Carl Dickson

You must decide for yourself whether you will charge for your services or not. Should you decide to charge, the next question is "what should my fee be?" 1. Determine What You Need To Make When setting fees, part of the calculation is how much you need (and want!) to make. If you first decide how much profit you need to make, you can then determine what to charge in order to make that profit. It's necessary to do a personal and family budget first, to determine the minimum you need to bring into your home each month. In addition to that minimum, add the amount you'd want that would give you the lifestyle you want. If you're just starting a business, you may have to make ends meet with other income or savings, but you need to have a goal of the full amount you want to bring home each month when you have a successful business. While income isn't the only measure of success, NOT making enough money in your business will bring frustration and dissatisfaction. 2. Research Your Fee Options First, examine carefully your skill level. It is common practice in business to charge based on skill. The more skill and experience you have, the more you charge. You have several choices on how your services will be billed: per hour per session (regardless of how long a session lasts) per month per project per "program" (you define what the program includes and how long it lasts) Next, find out what others are charging for similar services in your area. You will have a difficult time getting clients if you set your fee at $100 per hour when other providers in your area are only charging $60 per hour unless you can justify the added value clients will get for the additional cost. One interesting note is that you can charge much more in big cities than anywhere else: in the suburbs you might be able to charge $60-$75 a session and in New York City charge $150 a session. Ask others in your industry what they charge. It is not collaboration or price-fixing to simply inquire as to industry norms. Ask your attorney if you have concerns about this area. Another consideration is how much your education cost you. As an example, some massage therapists can spend $4,000 to $6,000 to get their certification. These education expenses, as well as other business expenses, need to be figured into the mix when setting fees. Finally, decide if you will offer discounted fees and how you will apply them. Some people create their fees on a sliding scale, based on what the client can afford. Others offer either full fee or free sessions, with no discounting in-between the two extremes. Some take one or two free clients per month as a way to give back to the community, or volunteer their services with a local non-profit organization. 3. Determine Your Payment Policies Decide if the client must pay in advance or if they can pay after the session is complete. Also decide if you will offer a discount for early payment of invoices. This encourages those clients you invoice to pay their bills early, thereby giving you earlier access to your cash. Finally, if you will be invoicing clients, determine how much time they have to pay. Typical time periods are 15 days or 30 days after the invoice date. You must be willing to be assertive in collecting past-due accounts and be firm with people who don't pay on time. For example, if your policy is that payment must be received in your office by the first day of the month, consider warning, then firing, clients who habitually are late in sending in their payment. EXERCISE - How Many Sessions Do I Need To Do? For this exercise, you'll need a piece of paper and a calculator. Calculate the income you need to bring into your home (after taxes and expenses) so that you'll have a comfortable life. Don't short-change yourself here; be honest with what you really need. Add 30-35% to that number to figure out the gross income you'll need. This covers taxes and expenses. (Adjust the percentage if you will have an unusual number of expenses.) Determine the fee you'll charge for one session (hour/program). Divide your total income by the per-session fee to calculate the number of sessions you need to do in a year. Now divide the yearly sessions by 12 to determine how many you need to do per month. Assuming you'll work an average of 20 days per month, divide the total monthly sessions by 20 to figure out how many you'll need to do per day. For example: Desired Net Income: $35,000 Plus 30%: 35,000 x 1.30 = $45,500 Per Session Fee: $60 Number of Sessions per Year: 45,500 / 60 = 758.33 Monthly Sessions: 758 / 12 = 63 Average Daily Sessions: 63 / 20 = 3.15 Your Calculations: Net Income: Plus 30%: Per Session Fee: Number of Sessions per Year: Monthly Sessions: Average Daily Sessions: Now, look closely at that final number. Can you physically and emotionally do that many sessions in a day? For instance, if each session is one hour in length (with 15 minutes of rest time in-between sessions), do you have enough time and energy to do that many sessions?

A well-written proposal has perhaps the biggest influence on the decision of the customers to award a software project to a particular service provider. A proposal is the culmination of all the efforts that the marketing or the sales team expends – right from creating the interest in the customer thru submitting the bid. A well-written proposal should contain everything that has been discussed with the clients with respect to the service being provided and everything that you feel the customers need to know. Getting Started Before starting a proposal, you should be very clear about the purpose of the proposal. It is counterproductive (and costly) to begin writing a proposal until you know your target audience and the precise advantages your product or service can offer them. Having answers to the questions similar to the following is a good way to ensure that you are well prepared. Who is this proposal addressed to i.e. do you have an idea about the business and profile of your customer What are the exact needs of the customer How do you plan to satisfy that need – technologically What would be the rough shape of the solution How would the management and monitoring of the project be achieved How would you ensure good quality of the work Who are the other people who are providing similar service What is it that differentiates your service from theirs How much time would you take for the entire work How much money would you charge the customers What are your assumptions What are your terms and conditions Components of a killer proposal A killer proposal should have everything that'll convince the customers that you have not only understood his problem properly, you also have 'the' solution he needs. All the components of a proposal should aim at achieving the faith and confidence of the customer. Your proposal should first define the boundary of your work, then talk about what you are proposing and how you will achieve it technically, then you have to convince him how the entire project would be managed keeping customer focus and satisfaction in view and finally inform him how much you'll charge for your services and how long will it take to complete the whole work. The following components cover all these: Cover Page Table of contents Executive Summary Scope of work Technical Plan Management Plan Commercial Plan Appendices I hope you all know what a cover page and the table of content means. For those of you who don't, the cover page should contain the name of the service, the name of the company or the organization this proposal is addressed to, the date, and of course the name of your organization. The table of contents should contain all the headers in the proposal and their page numbers. Following are the details of the rest of the sections of the proposal. Remember that there are no hard and fast rules regarding these sections. You should modify these according to the requirements of the customers. Remember, the important thing is not to have a good proposal, the important thing is to have a proposal that sells. Executive Summary Usually the person who has to take a decision is a very busy person. He does not have enough time to go through the entire proposal hence we provide a summary of the entire proposal in the beginning and call it the Executive Summary. Keep the following things in mind while writing an Executive Summary. Provide a couple of lines about the business and the needs of the customer Provide a couple of lines about the proposed solution Provide a couple of lines about why this is the best solution. Try keeping the language as lucid as possible. Remember the guy who'll read this is perhaps the CEO who does not have any idea about what "Collaborative Computing using the APIs of XSLT XHTML and XLinks" means. Put down couple of lines about the supremacy of your organization in providing similar solutions Finally mention a line about how much you'll charge for this service including the taxes etc and how long will the project last. The entire executive summary should not be longer than one page. You make it longer than this and you have just lost the interest of this CEO and hence this project. Scope of work The scope of work is where you define in very precise terms both the problem that you are trying to address and the boundaries of your service. This section is perhaps the most important section in the whole proposal because the rest of the proposal is based on the contents of this section. You should keep at least the following things in mind while composing this section Mention what you have understood about the requirements of the customer Mention in quantifiable terms your service Mention what is included in the scope of work Mention what all you will NOT do, so that there are no ambiguities in the requirements. Remember to keep your Scope of work good and accurate as this is almost equivalent to defining the requirements ib which the entire project is based on. Technical Plan The Technical plan is where you show your technical prowess and your ability to provide the solution using a technology that is most suitable for the customer. This is one place where you can use all your favorite jargons and TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms ;-) . It is a good idea to break down the entire project into phases. Some of the most common phases are Requirements Study, Project Planning, System Design, Development, Testing, Acceptance, Support etc. Each phase should have clear entry and exit criteria and should have well defined deliverables on the completion on each phase. Also mention about the location of each phase i.e. whether the phase would take place at your development center or at customers premises, and also mention how long will each phase last. Be very clear about the proposed solution while preparing this section because if the customers don't like what you propose, then thats the end of it. Hence, as I always say, be very clear about the needs of the customers and then come up with a solution. Some of the things to be kept in mind while working on this section are as follows. Although there is no limit to the length of this section, you should ensure that your explanations are relevant and precise Try using numbers, bullets and subheadings to make this section more readable Remember that your technical plan is not your system design. The customers are not interested in knowing the set of APIs or screens or database tables you plan to design, they are more interested in getting an overview. Whenever you have certain phases that'll be executed at the customers site, always mention the number of consultants you'll place there. This'll give them a good idea of the resources that they have to arrange for you. Try keeping your language lucid. Remember, you don't want to confuse your customers, you want to convince him. Provide a list of assumptions that this technical plan is based on. Management Plan Management Plan is the section where you convince the customers that they'll always be in control of the entire project. This is the section where you tell them how the project monitoring, status reporting, quality assurance etc happens in your organization and how it'll happen during this project. In this section you also specify the team structure and hierarchy and the role and responsibility of each person in the team as well as the contact person of the customers. Some of the things to keep in mind are: Again there are no limits about how long this section should be but that only makes it more difficult for you. It is a good idea to have diagrammatic representation of the team structure If your consultants have to be placed at customers location, mention clearly about what facilities you expect the customers to provide them e.g. computer with WindowsNT and MS Office and mail and internet access etc... Mention very clearly what you expect from the contact person of the customer. Do you want him to be a person with technical knowledge or functional knowledge or do you want him to be a manager or all the above. Mention the assumptions that you have used to create the management plan. Commercial Plan This is perhaps the first thing that'll be read by your customers. This section tells about the cost, duration, breakup of the payment and terms and conditions of this proposal and the project. Don't forget to mention any additional costs that the customer might have to bear viz. "the consultants placed at customers site have to be paid a sum of USD 120 per day by the customers" etc. It is usually a good idea to breakup the entire payment and associate each payment with a deliverable. Be very clear about the terms and conditions and don't forget to mention the duration of the validity of this proposal. Appendices Add any supporting document that you think the customers might need to get a better understanding of your solution and service. You might put some sample status report, templates for user communication, a write up on the methodology of your service etc.

Sometimes the customer wants to know who is going to do the work. This is often the case in a non-commodity service proposal. In a product proposal, the customer may not care who is going to be servicing the account. But for a custom software development project that requires domain expertise, they may want to see some resumes to ensure you have people with the required technical and domain experience. If you have people of such distinction that it discriminates you from any potential competition, then you might want to identify and describe your people even if not asked. In this case, you may (or may not) provide the resume, but will probably provide a biographical summary of their backgrounds. A small company may submit resumes to reinforce the credibility and show that it is fully capable of doing the work. If the project is a large one, where supplying a sufficient quantity of qualified staff is difficult, you may want to show representative resumes --- a set of resumes of people at your company available to work on projects like this one. Another approach to showing staffing qualifications is to use tables. You can use a table to show each person and each RFP requirement. In the body of the table you can put check marks, colors (i.e., white: none, yellow: some, red: green), number of staff, years of experience, etc. If you put numeric data in the table you may also be able to use bar charts. Typically you are trying to show “Depth and Breadth.” Depth implies you have a large enough pool of workers to cover the requirements. Breadth implies that you have staff with qualifications that cover the full range of required capabilities. You can tie depth and breadth to risk mitigation stories. The Differences Between a Personal Resume and a Proposal Resume Just because you are using your resume in a proposal does not mean that you should include your personal resume un-edited. Who sets the standard for what should go into a proposal resume? The customer. Ask yourself what the customer wants to see in the resumes provided, and then give it to them. A personal resume often includes an “objective,” personal references, and other items that are out of context in a proposal. While these may be desirable in the informal, personal evaluation a person gets to be hired, they can make a proposal resume look unprofessional. While a personal resume is written to show relevance to the position desired, a proposal resume is written to show relevance to the RFP or project requirements. Because of this, the job descriptions in a proposal resume will probably have to be completely re-written. Everything in a proposal resume should reflect the RFP evaluation criteria. I usually include a box of bullets on each resume specifically showing the relevance of the resume to evaluation criteria. A personal resume may or may not include computer hardware/software expertise, papers, certifications, security clearances, etc. These may or may not be relevant in a proposal resume. If they are not relevant, leave them out. A large part of the difficulty in preparing proposal resumes is often making them all consistent and customized. Consistency includes formatting as well as content. If your proposal includes multiple resumes, they should all have the same formatting to make it easy to evaluate them. The formatting of a proposal resume does not have to look like a traditional, personal resume. In page-limited proposals, table-formatting is often used to maximize the use of the page while making it easy to find resume elements.

During the proposal creation process, there are several key roles. Among these are the Capture Manager (Top Management's representative to the proposal team), the Proposal Manager (has two responsibilities: discover the best case, and do the best job of communicating that case), and the Program Manager-Designate (the individual to lead the program during program execution). The importance of the Program Manager-Designate (I say "designate", as this individual is not yet in charge of the program, but will be, upon award) cannot be overestimated. Why is that? First, customers buy not only an organization, but customers also buy people. The single most important "people" the customer has an opportunity to "buy" is the Program Manager. This is the individual with first-line responsibility -- and corresponding authority -- to ensure successful execution of the program. Therefore, if the customer either doesn’t know the Program Manager, or knows and doesn’t like that individual, then the entire organization, and the entire proposal, is "swimming upstream" in that competition. Second, the proposal team needs a countervailing force to the Capture Manager, and the Marketing Manager. Those two proposal team members' primary concern is winning the competition, and they are typically not nearly so concerned about how to execute the program, and / or how to make money on the program at the offered price. The Program Manager, on the other hand, knows (or should know) the implications the proposal has for program execution. So the Program Manager brings to the proposal team that "steady hand" that prevents over-promising, or under-bidding, in the proposal. Typical Problems Achieving this in Practice "We don't have anybody." My experience is that, even in large organizations, the perceived field of talented, skilled program managers is narrow. Limiting the choice of program manager to those with name and face recognition with the customer even further narrows the field. Therefore, the inventory of program managers meeting the criteria is thin or non-existent. OK. Then either find someone, (within the company, or outside) who DOES meet these qualifications, or seriously consider a no-bid. "We have somebody, but he/she is already tied up with another program, and can't be spared." That's another way of saying, "We want to win, but not badly enough to get really qualified people on the proposal effort. OK. Then this is a signal that Top Management is not really committed to winning, and again a no-bid signal. Remember that "commitment" is without meaning, unless that commitment is evidenced by the willingness to spend money to achieve a win. Summary Placing the right Program Manager-Designate on the proposal team has two benefits: It sends the right message to the customer, and it improves the probability that the proposal, as submitted, can be executed at a profit.

Transition Plans can be an important factor in determining who wins a proposal. If there is an incumbent, then they may not even need a transition period. If there is no incumbent, then if everything else is equal, the vendor with the best transition plan may have an edge. If the RFP is very detailed, then it may be easier to discriminate yourself in the transition plan than in the response to the statement of work. One way to neutralize the incumbent’s advantage is to also not need a transition period. This requires doing a lot of upfront homework and possibly investment. It involves having already hired everyone you are going to need and being able to name names. You also have to demonstrate that you know all of the procedures and that you can reach full capacity on Day 1. If this is just not possible, then consider cutting the transition period in half. Just do something creative to discriminate yourself from the competition who are likely to comply with the RFP rather than exceed it. If you are the incumbent, then you can talk about how you don’t need a transition period because you are already in place. But if they have specified that there will be a transition period, another approach would be to say that you will take advantage of the transition period to make improvements. Change can often be even more disruptive than a brand new start. While there are advantages to being an incumbent, it also comes with the disadvantage that the customer thinks they know your limitations. If your competitors are going to compete against you as you are, then you must become something better. It is almost a given that your competitors will be proposing “fresh ideas” and “innovation.” A transition period gives you an opportunity to raise the bar. Documenting the phase-in of your new procedures and improvements will also make them more credible. It is also important to understand how much the customer wants to be involved during the transition. Some will want to be fully involved, while others will see it as a burden. Getting this wrong can turn the customer negative towards your proposal. Therefore, you need to put researching their preferences in this area high on your priority list before the RFP is issued. Finally, if there are written evaluation criteria, you need to consider how the Transition Plan is scored. Sometimes the instructions direct you to create a separate Transition Plan, sometimes it is part of the Technical Approach, but most often it is part of the Management Plan. The Transition Plan is often not separately scored. The section with the higher weighting (Technical Approach or Management Plan) should determine where you address these issues. You must put your Transition Plan where the RFP directs you to. But if that place is the Management Plan and it receives far less weight in the evaluation criteria than the issue of risk in the Technical Approach, I would put the schedule and details of the Transition Plan in the Management Plan (as directed) but discuss the issues (staffing, resources, disruption, etc.) in the context of risk within the Technical Approach. Keep in mind that if there are written evaluation criteria and the customer follows a formal evaluation process, then your proposal will not be read, it will be scored.

A transition plan for a proposal must show that you are capable of getting the project started without disruption. To write a better transition plan, put yourself in the place of the customer and consider what questions they would want answered in your transition plan. A good transition plan establishes your credibility for being able to do the work you propose. A bad transition plan will hurt your credibility. Organization. What will the project organization be on Day 1 of the contract? Will the Project Manager and all of the key staff be in place? If not, one approach is to propose a Transition Team that will get the project started until it can be handed over to the permanent staff. Project Implementation Logistics. Once the contract is signed, what needs to happen for the project to start? Do facilities need to be opened? Do staff need to travel? Do payment terms and billing formats need to be finalized? Staffing. Do you know all of the staff, by name, who will work on the project? Have there been any changes since the proposal was submitted? If staff need to be recruited, then which ones and how long will it take? If you will be proposing a Transition Team, then who will be on it? If possible, you should include names for functions like recruiting, contracts, and accounts payable. Knowledge Transfer. How will project staff get up to speed on the customer’s current state? Will customer documents or interviews be required? Will an incumbent contractor be involved? How will this be scheduled and managed? Will training be required? If so, what form will it take and who will be involved, including both instructors and students? Will one or more site visits be needed? If so, how will this be scheduled and who will be involved? Resources. Will inventory or materials need to be gathered, staged, or prepared for use on the project? Will materials need to be procured? Will facilities need to be identified and leased? How long will it take? Phase-In. Once the project starts, how long will it take to reach full capacity? Will you start slowly and work up to full speed? Will you have any tests, prototypes, samples, or other events prior to full production? When will full production begin? Client Involvement. What support will you need from the customer? This can range from badges and permits to documents, meetings, or even training. For some of the action items in your transition plan, you will need the customer to participate at some level. Disruption. Ideally, there won’t be any. But depending on the type of project, there could be. Disruption can result from construction or it can result from a temporary decrease in productivity while an incumbent contractor leaves and you begin. If there will be any disruption, explain how much and what you will do to minimize it. Risk. Identify all of the sources of risk during the transition period and show what you will do to mitigate them. Schedule. Once you have identified the action items required to start the project, you need to lay them out in sequence and duration. For complicated projects, Gantt charts are usually used. Be sure to include all meetings, interviews, events/milestones, exchanges of documents/information, etc. A well designed Gantt chart can demonstrate that you have more than enough time to complete your Transition Plan, even if something slips.

Recruiting and selling key personnel are critical factors in preparing winning proposals. Despite its importance, it is easy for even experienced proposal managers to let key personnel efforts get overshadowed by other issues. And even if your team does stay focused on selecting the right people, effectively selling these key people throughout the proposal often remains a major challenge. As a result, while key personnel should always be one of the contributors to a win, it can cause an otherwise winning proposal to lose. Who should be named as "key"? Customers have different opinions of what should be "key" positions. Usually, the number of keys specified in an RFP is a compromise between the customer technical group (user) and the contracting group (buyer). From the bidder's perspective, however, unless your proposal is page-restricted, you should include comprehensive resumes and strong marketing on all individuals you think are essential for accomplishment of the SOW. For those positions not specified as "key" by the RFP, you can designate them as "critical" and accomplish almost the same purpose. When do I start recruiting and how do I find the right people? Recruiting key and critical candidates is a task that can consume much more time than anticipated. Since the quality of your proposed personnel is crucial to success, recruiting is too important to delay: Some other bidder may lock up a person who would be a perfect fit with your team, perhaps even one who would make your good team the best team. With this in mind, you should start recruiting early in the proposal process, immediately after you determine what your key positions are. And your recruiting efforts should continue until contract award. Once you've started the recruiting process, you should always plan on developing more than one candidate for key/critical positions. Even the most qualified and enthusiastic candidates may succumb to the offers of a competitor. Or, worse yet, you may find that your "ideal" candidate is not as qualified as you thought. The process of recruiting is as important as the people you choose to fill the positions. It is always a good idea to dedicate a senior person to direct the recruiting effort. While it can often be an additional duty imposed on the Proposal Manager, many companies find it cost effective to hire a recruiter or consultant for the task. Recruiting resources include any source that either employs or can provide referrals to qualified individuals. These normally include current/past employees, competitors, professional organizations, and employment services. Regardless of your confidence in any single source, it is wise to use a variety of recruiting. Knowing when you've found the right candidate Once you've found candidates, you can determine if they are the right candidates through research. But before conducting reference investigations, thoroughly review the candidate's resume, completed application forms, and other information to ensure the candidate is really worth the effort of the investigation. What should you request from a prospective candidate? At the very least: 1) a resume and 2) the names and contact information for past supervisors, customers, etc. Candidates should provide references for employment going back at least five years. Once you have determined that a candidate appears to have the qualifications needed to fit the key job description, then initiate your reference checks. Information you should be able to verify includes: employers and employment periods; salary history; capability to perform intended work; strengths and weakness; achievements (technical/management accomplishments, cost reductions, papers, awards, etc.); academic degrees, professional certifications/licenses, etc.; character and personality traits; medical and psychological problems; financial problems; and criminal, security, and other legal problems. And finally, at least with respect to reference checks, check all key and critical personnel. Why? You should always bet that your customer will check references for your key or critical personnel; if they are not real or provide "other than positive" comments, you may find yourself having to answer some difficult questions during orals. Worse yet, since service contracts are so personnel-dependent, problems such as these could cost you the job. Selling Key Personnel There are several places to sell key personnel to the customer. The primary-places that keys are sold are in the proposal. The areas include key person introductions, compliance matrices, and resumes. But your selling opportunities don't stop with the proposal document. Other areas in which the keys are sold to the customer include: 1) information that your customer obtains from reference checking proposed keys, 2) oral presentations, and 3) general reputations of the keys (papers, presentations, general knowledge, etc.). In the proposal, you begin the sell in the introduction of key and critical candidates. You can describe the overall qualifications of your team and then support your claims with a matrix illustrating all candidates' major strengths against RFP requirements. But the strongest sales vehicle in the proposal is a set of well-crafted, program-specific resumes. Never use candidate-supplied resumes in the proposal; their resumes were written to get a job (almost any job) whereas you want to convince your evaluators that your candidate is the best choice - not just a good choice - for a very specific job. Proposal resumes must present your candidate's specific background, experience, and skills relevant to the specific project you are bidding. And be explicit: Make certain the evaluator understands the relationship of the cited experience to the proposed project. Consider a candidate's experience in the broad scope of requirements for the proposed position, not just technical credentials. Consider technical tasks, management tasks, span of control, commonalty of technical and/or management disciplines, complexity of work, location(s), customer(s), similarity of problems/challenges, earlier program phases, etc.. Also look at characteristics such as responsiveness and flexibility. Again, be specific… make the connection for the evaluator. All resumes in a proposal should be similar in appearance, but minor format and style modifications can be made to better sell specific candidate capabilities. The best approach is to write them in a format that will best sell the candidates. Unfortunately, you don't always have this luxury since many times the resume form specified in the RFP hinders your ability to sell key candidates. You can overcome this problem in several ways such as including strong in-text key introductions with key person compliance matrices, or by providing additional information (if permitted). Also, slight modifications of the customer's resume form can help you emphasize candidates' strengths. Finally, unless you are exceptionally fortunate, you will have to make compromises. Some candidates just will not match to RFP requirements perfectly. In these instances - hopefully few - you must craft your sell so that you overcome any candidate deficiencies. You must prove that your candidate can do the work better than other bidders' candidates.

What do you need to know in order to staff a project? What does the customer need to know in order to trust that you will be able to staff the project. The following list of questions can inspire you and help you to make sure that you provide the right information. Different companies, different bids, and different circumstances mean that you can simply follow a template or someone else's outline. It may have been written for the wrong context. However, by answering the right questions, you can ensure that you write a staffing plan that meets your particular needs. How important is staffing to the overall success of the project? What are the position descriptions/qualifications for each role on the project? Who are the key personnel? What level of effort will they contribute? What roles and responsibilities will each position have? (provide a table) What is the background of each key person (provide a biography/summary) How does the staff you have selected distinguish your firm and benefit the customer? What is the resume for each key person How will replacement of staff be handled if necessary? How will you recruit new personnel if needed? How will new project staff be oriented/trained? What on-going training/skills enhancement will be provided to project staff? How will staff be supervised? What is your plan for retaining staff and achieving low turnover? How will staff performance be evaluated? Is your staff financially incentivized in any way? Do you plan to hire any of the customer's staff? Do you plan to hire any of the incumbent contractor's staff? How are skills allocated across the organization? What skills are required for the project? How are skills mapped to project staffing? What depth of staffing is available within your company?

Organization How is your company organized? (provide a chart) How does this project fit into the corporate organization? Who is the lead executive for the project? How is this project organized? (provide a chart) What is the ratio of staff to managers? How many layers of management are there? What are the major features and benefits that will result from this organization? What roles and responsibilities will people have on the project? (provide a table) How will accountability be achieved? Where are the points of contact? Where are the lines of communication? What is the escalation path for unresolved issues? Have you addressed horizontal and vertical integration? Locations Which portions of the project will be performed on-site and off-site? What existing locations will be involved in the project? What new locations will be established for the project? How will new locations be selected, established, and outfitted? Will any site surveys be conducted? How will different locations interact with each other? How much travel will the project require? How will technology be exploited for geographically dispersed collaboration? How will project related travel be managed and accounted for? How much shipping/transport do you anticipate? How will deliveries be made? Subcontracting Plan Will there be any subcontractors? Will you outsource any project functions? What are the benefits that each subcontractor brings to the table? What roles and responsibilities will subcontractors have on the project? (provide a table) What level of effort will each subcontractor contribute? What contractual terms are the subcontractors working under? Who are the points of contact for each of the subcontractors? How will you interface/work with other contractors? How will you manage work performed by other companies? How will your quality, risk management, and other plans extend to the portions of the project worked on by subcontractors? Resources and Supplies What resources and supplies will the contractor provide? What resources and supplies will the customer need to provide? How will resources and supplies be procured? How will they be allocated across the project’s timeline and locations? Do you have any resources that uniquely qualify you for this project? How will the customer benefit from the resources that you will deploy? Customer Involvement What will the customer’s role and responsibilities be on the project? What decisions will the customer have to make? What reviews will they be required to participate in? What resources will be required from the customer for the project? What commitments are required from the customer? What customer information will you need access to? What customer personnel will be required to participate? What level of effort will the customer be required to provide? How will customer expectations be managed? What will you do to encourage a sense of partnership with your customer? Tools, Methodologies, and Techniques How will the customer benefit from the tools that you will use? What tools/methodologies will you use for development? What tools/methodologies will you use for computer aided design? What tools/methodologies will you use for workflow? What tools/methodologies will you use for configuration management? What tools/methodologies will you use for process automation/management? What tools/methodologies will you use for program management? What tools/methodologies will you use for collaboration? What tools/methodologies will you use for budgeting? What tools/methodologies will you use for record keeping/time keeping? What tools/methodologies will you use for tracking systems What tools/methodologies will you use for customer relationship management? What tools/methodologies will you use for document/knowledge management?

During my career, I have evaluated, reviewed, edited, or written over 20,000 resumes, mostly for technology personnel. This experience was obtained in staffing and preparing personnel sections for Government proposals. Although some people would think any involvement with resumes is a dubious distinction, this work always seemed like an exciting challenge to me. The "challenge" is how to invest your limited time and ingenuity in a way that will win maximum evaluation points on the personnel section of the bid. I will never forget my experience as a young proposal writer working for a small business in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We were an IT services company, so the personnel section was one of the most important parts of our proposals. At the time, my boss was a retired civil servant / general officer named strong opinions on every subject, including proposal resumes. He thought a proposal resume could be prepared in two hours, so I had an interesting challenge in wheedling enough time to get responsive resumes prepared. I have found that the time required to prepare a proposal resume varies widely. For those personnel who do not have a resume or have one written in crayon on brown paper bag, you can expect to spend eight to ten hours. At the other extreme, I have found that, you can expect to receive a resume that is already close to the RFP specifications maybe one out of 25 times, and these resumes can be edited into place in possibly two hours. For the average resume, you normally need 4 or preferably 6 hours each to produce a document that can maximize evaluation points scored. However, if the personnel section is small, such as 6 or 8 total resumes, you would want to spend at least 8 hours per resume. The job before the proposal resume writer is to edit or "format" the resume in a way that is highly responsive to the RFP requirements. In many cases, the standard being written to is a formal job description for the position in question. In other cases, however, there is no position description, and it is thus necessary to infer what the position requirements are. If the tech writers do not have the experience to know what the position requirements should be, it will be necessary to have a person from HR or ops at least sketch in the basic requirements. The uniform format used in proposal resumes helps to standardize the process both of producing and evaluating the resumes. Although some solicitations will specify a resume format, most do not. It is therefore incumbent on each company / proposal group to develop a format suitable for their proposal requirements. Most resumes for technology personnel will have the traditional sections such as summary paragraph, education, and jobs starting with the most recent, as well as sections citing specific Hardware and Software systems experience. However, style of pagination varies widely and can be adapted to suit the personality and needs of each company. When we agree that the fundamental job of the resume writer is to conclusively demonstrate that the proposed person is well qualified for the position, the question becomes, how is that accomplished? For even the most time-constrained proposal, the writer should completely rewrite the introductory paragraph, focusing on the requirements. He or she should also address the requirements in as much depth as time permits in the individual jobs held by the proposed person. For argument's sake, let's assume that the position description is limited to four requirements: A, B, C, and D. When recasting the introductory paragraph, the writer throws out most or all of the existing material and focuses on the relationship between the person's career and the four requirements. For example, the writer could say, "Mr. Jones has 20 years of professional experience including 4 years of A, 5 years of B, 7 years of C, and 4 years of D. His experience in A includes . . ." and so on. When time permits, the writer also needs to systematically address A, B, C, and D in every past job the person has held in as far as honestly possible to do so. In order to ensure that the resume completely addresses the requirements, it may be helpful for the writer to create a matrix. In the matrix, he or she develops a plan of how each requirement in the spec will be folded into every possible paragraph in the proposal. It is sometimes the case that a lazy tech writer will work on a resume using the genuflection approach rather than being thorough. By genuflection approach, I mean spending a limited amount of time in lightly salting an existing resume with a few details pertinent to the spec. This approach is sometimes necessary when the time has expired. However, no company that wants to win contracts would choose to use this method of formatting a resume. A key question is that asking, who will write the resume? Will it be the tech writer, the person being proposed, or a combination of the two. From the perspective of the proposal manager, the most cost-effective approach may be to have the owner of the resume prepare the first draft response to the spec and more if possible. This approach costs less in terms of proposal budget. However, it requires lead time and coordination effort to accomplish. Additionally, some personnel cannot or will not prepare written input or do not have the time to do so. At the other extreme, the tech writer can do a quite excellent job of formatting a resume by obtaining the candidate's existing resume and filling in the facts through interviewing. In the final analysis, many groups will use a combination of approaches, with the good writers doing their own resumes and with the tech writers doing most of the work for the halt and the infirm personnel who can't write. Every writer is confronted with problems caused by proposed personnel who lack some of the required qualifications. For example, the spec may require a B.S. degree, and the candidate may not have a B.S. degree. In cases in which personnel do not posses a credential such as a degree, it is sometimes possible to substitute. For example, federal standards commonly allow personnel to substitute two years of professional experience for one year of education. Therefore, if the candidate lacks two years on his degree but has four extra years of experience, you can write in the education section, "B.S. (equiv.)," meaning the person has the equivalent of a B.S. degree, which he does. Furthermore, some writers will resort to the practice of "weasel wording" when confronted with a qualifications problem. In this case, weasel wording means carefully choosing words to obscure the deficiency, while being careful to not tell a lie.

Should you write the Executive Summary first and build your proposal to support it, or should you write it last, as a summary of all the material developed in writing the proposal? There are good reasons for taking either approach, but which is best for you will depend on your circumstances and goals. Why You Should Write the Executive Summary First Writing the Executive Summary first forces you to think through the most important aspects of your proposal. The purpose of a proposal is to persuade the reader to follow your recommendations. The Executive Summary succinctly presents your recommendations. The proposal must articulate and support the reasons that will persuade the reader. Writing the Executive Summary first forces you to articulate those reasons. If you just start writing the proposal and figure out why you are the customer's best alternative by writing about it, your proposal will miss many opportunities to be persuasive, and the reasons why the reader should follow your recommendations will never be fully integrated. Writing the Executive Summary first forces you to articulate your reasons and develop the elements of persuasion. It then provides you with a foundation to build that rationale into the proposal, and enables you to achieve a fully integrated presentation. Why You Should Write the Executive Summary Last You learn a lot as you develop your proposal. On the last day of production, you know far more about what is required to win than you did on the first day. It is a tremendous challenge to gain this insight before it is too late. The Executive Summary that you can write on the last day will always be different from the Executive Summary you would write on the first day. If you build your proposal around what you know on the first day, you will be building your proposal around incomplete knowledge. While you could argue that starting early and doing your intelligence gathering homework is the best way to respond, you will never have full knowledge at the beginning. This is true, if only because of the RFP. Going through the RFP, item by item, and developing your solution and your response teaches you things. The strategies that were developed before the RFP was released often need to be changed or even dropped based on what is in the final RFP. And even if you are really diligent about reading the full RFP as soon as it comes out, you won't have a full understanding of all the implications until you've fully developed your solution, written the response, and gone through all the related pricing trade-offs. When you write the Executive Summary last, it will reflect a better understanding of the customer, the solution, and the competitive environment. As a result, it will be more persuasive. How Do You Decide? Like many things in life, the best approach for you will depend on your circumstances. If you are having trouble articulating why the customer should follow your recommendations, then doing the Executive Summary first may be an excellent way to start. You can always go back to it later and make changes. If, however, your rationale depends on what your recommendations are, and you won't know until they are developed and priced, you may wish to hold off. Only don't hold off too long or you will run out of time. A hybrid approach is to create a draft Executive Summary, with a expectation that it will get thrown out or completely revised as you go through the process and learn more. What I like about this approach is that if you revise it as you go along, you have a baseline understanding of your rationale that you can share with people throughout the process to help foster a shared-understanding and illuminate any discrepancies. If you end up revising the Executive Summary on a daily basis, the effort is not wasted. Confirmation, validation, and revision of the reasons why your customer should follow your recommendations can only help you achieve a successful proposal.

Each theme below is followed by an example. However, details and substantiation are what separate an empty claim from a persuasive statement. Use the words below for inspiration, but make sure you include the specifics of their environment and your solution and how it will benefit your customer so that your themes will really stand out. What customers want Small, nimble. Because we are small, we are more nimble and better able to adapt to your changing environment. Innovative. Our approach ensures the constant consideration of innovative solutions. Not distracted by mergers and acquisitions Because we are privately owned, we are not distracted by the mergers and acquisitions that limit our competitors' responsiveness. Efficiency. Our approach reduces lifecycle costs because it is more efficient. Responsive. Our issue tracking system will enable us to respond quickly to your requests and ensure that none of them "fall through the cracks." Lower cost. By taking advantage of technology, we can meet the production schedule using less staff and lower the total project cost. Reliability. Our proven reliability means that you can count on us to deliver continuity of operations no matter what the circumstances. Seamless. Our solution will integrate into your technical environment seamlessly. Exceeds the requirement. We exceed the minimum requirements of the RFP in several significant ways. Best value. Our solution balances up-front investment against long-term operating costs to achieve the best overall value. Sustainability. By minimizing maintenance and resource requirements, our solution will be sustainable in the field. Scalability. The scalability inherent in our approach will enable us to respond to peaks and valleys in the workload. Meet or exceed performance standards/SLA. Our approach meets or exceeds all required performance standards. Positive return on investment. By approaching project costs as investments, we not only deliver the best return on investment, but we can quantify that return for our customers. Quick return on investment. Our approach emphasizes a rapid return on investment to minimize the financial risk to the customer. Builds a foundation for the future. Our platform not only meets the current requirements, but it puts in place a foundation that you will be able to capitalize on in the future. Trust Award winning. The industry awards we have received recognize the quality of our offering. Financially sound. We are financially sound and our access to ample credit ensures our ability to support this project with any resources required. Can offer financing. Our financial strength enables us to offer attractive credit terms to our customers. Audited. Our financial strength is demonstrated by a series of external audits without qualification going back many years. Licensed/Bonded. Because we are fully licensed and bonded, you can trust us to perform. Licensing terms. Our licensing terms offer several advantages to you over those of our competition. Faster Performance. Our approach improves performance by increasing the speed of the process. Implementation. Our approach will produce benefits for you faster by completing the implementation sooner. Transition. Because our resources are immediately available, we can accomplish the transition faster. Transition Themes Retain institutional knowledge. We will maintain critical institutional knowledge by retaining the incumbent staffing. No disruption. Because our staff is already trained and in-place, we can complete the project start-up without any disruption to our client. Ready on Day 1. We will be ready on Day 1 of the contract to provide service and meet all performance standards. Positioning Best combination. We offer the best combination of experience and innovation. Mission support. Our experience enables us to focus on helping you achieve your mission and not just on meeting contractual requirements. Most realistic. Our staffing, schedules, estimates, and pricing all reflect a realistic approach that you can count on. Organization Clear lines of communication. Our emphasis on clear lines of communication ensures responsiveness. Well defined roles and responsibilities. Our management approach reflects well defined roles and responsibilities which delivers maximum efficiency while ensuring that all critical functions are fully covered. Flattened organization. By keeping our organization flat, we keep decision making as close as possible to the project. Direct access to executives. Our executives are always available via telephone or in-person to address project needs. Rapid problem escalation. Our management approach formally addresses problem escalation to ensure that issues are promptly and thoroughly resolved. Risk Mitigated. Our approach mitigates project risks. Identified. Our approach formally identifies and tracks project risks to ensure that trade-offs and decisions are made in an informed manner. Shared. Our approach shares risk so that all parties have an incentive to participate in mitigating the risks. Anticipated. Our experience enables us to anticipate risks and prevent negative outcomes. Demonstrated/proven Capability. Our capability to deliver the services you need is proven through past performance. History of. We bring a proven history of delivering on time and within budget. Track record. We bring a proven track record that demonstrates our quality. Experience This customer. Our experience in your environment will enable us to provide better service. Location. Our experience with this location will enable us to recruit and deploy resources far more efficiently. Technology. Our experience with this delicate technology will enable us to avoid the potential problems. Our business/teaming partners. Our prior relationship with our business partners ensures that we can work together to meet your needs. Management. Because our management is experienced, they will understand your needs and be able to anticipate problems. Alignment with their: Plans. Our approach to this project is in alignment with your plans for the future. Mission. Our approach is in alignment with your mission. Goals. Our schedule aligns with your goals for this project. Staffing Already named/hired. All of the staff we propose to use are already hired and are named in our proposal. In place/ready to start. All of the staff we propose are in place and ready to start immediately. Qualified/trained/certified. Our staff are fully qualified, trained, and certified. Incentivized staff. Our staff are incentivized to meet project goals. Client review. We review all major staffing decisions with you. Security Physical security. We will provide the critical physical security you need for your staff and facility to remain safe. Information assurance. Our approach addresses information assurance and the security of your IT infrastructure. Fault-tolerant. Because our proposed system is fault-tolerant, it will remain operational even if a part fails. Continuity of operations. Our approach will deliver continuity of operations, even if a disaster should occur. Safety. By focusing on safety, our approach avoids unexpected delays, and costs. Quality Independence. Our quality manager operates independently, and does not report to the project manager. ISO/CMM. Because our management and quality processes are ISO certified, they can be relied upon. Assessment/Surveillance. Our approach to overseeing quality includes tracking performance metrics and sampling. Testing and validation. Our emphasis on testing and validation ensures you of a reliable system. Audit trails. Our approach provides a clear audit trail to help clarify the circumstances should a problem occur. Feedback. Our approach seeks out and incorporates your feedback to ensure you have a voice in how the project unfolds. Lessons learned. By documenting and incorporating lessons learned, we ensure that valuable experience is retained. Continuous improvement. Our approach includes specific action items designed to achieve continuous improvement. Metrics and measurements. By capturing metrics and measurements data, we create a repository of performance data with multiple benefits for our customer. Change management. Our process for change management is careful and controlled to ensure that new versions do not introduce new problems. Partnership The customer will be included and involved. We form a partnership with our customers that ensures their participation and keeps them in the loop with regards to project events. We will shift the burden from the customer to us. Our approach enables you to shift effort to us so that you can focus on other goals. Methodologies Formal. Because we follow formal methodologies, our performance is more reliable. Documented. We will not waste your time inventing new procedures because ours already exist and are fully documented. Repeatable. Because our procedures are documented and repeatable, they are followed consistently. Certified. Because our methodologies are certified, they are more reliable. Platforms Off-the-shelf. Our approach lowers cost by using off-the-shelf components. Proprietary. Our in-house proprietary software provides advanced decision support. Open. Our use of open solutions is more reliable and cost-effective than approaches that depend on proprietary platforms. Standards-based/compliant Our approach is fully compliant with applicable standards. Training Already trained. Because our staff are already trained, they will face no learning curve, and will be able to get to work immediately. On-going. Our approach to training is on-going and not just occasionally offered. Technology refresh. Our approach to training ensures that our staffing remain current with changes in technology. Client staff. Client staff will be invited to participate in our training sessions. Support Ongoing. Our support will be on-going, available for the life of the project. Quick. Our approach to support emphasizes quick response. Thorough. Our support managers will ensure that all issues are thoroughly resolved. Capacity. Our approach to providing support ensures that we have the capacity to respond to all requests. Self-service. We will make our support resources available to those who want to help themselves without going through the help desk. On-site/off-site. Our approach addresses the need for support to be provided onsite. Issue tracking. We fully track all requests for support in order to measure responsiveness and ensure thorough resolution. Abundance of Resources. We have an abundance of resources available to support this project. Experience. Our abundance of experience in this area ensures our ability to deliver managers and staff who understand your needs. Staff. The size of our staffing pool ensures that we can quickly fill any open positions on this project. Skills/knowledge/ability. Our experience gives us an abundance of relevant skills and knowledge for this project. Plans Detailed/Comprehensive. Our detailed and comprehensive plans ensure our readiness. Flexible. Our plans are flexible and able to adapt. All contingencies addressed. By explicitly addressing potential contingencies, we ensure our ability to respond quickly. Environmental issues Reduced waste. Our approach reduces the amount of waste and improves efficiency. Use of recycled materials. Our approach is more environmentally friendly because we make heavy use of recycled materials.

I recently dialed a wrong telephone number and heard the following recorded message: "Hi. You've reached Mike and Kathy. Who are you and why do we care?" It was immediately followed by the "beep" signaling my opportunity to leave a message. I obviously dialed the wrong number so I hung up. But then I started thinking about that abrupt message. That's exactly what every potential customer thinks when he or she is exposed to any advertising message... "Who is this and why do I care?" Do You Know The Answer? How would you answer a prospective customer who asked, "Who are you and why should I care?" If you were the prospect, would that answer increase or decrease the desire to do business with you? Prospects may not ask you this question -- at least not in words that blunt. But they are asking it, silently and unconsciously, every time they see your ad, visit your website or listen to your sales presentation. You can increase the effectiveness of all your advertising by automatically answering it for them. It's actually a 2 part question so we'll look at each part separately. Part 1: "Who Are You...?" People only buy products and services from companies and individuals they trust. Part of that trust is the assurance that you're capable of delivering the benefit each customer expects in return for the money he or she pays you. The unspoken answer to "Who are you...?" may be as simple as including a statement like, "authorized distributor for ???" (the name of a well-known company) in your ads or promotional material. New distributors for network marketing companies often use the well-known corporate name of their company to establish credibility for their business opportunity offer. Opportunity seekers tend to overlook the credentials of a novice distributor when the opportunity is supported by the resources of a well-known large company. TIP: Instead of listing professional credentials or personal achievements, convert them into benefits for your customers. For example, prospects and customers don't care that you were a top producer in your organization last quarter. They do care that you helped so many new distributors just like them get off to a fast start last quarter that their production made you a top producer in your organization. Part 2: "...And Why Do I Care?" People buy things because they expect to gain something more valuable (to them) than the money they spend to get it. What they expect to gain is a BIG BENEFIT. That's why they care -- IF they are the right prospects for your product or service. You control whether or not they're the right prospects. How? By targeting your advertising to reach prospects most likely to have a strong need or desire for the benefits provided by your product or service. It's easy to capture the attention and interest of prospective customers when they already need or want the benefits you provide. TIP: Be sure to promote the biggest single benefit you offer to prospects in your targeted market. If you target several different markets, determine the most important benefit for each and promote it in that market. The big benefit may be different for each market. You may never be asked, "Who are you and why do I care?" But prospects and customers silently and unconsciously ask it every time they see your ad, visit your website or listen to your sales presentation. You'll see a dramatic increase in the results of any ad or promotion when you automatically give them the answer.

What is wrong with the following list of reasons why the customer should select you in a proposal? OurCompany is ISO 9001:2000 certified OurCompany was founded in 19XX OurCompany offers extensive experience Our project manager has XX years of experience OurCompany has a staff of 10 gazillion employees OurCompany has grown more than 100% every year since it was founded OurCompany is a small business OurCompany is a large business OurCompany has an excellent past performance record OurCompany is committed to serving you OurCompany understands your needs and environment OurCompany offers the best value Answer: They are all qualifications. To be a reason why the customer should select you, they need to include a benefit. Furthermore, they are all about you. Shouldn't the reasons why a customer should select you be all about them? Try the following list, which tracks bullet-for-bullet with the list above, instead: Because OurCompany is ISO 9001:2000 certified, you can expect us to be able to consistently and reliably deliver what we promise Because OurCompany was founded in 19XX, our procedures and infrastructures are mature and will be able to quickly accommodate your needs Because we have significant relevant experience, our staffing resources include relevant professionals and our management is already familiar with the issues that we will face. We will know what risks we need to mitigate the day we show up and instead of struggling to come up to speed we will be able to focus our attention on delivering added-value. OurCompany's PM will draw on over XX years of experience to be able to quickly make the right trade-offs decisions to ensure a successful project With over 10 gazillion employees, OurCompany has ample human resources to quickly staff the project with qualified personnel Our ability to produce high levels of customer satisfaction has directly led to increased demand for OutCompany and a rate of growth that exceeds 100% annually. Your project will represent a larger share of our business than it will for a larger company and we will respond with commitment and gratitude. You will have our attention and focus, and OurCompany will not be distracted by mergers and acquisitions or stock performance. OurCompany will be able to start your project immediately and continue to operate without having to simultaneously grow our corporate infrastructure. Our ability to server you will not be wholly dependent on the efforts of a couple of key people who must also serve all of the companies other clients. Because of our size and excellent financial condition, OurCompany has the infrastructure to take care of your needs without having to keep one eye on our cash-flow position. Our excellent performance record lends credibility to our ability to deliver as promised. We encourage you to call our customer references and ask them. Our commitment to our customers has been demonstrated repeatedly on our previous projects. We encourage you to call our references. OurCompany will leverage our experience with your environment to fulfill your needs. OurCompany's approach represents the best value to you because we will support your goals and mission as well as the needs of this project. Which is more convincing? Put yourself in your customer's shoes. If you walk into a car dealer and they say --- trust us --- we sell more cars than anybody else! Is that enough? If they tell you they are a small business does that convince you to do business with them or scare you away? What about if they tell you they are the largest dealer? If a sales person introduces himself and says he is committed to you, does that make you ready to select him to do business with? Your reasons why the customer should select you must pass the "So What?" test. Read each bullet in the first list and ask yourself "So What?" There might be a reason why they matter, but if you haven't stated that reason --- you haven't given the customer the reason why they should select you. You must show the reader how what you are claiming is going to benefit them. If you don't take the time to show them why your qualifications matter and how they will benefit them, why should they do business with you?

A lot of proposals have really bad introductions. It's not that hard to write a great proposal introduction. You just have to start off by saying something of value to the customer. A blank page can be intimidating. Most people go through a "warm up" process while they try to figure out what to say in their introductions. They start off with something traditional that sounds uncontroversial. Here are some examples: Our company is pleased to submit this proposal to… Founded in 1901, our company is an industry-leading firm that… Our company is located in Somewhere, USA and specializes in… Our company provides… It's easy to describe yourself, but it's the wrong way to introduce your proposal. Proposal writing is very much like having a dialogue with the reader. You are a salesperson and the reader is the customer. How would you like it if you visited a store, and after you told him what you are interested in, he started his response with one of the openers above? What if a competing salesperson approached you and instead started off by talking about how he could deliver something that fulfills your needs and has a number of other benefits? Who would get your attention? Your introduction should be about the customer — not about you. The customer has two crucial questions: How you are going to fulfill their needs? What benefits they will derive from doing business with you? So when you are faced with a blank page, you should start by telling them how you can fulfill their needs. Even better is to say what benefits you will deliver while fulfilling their needs. And even better still is to deliver benefits while fulfilling their needs in a way that discriminates you from the competition. Here is the formula: Tell them that you will fulfill their needs or deliver what they want. Tell then that you will do it in a way that will provide benefits that are important to them. Introduce yourself by showing that you have the right qualifications to fulfill their needs. Then, explain why you are better positioned than anyone else to deliver the benefits you described. How you continue from this point depends on what is most important to the customer. You can discuss: Fulfilling individual requirements Features of your solution Anticipated results Implementation process Project schedule For every item you discuss, be sure to describe: How it relates to their needs How it will benefit the customer How capable or qualified you are in that area How it relates to their evaluation criteria The answers to any questions the customer might have If you have a written RFP, be sure to follow any instructions regarding the outline for the proposal, and to tailor your proposal to any evaluation criteria presented in the RFP. Once your dialogue has the reader's attention, then you get a chance to tell your story. The story is what makes them want to select you. The formula above will work only if your story is compelling. If there is a formal evaluation process, then you must score well to win. It is much easier to do that when the customer wants you. That is why it is important to tell a story that makes the customer want you. It is not sufficient to merely fulfill their requirements or respond with what they asked for. In a competitive environment with a written RFP, you should assume that everyone will do that. It is not even sufficient to merely describe the benefits that you will bring to the customer. The benefits must add up to something that matters to the client. How you articulate this is your story. The question is: Can you articulate it? So going back to the blank page in front of you... Instead of writing until you stumble across your story, take a few moments to articulate the main points to yourself. Then follow the formula above, making sure the elements add up to your story. While most of your competitors will deliver a traditional descriptive proposal that puts the reader to sleep, yours will engage them in a dialog about the thing that matters most to them — themselves.

When a proposal effort is floundering and far behind schedule, what’s needed immediately is a rapid assessment of where the proposal effort IS, in relation to where it SHOULD be. In these circumstances, I ask: "Where is the Executive Summary“? Why do I ask that? Because it gives an immediate insight into how thoughtfully the team has considered, and documented, the win themes and discriminators, and communicated those to the proposal team. Below, I show the eight important elements of the Executive Summary. But first, the three uses: Communicate with the customer. Well, that’s fairly obvious and not exactly front page news. Of course, if we create an Executive Summary, we’re going to give it to the customer. Even when there’s a page limitation, unless specifically prohibited, there SHOULD be an Executive Summary included in the submitted proposal. Communicate with the proposal team. Now THERE’S a NEW use. We actually USE the Executive Summary as a mechanism to communicate with the proposal team. So, if we’re going to use it to communicate with the proposal team, we’d better write it FIRST, instead of LAST. This is entirely consistent with my contention that, when you begin to create a proposal, if the proposal team can’t write a clear and convincing Executive Summary, it probably can’t write a convincing, winning proposal. Stated positively, the ability to write a good Executive Summary is a very good start at writing a complete, winning proposal. Communicate with Top Management. Because my Executive Summaries have a Commitment Letter, signed by a member of Top Management, this means that Top Management can be constructively engaged in the proposal process. I’ve never seen a top manager refuse to review a letter the proposal team is expecting him/her to sign! Since the Number One Reason for Losing is the lack of Top Management commitment in the proposal process, this is an excellent way of ensuring involvement: Draft the Executive Summary, including the Commitment Letter, and present it for review and approval. Here are the eight important elements in Executive Summaries: A cover, showing (best solution) OUR people doing the CUSTOMER’S work. (This really means using photos of our people on current projects doing similar work.) The inside front cover shows the 4-6 discriminating themes, and that answer the customer’s implicit question, "Why Us“? The Commitment Letter, signed by a representative of our company, to the counterpart in the customer organization. A Schedule for Delivery of Products, which answer the customer’s implicit question, "When do I get my stuff“? A visual showing some type of work, or process flow, demonstrating that we, as the offeror, really know how to accomplish this work. Logos - ours and the customer’s. Photographs of our people who have name and face recognition with the customer, because this increases the believability and desirability of our proposal. If possible, and if relevant, a photo or schematic of the place where we’re going to do this work.

An Executive Summary is usually not an actual summary. When an Executive Summary is written for a proposal, or for any document that has a purpose, the Executive Summary must reflect that purpose. It must guide the reader to the conclucsion you want them to reach after reading the proposal. To write an Executive Summary, start with the conclusion you want the reader to reach and then ask yourself what questions the reader will have in order to reader those conclusions. Here are a list of questions to get you started: Why should the customer select you? How does your proposal align to the customer’s evaluation criteria? How will the customer benefit from what you proposal? What kind of return on investment can the customer anticipate? How will the project help the customer achieve their strategic goals? How do your plans align with theirs? How do the features of your proposal align with challenges the customer faces? How do project elements align with the customer’s priorities? How will your approach position them better for the future? What improvements will you make to the existing environment? How is your approach cheaper or more efficient? What discriminates you from your competition? Have you described all of your capabilities and how they may benefit the customer? How does your corporate culture and values map to the needs of the project? Are you reputable? What are your priorities? Can you provide any references or testimonials? Has your company won any awards that are relevant? Has your company had any articles published that are relevant? Is this project large enough to be considered important to your firm? Is this project so large that it will over extend your firm? What kind of return on investment do you project for the customer? How will your firm invest in the outcome?

When you think about it, proposal writing is really about telling a story. A story about how your solutions to problems are better than your competitors' in ways that really matter to your customers. All too often, the story is written by authors who are responsible for different chapters with no clear idea of the setting, the characters, the ending, or even the moral of the story. When the proposal manager puts all of the chapters together for the first time (Pink Team) it's no wonder that the feedback is all too predictable – "solutions not clearly articulated", "claims are unsubstantiated", "compelling themes and discriminators are either hidden or missing". What is a Theme? What's a "Win Theme?" What's a Proposal Theme? Why are Themes Important?

The RFP just came out. A couple of days ago. We didn’t tell you because we weren’t sure we were going to bid it. But we want to pursue it so now we’re trying to put a team together. First we have to decide which solution we’re going to bid. We just wanted to give you a heads up so you can be prepared. Oh, you want a copy of the RFP? I’ll see if I can get you one. How long will it take you to write the proposal? A week after the RFP (on a 30 day schedule) was released you have the RFP, a draft outline, and the key players around a table for a kickoff meeting. All except the subcontractors, who are responsible for critical sections. You hash out assignments and give the authors three days to complete the storyboard forms you pass out. You get your first objections that there’s not enough time that it would be better if they just wrote their sections. You stick to your guns and explain why the storyboards are important. Three days later, only half of the storyboards are done. The storyboard review meeting, instead of reviewing the plan for writing the proposal becomes a discussion about assignments and competing priorities. The storyboards are complete a day or two later and section writing starts. You give the authors four days for writing. When you check progress two days later, you find: Most people have set the storyboards aside and are not using them as a map of the section A couple of people haven’t even started yet One section has changed the solution and not told anyone else At least one person doesn’t like the flow of the RFP and has come up with a better way to organize their section. Four days later only some of the sections are ready. You have three days to read them, edit them, and prepare for the Red Team review. On the day of the Red Team, you have a draft of most sections. In a couple, you’ve only got the outline from the storyboard. The Red Team participant from one of the subcontractors shows up with their section. In addition to only being halfway complete, the half you have doesn’t fully address the RFP requirements. The Red Team takes two days and gives the proposal a passing grade. 25 Four days after the proposal is at a stage you would consider a decent first draft. You distribute copies of the “Final Draft” to give participants a last chance to make changes. You give them two days. An executive decides that one of the sections needs to be re-written. Changes drift in over the next three days. You begin final production, except for the section being re-written, applying formatting templates and inserting graphics. The re-written section comes in the day the proposal is due. You format it roughly and let it pass without graphics. When you produce the final formatted copy for QA prior to shipping, the same executive wants to review the other sections. You strenuously object, but are overruled. The executive promises to limit the review to typos and things that are “critical”. An hour before the proposal is due, with the rest of it packed into boxes, the executive hands over the last changes. They include wording changes and overlook a typo or two you saw when packing the proposal but didn’t say anything about. With only 45 minutes ago, a car leaves to deliver the proposal. You pray that they don’t get a speeding ticket (or worse) and blow the delivery. They make the delivery and don’t bother to tell you until the next day. You’re not concerned because someone else has an RFP they want “some help” with… PS: In an alternate version, the proposal gets extended 6 times, ends up taking 4 months, with the final answers to questions coming in the week that it is (finally) due.

Proposals written in response to Federal Government RFPs are typically given 30, 45, or 60 days for submission. Proposal schedules tend to be proportional — something that happens at the mid-point on a 30 days schedule will probably happen at the mid-point if the schedule is 60 days. The phases of activity in the proposal lifecycle are generally the same as well. Because time is limited, and the clock is ticking towards the deadline, most people try to front-load their schedules as much as possible to maximize the time available for actual writing and final production at the end of the proposal. Pre-RFP. Be consistently successful requires starting ahead of RFP release. There are a number of things that you can do to prepare. RFP Release. Once the RFP hits the street, the deadline clock is ticking. If you have properly prepared prior to release you should be able to immediately act. At lot of proposals that go bad do so by taking too long to get started. If you have a formal bid/no-bid process you’ll want to decide within a day or two of RFP release so that you can schedule a kick-off meeting to get started on the proposal. At the kickoff meeting you’ll introduce the team, present the schedule, describe the proposal process, and get people started working. Pre-writing. Writing and re-writing until “you get it right” is a recipe for proposal disaster. That is why most formal proposal processes include a pre-writing phase to detail what needs to be written. Whether you use annotated outlines, storyboards, or something else it’ll typically consume the first 25% of the available schedule. These are normally followed by a review to ensure the quality of the subsequent draft. Draft production. When it’s been thought-thru ahead of time, writing proceeds more quickly. Production of the first draft typically takes the next 25% of the available schedule. Red Team review. While different people define color-team review labels differently, most people are familiar with a Red Team review as a (sometimes the only) formal review of the proposal by a team of senior managers (who were not the proposal writers). For it to be effective it must be a complete draft of the entire proposal (all writing complete). Ideally, the Red Team review should take place at about the half-way point on the schedule, but they often get pushed back. In any event it should be completed by the 75% point to allow time for recovery. A last-minute review can be worse then useless. Red Team recovery. A good Red Team will find things that are missing or must be fixed. You need to allow at least 15% of the available time to make these changes. Final Production. Sometimes the proposal enters final production section by section, some organizations wait until the entire document is ready. Some organizations allow changes while the document is in final production some do not. Typically 10% of the available schedule is required for final production. Submission. Don’t forget to allow time to get it there, whether you are submitting to a office in town or via FedEx. It is not unusual to submit two copies by different routes to ensure that it gets there on time. Extensions. The complexity of most RFPs usually results in questions that get submitted and answered in writing. If there are a lot of questions or the answers require significant changes, they may also include an extension to the deadline. Count on the answers to the questions disrupting the schedule (such as coming out the day before the Red Team review). In some cases there are multiple extensions, not only prolonging the agony, but wreaking havoc with the proposal budget as work typically continues around-the-clock until the deadline comes no matter how many extensions. The good news is that all proposals (eventually) end. And some of them you win.

It's not the flow chart that makes a process successful. It's not even the process manual (that sits on a shelf) that makes a process successful. What makes a process successful are the tools that people use to execute the process. You need to make it easier for your stakeholders to execute a proposal using your process than it is to execute a process without your process. The tools and job aids you offer will determine how easy that is. Here is a list of 101 things that should be part of your business development process. Introduction To The Process Descriptions Of Roles And Responsibilities Explanation For What The Executive Sponsor Can Expect Explanation For What The Business Development Manager Can Expect Explanation For What The Capture Manager Can Expect Explanation For What The Proposal Manager Can Expect Explanation For What The Process Administrator Can Expect Explanation For What The Production Manager Can Expect Explanation For What Writers Can Expect Explanation For What Subject Matter Experts Can Expect Explanation For What Reviewers Can Expect Explanation For What Production Staff Can Expect Guidance For Estimating Pursuit Staffing Requirements Guidance For Budgeting And Bid And Proposal Cost Accounting Form For Role Assignments List Of Goals To Be Achieved Before The RFP Is Released Form For Describing The Opportunity Form For Tracking Key Dates Form For Tracking The Contact History Form For Tracking Pursuit Action Items Description Of The Review Process To Ensure RFP Release Readiness Schedule For Readiness Reviews Guidance For Readiness Reviewers Explanation Of Bid/No Bid Considerations Bid/No Bid Decision Form Lead Identification Report Template Criteria/Requirements For Lead Identification Review Lead Identification Report Review Form Lead Qualification Report Template Criteria/Requirements For Lead Qualification Lead Qualification Report Review Form Intelligence Gathering Report Template Criteria/Requirements For Intelligence Gathering Intelligence Gathering Report Review Form Bid Preparation Report Template Criteria/Requirements For Bid Preparation Bid Preparation Report Review Form Capture Plan Report Template Criteria/Requirements For Capture Plan Capture Plan Review Form Teaming and Subcontracting Document Status Tracking Form Win Strategy Worksheet Description Of What To Do While You Are Waiting For RFP Release Sources Sought Release & Response Checklist Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Request Guidance Draft RFP Release Checklist Guide To Influencing The RFP RFP Release Checklist RFP Distribution List RFP Release Bid/No Bid Decision Form RFP Question Submission Guidance RFP Question Collection List RFP Amendment Checklist Kickoff Meeting Guidance Kickoff Meeting Agenda Kickoff Planning Worksheet Kickoff Meeting Invitation Template Proposal Schedule Guidance Sample 10, 30, 45, and 90 day Schedules Proposal Schedule Form Staffing And Assignments List Points Of Contact List Bid And Proposal Cost And Time Tracking Instructions Work Location Guidance And Reservation Instructions Equipment Request And Use Guidance Access Guidance (Physical, Network, Software) Proposal Software Guide Sustenance Guidance (Food And Personal Necessities) Lodging Guidance and Reservation Instructions Travel Guidance and Instructions Compliance Matrix/Outline Guidance Compliance Matrix/Outline Template Content Planning Guidance Content Plan Template Content Plan Checklist Production Planning Guidance Production Plan Template Proposal Quality Validation Guidance Proposal Quality Validation Planning Form Proposal Quality Validation Review Checklist Guidance For Managing The Schedule Guidance For Managing Assignments Guidance For Managing Validation Reviews Guidance For Managing Changes Guidance For Managing The Proposal Budget Guidance For Writers Templates For Writers Style Guide For Writers Configuration Management Instructions Instructions For Requesting Graphics Standards For Developing Graphics Tracking Form for Graphics Final Production Checklist Submission Readiness Checklist Shipping Instructions and Tracking Guidance Delivery Guidance Delivery Receipt Post Submission Plan Response To Questions, Requests For Clarification, Deficiencies, And Revisions Debrief Plan Lessons Learned Form

The biggest problem with the transition from business development to proposal is that there is any "transition" at all. A proposal is nothing more than the closing of the sales process. It is not a separate process, but the completion of a single process. Companies do everything they can to disrupt this single process. They bring in new management and new staff. They reassign the previous management and staff. The information collected by the business developers is often discarded or is not formatted in a way that is useful to the proposal. The two phases are managed with different goals and procedures. The business development phase is often managed as if the goal is to achieve the client's permission to submit a proposal and nothing more. The two phases are even incentivized differently. There is little or no integration between them. Business development and proposal development are treated as two different things, until they become two different, unrelated, and not integrated processes. When you define the proposal as the closing of the sales process, then the portion of the process that occurs prior to RFP release should be aimed at preparing for a successful close. To do this, you need to define what is required for a proposal to win and manage pre-RFP activity to deliver it. Some of the things required for a proposal to win include: A positive client relationship Proper positioning of the company and offering An offering that better reflects what the customer wants than the competitions' offerings Customer and opportunity intelligence that enable you to understand the client's preferences and write a winning proposal Competitive intelligence that enables you to outmaneuver the competition A top evaluation score A price that is perceived as the best value One excellent way to approach designing this process is to build it around the questions that you need to answer. For example, you can target your customer, opportunity, and competitive intelligence gathering efforts at the questions you need answers to in order to successfully close the sale with a winning proposal. This does not mean that the proposal phase of activity directs the business development phase. The proposal is only part of what is needed for the sale to successfully close. The process should be designed and implemented from a perspective that integrates or is above both the business development and proposal activities. That is why assigning a Capture Manager, in addition to a Business Development Manager and a Proposal Manager, is a best practice. A Business Development Manager typically pursues a portfolio of opportunities. A Proposal Manager is focused on preparing a winning document. The Capture Manager fulfills the need for someone dedicated to the pursuit of the opportunity who can integrate the Business Development and Proposal activities. A Capture Manager can ensure that the way intelligence is gathered flows into a winning close to the sales process. A Capture Manager is the glue that binds the two parts into a single whole. For this to work, the Capture Manager must be involved once the lead is qualified to help the business development efforts work towards setting the stage for a winning proposal. This means gathering the right information for a winning proposal and doing all the things (other than the proposal itself) that are necessary for a successful close to the sale.