracts and purchasing staff will know the process and the forms that must be completed to approve the procurement. They may or may not see eye-to-eye with their own program staff. The budgeting staff know where the money is buried. They may not want to talk to you. Be helpful. If your customer is considering a procurement, then you may be able to help them process it. The budgeting people may not talk numbers with you, but they might talk process and deadlines. And they might tell you whether budget will be an issue for what your customer wants to do. Look for opportunities to help one part of the customer work with another part. Administrative assistants. If an administrative assistant is available who can answer your questions (for example, is that project done internally or by a contractor, what group is so-and-so in charge of, etc.), then ask the assistant. Establishing a relationship with administrative assistants can’t hurt, and often can yield a lot of information. Besides, you can always ask the same question of the manager later, if only for validation and to establish communication at that level, too. If you don’t know who to talk to at a customer, you can start with the administrative assistants. They might know and it may keep you from looking dumb in front of the customer’s management. Once you have your org chart, or list of projects, you can ask the assistants who handles this, who handles that, who do you talk to about budgets, what is the process for procurements, etc. They can give you the names of people and you can follow up with them later. Keep in mind that everyone has different opinions regarding what direction an organization should go and how it should get there. One person may tell you where things are heading, only to be contradicted by another. This is one reason why it is important to know who the decision-makers are— their opinions are the ones that really count.
  15. Everyone who works on a project that could grow is in business development. Everyone who works on a project that will end but could be renewed is in business development. Everyone who interacts with the customer is in business development. Everyone who supports the customer is in business development. People who never see the client, but depend on their revenue are in business development. In short, everyone is in business development. However, most people don't know it. And worse, even if they do, they don't know how to play their role in business development. Most people have a specialty, and most don't have business development in their titles. Most have education and experience in their specialty. Most don't have a clue about business development. If your business is to fulfill its potential, you've got to raise their business development skill levels. Notice that I did not say that you should turn everyone into business developers. They have a specialty for a reason, and you need them to apply themselves to it. However, you also need them to understand how their role fits into the business development function, and how they can support it. This is most critical for those who interact with the customer. Most professional services businesses rely on their project staff for business development. Most project staff see business development as a barely necessary evil. Business development is not something that they can figure out on their own and do consistently well. If you want them to consistently be able to support business development, you need to boost their skills. Boosting someone's skills involves more than just sending them to a training class. You need to have an ongoing outreach and skills development program. It can be as simple as monthly brown-bag teleconferences. But on a regular basis, you need to help them learn how to: Identify an opportunity. What kind of problems can your business solve and how do you approach a customer about them? How can you develop business simply by helping your customer? Qualify a potential business opportunity. What information is required to verify that an opportunity is real? What information should be collected to improve competitive advantage? Help the customer through the procurement process. What can you do to help the customer with their own procurement process? What options can you provide the customer? If all your staff do is identify business opportunities while helping their customers solve problems and can bring them to your attention, the battle is half-won. If they can also help gather customer and competitive insight that you can turn into a winning proposal, even better. And if they can help the customer through the procurement process, you will have the inside track. But it's not enough to tell them that this is the goal. You have to help them understand how it is a natural extension of what they are already doing. It must go from something else that they have to do, to something that is part of their normal routine --- not another job to do, but a natural part of doing the job they already have. This doesn't happen after taking a single class. It is something that must be practiced and become part of your corporate culture. It will not happen simply because you want it to happen. You must constantly reinforce it and help it grow by developing everyone's business development skills. If you do nothing, you will get exactly that in return. If you get the message out once a year, you will get an equivalent return on investment. If you get the message out frequently, and back it up with the knowledge to help them understand clearly both the expectation and what to do about it, you will see your return on investment grow. Only when everyone who interacts with the customer plays an effective role in business development will you maximize your company's growth potential.
  16. After submitting a proposal, many consultants wait a short period of time--maybe a few days or one week, before contacting the potential client. The purpose is to find out if the proposal has been accepted, rejected, or if modifications are necessary. Contacting the potential client once is professional and acceptable. However, if your phone call or email is not returned, you will be tempted to repeatedly contact the potential client for an answer. Resist this temptation. Hounding the potential client for an answer does not improve the situation. Don't take it personally. After making your one inquiry about the proposal's status, forget about it and move on. Begin searching for the next potential client. This practice of submit-follow up-move on defies conventional sales methodology where people are trained to continuously follow up with prospects in order to get sales. However, this method works for these reasons: You have no idea what has happened at the company and why your proposal hasn't yet been accepted. Perhaps the entire project got cancelled? Maybe quarterly earnings were disappointing and a layoff is now in the works? The possibilities are endless and constant speculation for an answer can drive you crazy! The potential client knows how to contact you. Once you've submitted the proposal and followed up, you've done your part. Let them make the effort to contact you to discuss proposal changes and clarifications. When they do, it demonstrates their interest and you are one step closer to being retained. Getting clients is a numbers game. You have to submit a certain number of proposals just to get retained. By moving on to search for the next client, you increase the odds that your next prospect will become a client. Contacting the potential client more than once to ascertain the proposal's status is counterproductive. Also, it forces you to spend time and energy on what is now in the past. Keep your energies and thoughts focused on identifying the next client. Besides, when a proposal is finally accepted, you can be amazed at your good fortune!
  17. Attracting and keeping customers. Isn't that what business is all about? Of course! Each entrepreneur started his/her business because they had a love they wanted to peruse full-time. In addition, they saw a need they thought could be filled by their products or services. However, without customers to purchase these products or services, every business in the world would be forced to close its doors. The two most important business practices that exist now - and have ever existed in the past - are attracting and keeping customers. Federal Express says it best. "Advertising brings customers in the door, all right, but bad customer service sends them right back out the door again." A balance must be obtained. Advertising is essential to promote your business and bring paying customers in the door. Once there, customer service will keep them loyal and make them life-long, repeat customers. How is the balance achieved? Make sure your customers know they are appreciated. How? There are several ways - most will cost you nothing. Tell your customers you appreciate them. There is no need to make a scene in expressing your thanks, simply remember to thank each customer for his/her business. Send a note. After each purchase, write a short note or postcard thanking the customer for their patronage and asking them to call on you again. Go above and beyond. For example: if you sell products that require batteries, tuck a pack of double A's in the bag - free-of-charge! In dollars, it will cost you about a buck… in referrals and good will, it will repay you over and over. Keep customer service claims out of your advertising. Unfortunately, so many companies claim "service with a smile" in their advertising and then don't deliver. Most claims of excellent customer service are ignored in advertising. Follow the statement, "Don't tell me… show me". Make your advertisements user friendly. Be sure to include all the information customers need in order to purchase from you. This should include your business name, a representative's name (if applicable), ordering information (i.e., address, telephone number, web site, etc.). There is too much competition in the world of business today for customers to spend a lot of time searching for the information they need. Make it easy for customers to buy from you. Under promise and over deliver. Customers love to get a call saying his or her order arrived two days early. When making claims to customers - for delivery times, pricing information, repair turnaround, etc. - promise less and give them more. If you think you can complete the project by Wednesday, allow a little room for error and tell your customer the date will be Friday. When you call them on Thursday to let them know you're finished, they'll be thrilled! After all, which call would you rather make? The one telling a customer you're running behind, or the one telling the customer you're finished two days early?! Keep your ads honest. No one likes to feel deceived. If your ads make claims that aren't true - or that stretch the truth - ill will is more than likely going to be the result. Unfortunately, many companies believe in "polishing" the truth in order to get customers in the door. These folks usually think they can smooth things over with the customer and make a sale once the client walks in. It may work in some cases. But consider the situation from the viewpoint of the customer. When you are buying a product or service, is that the way you would want to be treated? Keeping ads honest not only shows customers you possess integrity, but also helps avoid future problems. These are just a few suggestions to continuing on the road of attracting and keeping customers. Above all, always consider how you would feel if you were the customer! Most buying decisions are emotional. Your ad copy should be, too!
  18. ROI (Return on Investment) is probably the most important calculation one needs to make to ensure the long-term viability of their business. It is not enough to build in a profit margin on the product or service being offered. You need to make decisions regarding how to allocate resources. For example, one course of action might require spending more than another. Which is the best choice? The answer depends on the anticipated ROI. You want to invest in things that provide the greatest return. In order to do this you must first calculate your ROI. The Basic ROI Formula for Percentage Calculation A detailed ROI analysis requires identifying all the variables that could impact the outcome. This includes everything that could impact the return, and everything that should be considered as part of the investment. This is challenging, as is anything that requires us to predict the future and things that may be difficult to quantify. So let's start with a very basic equation for calculating ROI: ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100 This takes the Payback and converts it to a percentage. Your payback is actually the total amount of money earned from your investment. Investment relates to the amount of resources put into generating the given payback. When you spread these over time, it gets more complicated. For example, should you measure by months or by years? And by how many? You might also consider what accountants call the time value of money. The more considerations you add, the more accurate the result and the more difficult the calculaton becomes. Frequent mistakes that lead to improper calculations Business owners often misunderstand the actual amount of investment. One common error is to not include the value of their time or the time of their staff as part of the investment calculation. To be accurate, the investment calculation must include the value of all resources invested, and not just "out-of-pocket" cash. If most small business owners divided their return by the actual number of hours they put into the business, both before opening and after, they'd find their ROI expressed as an hourly rate to be much lower than they probably think it is. What understanding ROI does for you is help you make correct choices before you find yourself in that situation. This should not discourage you! For as the business grows, your ROI should increase. If you invest a lot in opening a business and then measure your ROI the next day, you'll probably find yourself in the red. But if the business is successful, then over time the returns grow while the continued investment, if any, declines. ROI for business startups When you are just beginning your own business, you have plenty of time on your hands. This is the reason why most small business owners do not properly count their time in the ROI equation. They just look at cash expenditures and incoming monies, and they are satisfied with that calculation. It is often said that people generate the kind of results that they believe they can achieve or the kind that they want to achieve. Seeing the goal is the first step to achieving the goal. Expectations will always bring results equal to the expectation. Having been down the business startup path before myself, I too understand the desire to calculate ROI without consideration to the time invested in the enterprise. However, I also understand the importance of placing a value on my time and working that into my final numbers. In the beginning, I ran two types of ROI calculations: all resources exempting my time, AND all resources including my time. Of course, I actually set a higher expectation for my own income level. First, I had decided on ten dollars an hour for my time. Later, I adjusted that amount upward. Starting out, even though I ran two versions of my ROI calculations, I relied first on my resource excluding my own time. Once I had achieved this goal, then I refocused my attention to reaching the ROI which took into account my own time. Now, that time has passed, I can go back and look at my yearly ROI and see that I have earned enough cash to pay for those early days of famine. THE SECRET OF TURNING ROI CALCULATIONS INTO SUCCESS Every step in your business startup is a calculated guess as to what you believe you can achieve. Measuring your results is essential to making your business profitable. ROI measurements are imperative to measuring and understanding the results you are achieving with your new or existing business. Take into account all factors relating to the profitability of your business and don't smudge on the facts to make it seem more profitable than it really is. It is important to approach your business and your business results with absolute honesty. Be honest with yourself and face the facts of your task. An honest examination of your business at regular intervals will help you get on and stay on track to keep the doors of your business open. You will thank yourself later.
  19. One of the things you should try to do before the RFP is released is to influence it in ways that work to your advantage and to your competitors' disadvantage. This requires that you have a relationship with your customer, so you can discuss their needs and make recommendations regarding how to get those needs fulfilled. Researching an opportunity and influencing it go hand-in-hand. If you do not seek information about the items below, you could be in for a nasty surprise if they go in the opposite direction from what you prefer. As you seek to learn more about the opportunity, it's only natural to make recommendations at the same time. If it helps, instead of "influencing" the RFP, all you really need to do is make recommendations, provide guidance, or give feedback to the customer regarding how to conduct a procurement that will result in getting their needs met. How you seek to influence the RFP depends somewhat on your circumstances. Are you an incumbent? Do you have a high-priced offering or a low-priced offering? Can you exceed the requirement? We have identified factors to consider in influencing the RFP. But which way to seek to influence them depends on your bid strategies. Here are some things to consider influencing before an RFP is released: Should there even be an RFP? Depending on regulatory requirements and the customer's own rules, there might be other ways to conduct the procurement than through a written RFP. What approach to the acquisition will be the most advantageous to you while enabling the customer to remain in compliance with their own rules? Number of awards. Some types of procurements lend themselves well to splitting the work up among more than one vendor. Sometimes, but not always, this is done through task order contracts. Sometimes having more than one award will help ensure you get a piece, while other times you want the door closed to potential competitors. For the customer, the decision rests on a combination of risk, competitiveness, and procurement complexity. Budget. What guidance can you provide to the customer regarding how to set their budget? The correct answer is not always "More!" Sometimes an approach (such as one your competitor favors — or far worse, your own) can be ruled out because the budget is too high or too low. Evaluation criteria. What guidance can you provide the customer regarding what are the most important considerations in selecting a vendor? Can you recommend criteria that match your strengths while simultaneously creating a disadvantage for your competitors? Some customers are open to discussions about what is important in making a selection, while others may not be. Award process. Can you advise the customer regarding the steps they should go through in issuing the RFP and making a selection? How can this process work to your advantage and your competitors' disadvantage? Pricing structure. If you have a creative approach to pricing, you'd better make sure the RFP allows it. For example, it's hard to bid a fixed rate for a project when the RFP requires an hourly rate. And vice-versa. Depending on your circumstances, you may prefer one approach over another. You should make sure the customer shares your preference. Minimum qualifications to bid. Can you define any minimum qualifications that would eliminate competitors while enabling you to bid? If you can't eliminate them, maybe you can recommend changes to the evaluation criteria that would enable your qualifications to score better. Resumes. If you can name the staff you plan to bid, you should suggest that the RFP requires the resumes of the staff who will perform the work. If you cannot name the staff, then you may want to recommend that the RFP focus on qualifications and not specific individuals. Project references. Do you have excellent references? Make sure the RFP requires them and emphasizes them in the evaluation criteria. You can also make recommendations regarding how to define what experience is considered "relevant" that can work to your advantage. Scope/Specifications. Do you want the scope open-ended or tightly defined? Is there anything that you want specifically included, excluded, or not mentioned? Quantities. Do you prefer quantities to be high or low? Do you want them specified precisely or left ambiguous? Locations. Would it be to your advantage to specify that the work be performed at particular locations? Are there any locations that would cause you difficulty that you would like to not be required? Trade-offs and Preferences. All projects involve trade-offs. The adage goes: "Good, cheap, or fast --- pick any two." What trade-offs work to your advantage? Can you influence either the scope/specifications or evaluation criteria to reflect the trade-offs the way you would like to make them? Risks. Are there any risks that you would like defined, not defined, or mitigated by the RFP? Platforms/Formats/Standards. Would specifying a particular platform, format, or standard work to your advantage? Resources. Could a requirement that the contractor have certain resources available work to your advantage? Site visits. Would having or not having a pre-submission site visit work to your advantage? Would making attendance a requirement to bid work to your advantage? Demonstrations. Would a requirement to conduct a pre-submission demonstration work to your advantage? Performance Bond/Insurance. Some RFPs require that the contractor have a performance bond or insurance. Would adding this requirement or raising the amounts eliminate competitors? Schedule. Do you prefer an aggressive schedule for RFP release, project start, project completion, or major milestones? Could the schedule limit the competitive field? Transition. Are their any project start-up, phase-in, or transition requirements that would work to your advantage? An incumbent will typically want little or no transition time while a non-incumbent may require it. Intellectual property. How the RFP addresses intellectual property can have a major impact on the competitive field. For example, if software developed is owned by the customer, it can cause difficulty for off-the-shelf providers. Conflict of Interest. Should a company that participated in the design of the requirements be allowed to bid on the work that fulfills those requirements or is that a conflict of interest? Adding a carefully worded conflict of interest requirement can cause difficulty for companies who have an existing relationship with the customer or who do business in multiple areas. Proposal requirements. Are there any recommendations you can make regarding the requirements for preparing and submitting the proposal? Are there any formats, page limits, or specific things to include/exclude that could work to your advantage?
  20. The best way to win proposals is to know the customer. All the best practices say so. Unfortunately, sometimes it makes sense to bid, even if you don't know the customer. When you find yourself in this circumstance, the best practices won't help. The first thing you should do is to make a heroic effort to get the information you should have about the customer. We've written plenty about doing that elsewhere. But it's not enough to say "do the best you can" and then proceed like usual. You need to follow different bid strategies when you don't know the customer. When you know the customer, the focus in your proposal should be on them and not on you: This is the best approach when you are trying to persuade someone that they should select you out of their own self-interest. But when you don't know the customer, you can't take the same approach. If you try, you risk getting it wrong and alienating the customer instead of persuading them. When you don't know the customer, you have to base your proposal on the value of your offering. You can, and should, still talk about the benefits of your offering. But it has to be in the context of how your other customers benefit from it. You should load the proposal up with as many case studies and examples as you possibly can that demonstrate how others have benefited from your offering. Instead of talking directly to the person reading your proposal, you have to talk in terms of a typical customer. Examples are important to help the reader see how it could apply to them. Even though you can't focus on the goals and mission of this particular customer, you can talk about how your offering has increased the capabilities of your other customers to fulfill their goals and missions. Even if you look up something on the Internet that says what the customer's mission is, you don't know the internal politics of the customer well enough to talk about them. So keep the focus on your offering and its value proposition. To win you will need to turn your outsider status to your advantage. You can bring fresh insight, approaches, and technology to the customer. You can recognize the customer as the leader and enhance their flexibility and decision making capabilities. You bring options. While you are the expert in your offering, let them be the expert in their mission. Offer to enable and support them. You can't take or lead them into the future, but you can increase their capabilities, improve their efficiency, and help them make well-informed decisions. If you are competing against someone who knows the customer, they will be saying how they are low risk, offer instant start-up without disruption, and can better support the customer because of the depth of their expertise. So make sure you demonstrate how you will mitigate the risks, prove that you can start quickly without disruption, and offer to hire any incumbent staffing to retain their customer knowledge. But give the customer a choice. The status-quo incumbent or your fresh capabilities. This and price are the primary reasons that people choose to go with someone new when selecting a vendor. If they like and trust the incumbent, you will probably lose anyway. But if they are willing to stray, you need to give them a reason to select you. Your proposal has to give that reason to them. So make your proposal all about your value proposition, and make your value proposition add up to a compelling reason for them to want you.
  21. Service projects are generally defined by the scope of work. You need to understand the scope to be able to estimate the size of the project and determine what to provide. You need to know enough about the scope to formulate your approach to performing the work required. The scope of work will be based on the customer's deliverables and performance requirements, so you need to make sure you understand what they are. If you do not, you should ask. While the scope of work is critical for figuring out what to propose, it may be a secondary consideration for determining whether your proposal is selected. The first thing you need to know is how to avoid being disqualified. Does the customer have formatting or submission requirements, or are you on your own? Once you know how to format and present the proposal without being disqualified, you need to understand what criteria the customer will consider in evaluating your proposal, and what process they will follow in evaluation. You should find out as much as you can about the customer's preferences at all levels, including technical, staffing, and management. Finally, you should make sure you understand the customer's goals, including long term, short term, and project specific goals. Your goal in gathering this information should be to determine how to position yourself against the customer's evaluation criteria, and to provide them with the reasons why they should select you. Along the way, you need to gather enough information about the competitive environment to know how to position yourself against the competition. This is critical for a winning proposal. All the information that you gather before writing your proposal should support your understanding of these items. Your proposal will need to address the approaches that you will take in fulfilling what you propose. Understanding the scope of work will help you estimate the number of people that it will take to do the work. But you will also have to research where the project staff will come from and whether they will be transferred internally, recruited, or incumbent staffing that you will hire. The most important position will, of course, be the Project Manager, who is often critical for service projects. For each position, you will need to understand the qualifications required and which staff you will name or provide resumes for. You should also be able to articulate your approach to managing the project, including how staff will be organized and how effort/hours will be allocated. If there are multiple locations, you should address how they will be managed. If there is an existing effort, you should be able to address how you will manage the transition from the current environment to what you are proposing. For complex projects, you may need to be able to provide a work breakdown structure (WBS). You should also prepare a schedule of deliverables. The WBS, allocation of effort/hours, and schedule of deliverables can serve to validate each other and help to ensure that you have the right estimates to base your pricing on. In assessing the scope of work, you should evaluate whether you can perform the work on your own or whether you will need subcontractors. In assessing the evaluation criteria, you may find that having certain subcontractors can increase your chances of winning, even if you could do the work without them. For service projects, this is often based on whether you have the right project experience or references to win. When you speak to a customer about a potential opportunity, you should be trying to develop an understanding of the topics described above. If you can talk to the customer, ask them questions until you have a full understanding. If you have a Request For Proposal and can't answer these questions, you will probably lose to someone who has the answers. If you have never talked to the customer, then how can they believe that you have sufficient understanding of these topics to keep them satisfied? Put yourself in the customer's shoes --- if you have to bring someone in to do work for you, you want them to ask the right questions to do a good job. So don't be timid about asking questions --- you are demonstrating how you will take care of them after you win the proposal.
  22. Capture management involves developing an understanding of the customer, the solution, and the competitive environment, and then turning that understanding into a plan for how to win the bid. You can never have enough information. It is like the pursuit of perfection --- impossible to achieve, but an absolute necessity to try. This results in a classical perception problem: is the glass half-empty or half-full? When pursuing an opportunity, we collect information. We are constantly filling the glass, trying to get more and more into it. In preparing a capture plan or ultimately the proposal, we find ourselves trying to get more and more information into it, inching ever closer to that impossible to attain state of perfection. However, without realizing it, we place our focus on the wrong things. You do not win a proposal because of what you know. You lose proposals because of what you don't know. This isn't just a trick of perception between two equal portions. If you fail to understand the customer, if you do not know something important to them, you will lose. It does not matter how much you did know. It does not matter if the glass is half-full, or 99% full. It's the portion that is missing that tells the customer want you won't be able to do for them. Because your win strategies will be based on what you know, it's easy to focus on what you know. However, when evaluating your progress towards the completion of a capture plan or a proposal, you will be better off looking at what you don't know, then what you do know. Knowing what you don't know is the first step towards filling the gap. Have you got the winning solution for the customer? Don't tell me what you know. Tell me what you don't know and I'll know immediately what the chances are that you've got it wrong. Do you know whether the customer likes the incumbent? If they do (or if they don't), is it because of the staff, the PM, or the company? Do you know what their preferences are? Do you know what their budget is? Do you know who the competition is? Do you know their strategies and pricing? These and many other key capture questions may be impossible to find answers to. Nonetheless, the ones that you can't answer are the ones that will determine whether you win or lose. The next time you are evaluating a capture plan or a proposal, focus on the unanswered questions and build your action items around them. If you are evaluating a proposal, the odds are that there won't be time to answer them and you may feel doomed. However, use the feedback to make sure that future capture plans address those questions so that you will have the answers early enough in the proposal process to make proper use of them. Constantly add to the list of questions that should be answered by the Capture Manager. Then, instead of measuring their progress on how many they answer, measure they progress on how many are still unknown. It will make a difference in your ability to capture the win.
  23. Business development may be more of an art than a science, and we don't know how to measure art. However, you need a means to validate readiness to pursue a bid and your progress towards being ready to submit a winning response. Proposal writing starts long before you put pen to paper. It starts with lead qualification and intelligence gathering. But how do you measure how much you know? How do you know if you are on track and where you should be with your response. Most readiness reviews are subjective and of limited value. They often do not prevent train wrecks or do anything to increase your chances of winning. Here are some ways to measure progress that can help you quantify and track it, so that you don't find out where you are on the day of submission. Pre-RFP. Preparing for an RFP release is primarily about intelligence gathering. The problem with tracking the progress of intelligence gathering is that you don't know how much of what you will get, let alone what order it will come in. Almost. You should know what you would like to know and collect. Some of it is dependent on collecting certain items first. One technique we have used is to prepare a list of questions that you would like the answers to in order to prepare a winning proposal. You can score the amount and quality of your intelligence using a Red/Yellow/Green scale. You can even identify which information you need at the beginning, middle, or end of a pursuit. For example, it might be OK at the beginning of a pursuit if you do not know the names of the key staff you plan to bid. But you better know towards the end. In the middle, it might be OK to have partial knowledge. But if in the middle you have nothing, your ability to get to green by the end will be lower. If you add up the number of Red/Yellow/Greens, you have a numeric score for your readiness. By setting expected scores at the beginning, middle, and end, you have a way to assess whether you are ahead or behind where you should be. Do it on a regular basis and you should see measurable progress. Post-RFP. Proposal writing should happen in more than one step. What is your expectation for each draft? At which draft cycle do you expect to see RFP compliance, high level solution, detailed solution, emphasis on features/benefits, graphics/presentation, style, incorporation of win strategies, etc? If your proposal plan has the authors focusing on certain expectations in each draft cycle, you can measure your progress towards fulfilling those expectations ahead of major milestones, such as a red team proposal review. Reviews should also happen in more than one step. Which review should focus on the solution, pricing, contracts, compliance, or presentation? By separating the planning and content reviews, the content reviews can focus on whether the plan was fulfilled instead of second guessing strategy.
  24. ALL RFPs look wired. It's easy to psych yourself out. Hardly any RFPs are actuallywired. Even if the customer has some bias, they can usually be stolen away if they get a better offer. Think about how you buy things. Most folks will give someone they've done business with for a long time the benefit of the doubt, but if someone has a better product or a significantly lower price, they sometimes make a switch. This is especially true if the relationship has gone stale. You may have no way of knowing without bidding. Use of the word "wired" makes it sound like either it is or it isn't, when in reality it's a question of how much. We deal in odds, not in certainties. Here are some signs that the odds may be stacked against you. None of them are conclusive on their own, and one or more will likely be true on every bid. But if several are true they may add up to something... Emphasis on evaluation criteria that only an incumbent will be able to get top marks in. For example experience of the staff being bid with obscure or customer specific tools. Overemphasis on the relevance of experience might be another. Emphasis on criteria that are easy to bias. Risk mitigation and quality are good examples. Prohibitions against contacting or rehiring incumbent staff. Unusual labeling of key staff. If all of the staff are considered key and resumes are required for all staff being bid it's a bad sign. Evaluation practices that are outside the norm for that agency. If pricing is normally evaluated at 40% and on this RFP it's being evaluated at 10% you have to wonder why. But this also requires you to know what the norms and trends are for that customer. Use of multiple evaluation criteria to address the same thing. For example, requiring that past performance projects include the staff being bid so that in essence staffing is getting counted twice (and acceptable past performance is hard to find). When combined these can make one particular element count out of proportion. Short, inflexible deadlines. On its own it doesn't mean much, but it can favor a contractor who is expecting the bid. Ambiguity that favors an incumbent. For example, requirement to supply custom software without the requirements being defined. Scopes that aren't defined. Deliverables that are named, but not described. Statements of Work that require you to know the customer's undocumented standard operating procedures. So much detail that it's overwhelming. Page limitations that make it impossible to respond to all of the requirements so that only the preferred bidder will know what to focus on and what they can skip without being branded "noncompliant." Fixed price proposals where you don't have enough information to know how long things will take. Unusually brief responses to questions, especially when there are only a handful of bidders or when they are unresponsive to questions they could easily answer. Unusually lengthy answers to questions, often delivered at the last minute without an extension. "Processes" specified in the RFP that can't be mapped or flow charted so that only someone who has experience with them can figure out how they work. I once helped implement a task order response center where we had to respond to 5-10 day turnarounds on bids that were notoriously supposed to be wired, generally poorly written, and probably failed at least half of the items above on every bid. If they were wired, we stole a lot of them away. I think it scared people away and reduced the competitive field so much that if the incumbent let their guard down we could sneak in.
  25. When the customer has already decided who should win before an RFP is released, the procurement is often called "wired." As in, "It’s wired for the company that they prefer." Often this company has helped write the RFP. In government procurement, one of the main reasons for all the rules is to prevent wired procurements. But they still happen. Here are four recommendations that can help you win anyway: Take risks. This is something that most government contractors (and probably most other companies) are not good at. But you can't steal a customer away by being similar to their current vendor. You can't just be the same, but a little better. You should aim at being categorically different. You need to present a real alternative. Your proposal should read that way too. Throw out all the blah, blah, blah that has built up in your proposals over the years and speak directly to the customer. Throw out all of your past proposal text instead of trying to re-use it. Change the tone. Have an attitude (that alone is enough to discriminate you from your competition in most proposals). Be upfront about offering them a choice. But most importantly, you need to tell them a story that they want to be a part of. If there is an incumbent, keep in mind that the customer already knows them — warts and all. The customer knows the incumbents limits. The incumbent has been locked into a contract and a way of doing things for years. You need to remind the customer that the incumbent had their chance to be innovative and weren’t. You can be anything you want, but the incumbent can't escape what they've been. You need to be something different from the incumbent. There are only so many ways this can happen: staffing, procedures, responsiveness, personality, resources, capability, technology, results, etc. If you submit the same-old, same-old management plan as you always have just like everyone else, you won’t steal away a wired opportunity. Now for the difficult part &mdash If you are a government contractor you need to recognize that the government buyer (although it's often true for others as well) is both risk and change averse. You need to take risks, but the story has to be about how they don't have to take any risks or how they face more risks by continuing the status quo. This approach may be easier since changing vendors is an obvious risk no matter what you say to the contrary. If you are in a rapidly changing environment, it's a lot easier to make the case that failing to keep up is itself too big of a risk. You must offer change, but not a change in the customer. While the customer may have some bias, it's extremely rare that an opportunity is truly wired. Also, keep in mind that a procurement that looks wired may scare away other companies, making the competitive field much smaller. This could make you the only viable alternative and helps boost the odds from terrible to merely bad. And winning a wired procurement against all odds is even more sweet than winning a normal proposal. You need to play to the chance that the opportunity isn't truly wired, meaning that the customer is willing to change if given a good enough reason. All you need to do to win is to find that reason. And don't focus on price. Yes, it's best to come in with lower pricing, but that can't be your whole story or else they'll wonder what they have to give up if they pick you and view their preferred vendor as lower risk. You want them thinking about what they're going to get. Try giving them something they didn't even ask for, but probably want. Bring them a brighter future by offering something new. And that something new doesn’t even have to cost you anything — it can be a better way of doing things or a more responsive partner. Make them question why the incumbent hasn't offered them anything new in all the time they've known them. Give them something they want more than the comfort of staying with what they've got. To do that, it will help to understand their goals and motivations. But if you don't know (probably the case because it's wired for someone else who knows them better), then take a risk and guess. Remember: the procurement is wired. The odds are you are going to lose. To change the odds you have to change the rules. You can't do that without taking a risk. Now just for fun, play it back and this time be the incumbent If you are the incumbent, then everything above describes your competition... So you've got to beat them to it. You need to say how you've been bound by the limitations of the current contract, but the recompete gives you the opportunity to make the changes for the better that you've been dying to implement. And with your history of lessons learned, you are the only one who knows what they are. Because you understand their goals and preferences so well you can actually deliver a brighter future and they won't have to take any risks to achieve it. You'll not only give them more of what they've come to love and rely on, but you'll give them something new as well. Put a major emphasis on price realism. You are the only one who knows how much things cost in their environment and therefore are in the best position to make trade-off decisions and deliver the best value. All anyone else can do is guess. Focus on trustworthiness, how they know you will deliver what you promise, and how you're not like those Other Contractors who will promise anything to get a contract and then quickly become ordinary. The only problem with this approach is that it has to be true.

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