Be Consistently Flexible When Working on Proposals

Written by Eric Larson, CPSM, CRS Engineering | SMPS Utah Director of Membership 2023-2024

One of my goals for my department is to be consistent and "always follow the process." But how can we have consistency in an inconsistent environment?

?As I researched options for this article and tried to decide the direction I wanted to go, I found a lot of great articles with tips for improving proposals. The article by MARKETLINK, owned by SMPS Utah's Keri Hammond (found here), is one of the best I found. Each piece I read offered helpful tips to improve proposals, and I began to see common points in each one.?

One of the common themes I noticed was the importance of having a consistent proposal process. Reading multiple articles that emphasized a consistent approach while simultaneously hearing about how much the market changes made me wonder how we can balance consistency with meeting the needs of a changing industry.?

Then it hit me. Having the flexibility to adapt doesn't result in inconsistency if you do it right.

Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden said, "Flexibility is the key to stability." I became curious about how flexible we have been, so I went back the last six to nine months to see how we have balanced consistency with meeting the changing needs in our industry. Did following our proposal process provide consistency at the expense of effectiveness or efficiency in a quickly changing environment?

As I looked for ways we had adapted, I noticed two things we had modified in our process to fit our current state better. The first was finding a way to lighten the hours required on a proposal to put less stress on our technical team's busy schedules. The intense workload means we need to be more selective in the projects we pursue and there is less time available to participate in the proposals we greenlight. In addition to passing on some projects we would pursue in slower times, we also adjusted our process to utilize what we call a hybrid letter. Our letter proposals, also referred to as level-one pursuits, are traditionally entirely handled by the technical teams. They are responsible for creating, doing the layout, reviewing, and submitting letter proposals. In the past, marketing would help in rare occurrences with things such as layouts and graphics. We have had the option of the hybrid letter in our proposal process for rare occurrences and adjusted it to make it a more common option in the go/no-go discussion.

We have changed the hybrid letter to still be an option but added some tweaks. Now, when discussing a proposal in the go/no go meeting, if it's clear we should go after the project that doesn't fit a level two proposal or the technical staff don't have the time to do a quality letter proposal, we split the work between the marketing and technical teams. The technical staff will still create the content and get it reviewed, but they do it in a basic Word document. Once approved, marketing takes the file and "pretty's it up" to meet our standards. Then, a final review is sent out to ensure both sides approve before submission. By simply redefining a part of our process, we found a way to create pursuits that limited the technical staff's time but still met our branding and style standards. This method has helped us propose and win multiple pursuits we might not have been able to go after otherwise.

The second change we have made is to our review schedule. Our schedule for high-level pursuits is set up with three reviews (pink, red, and gold) and works in a three-week turnaround time. The problem is many RFPs and RFQs have started going to a two-week or even ten-day turnaround time. Our current process didn't work for these, meaning we had to no-go them or find an alternative. Given our technical teams previously discussed busy schedules, we added a schedule commonly used on level-two pursuits as an option. The alternate schedule removed one review stage and altered expectations at each review. We also reduced the number of reviewers at times to help with schedules. Since we took out a review, we had to reemphasize making the kickoff meeting and first review more effective.

While these two things may seem minor, having flexibility in our process allowed us to adapt to changes in the industry and win work, we may not have pursued otherwise. Wooden also said, "Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out." For a firm that places high importance on following processes, these "minor" changes can result in many positives if we keep an open mind.

As we work on proposals, it's critical to follow the process. But we must find ways to ensure the process fits what we are trying to do and gives us the flexibility to succeed. The changes can be a challenge for a process-focused person like me. But I would challenge you to find ways to keep the consistency while finding flexibility that fits your firm’s needs. If I can do it, anyone can.?