I believe time is the great equalizer in business. To be sure, many elements create success, including competitive advantage, superior product and service, and even the perfect team. However, the value of all of these elements can be lost by if not properly managed in the context of time.
The value of time is why we focus so much on helping our members target their efforts so they can make the most of their time. I wrote a blog post called “It’s either hell yes or hell no!” that details the importance of targeting and choosing what NOT to do.
From reviewing hundreds of proposals over the years as a CO, I saw consistent areas where offerors (and presumably proposal managers) seemed to be wasting this precious time.
- Guessing.
Yes. It’s true. There are times when the words of the RFP are not clear – or at least not clear to all parties. I received many proposals where I thought the context was clear, but based on the response it was most certainly not clear to the proposal manager. While on one hand, I, as the CO, did write the RFP so the lack of clarity is on me. I get that. However, consider that the lack of understanding is something that the proposal manager pushed forward with anyway. In the end, they wasted a lot of time writing to a requirement out of context. I remember writing language in an RFP that makes complete sense to me and the government team, only to find out during the debriefing that the offeror had interpreted the language differently.
Communication is hard. Getting clear communication in a complex RFP through words alone, and using the right words, is hard. This leads to challenges in communication through the RFP as both sides try to make sure they understand each other. Sometimes this leads to guessing. Rather than spending time guessing on what we meant, the best use of the proposal team’s time is to (1) target opportunities and agencies ruthlessly so you know their language and mission cold and (2) ensure you have the right SME’s who know the context of the language so you do not have to guess.
When you target and have the context of the RFP (and the requirement), you can write confidently to the requirement and RFP – instead of guessing at the expectation and ending up using a shotgun approach of talking all around the requirement. I’m sure the shotgun approach took a lot more time. It definitely took longer to read…
- Polishing
As a CO reviewing proposals, I could see when the proposals had been tweaked, and re-tweaked, and refined until it was almost sterile. The problem with spending so much time tweaking the language is that it takes the personality and life out of the proposal. The better approach (again, that I could SEE as a CO) was to spend a lot more time thinking about what to write instead of dumping words and then tweaking them to a final product. When offerors polished their proposals too much, they ended up being boring and sounding lifeless, like just another sales pitch (what Shelley calls “blah blah”). This polishing ends up making the proposal sterile and commoditized. And in commodities, price is the driving factor.
To save time, save money, and get more wins, avoid guessing and polishing. Instead, start designing a unique solution and story, and then write the proposal to that. For a template on how I create some of my presentations and proposals, check out the 9-Box Template blog post.
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