Proposals thoughts, tips, and stories - Part II
Javier Escartin
?? Figuring out AI in proposals so you don't have to. I believe we, the proposal professionals, have to lead this revolution so AI works for (and not against) us. Grab your free tools and insights below ??
This is a recap of some of the conversations we had on the jescartin email list in 2022.
If you're in proposals, being on this list may interest you ?? jescartin.com
Now, if you're in proposals and wonder how you could use AI today to save bidding time, this really interests you ?? DeepRFP.com?
In this article:
You're the layer between value creation and clients
No matter how wrong people get it, among the core areas of a business, proposals is sales.
Not marketing, not admin support, not contracts. Sales.
This doesn't mean proposal pros are what most understand by "sales people", but we're in sales.
Today, I want to share a mindset that has helped me a lot in my career as a proposal manager and business overall, a simple sentence I repeat myself often: "you are the layer between value creation and clients".
Anytime I'm deciding how to approach a project, what to prioritize, what training to take, what skills to develop, what service to offer, I refocus on that idea.
As part of sales, proposals are just another way to support the so much needed "translation to the real world" of what the technical teams of the business have to offer, to make the client understand why contracting your company is a winning move for them.
Of course, since the proposal stage is advanced in the sales cycle, proposal pros need to get closer to what the final project or service provision will be, providing more technical details than what is usually shared in what most people understand by "sales", but still, it's part of the same process.
That interface where clients understand how you can help them and make decisions. That's your playfield as a proposal pro.
Workaholism is stupid
There's a corporate culture that celebrates workaholism.?
You're in proposals, so you know what I mean.?
Working long hours, pulling all-nighters, never saying it's enough work. All these are presented as badges of honor. There is even a trend in social media to fetish the hustle.?
Let's be clear; this is not only unnecessary, it's stupid:
Yet all these being obvious, there is a bias—fed by the same workaholics—to claim themselves as heroes, to make everyone else look bad for being already at home and offline. The wicked idea that if you don't kill yourself over a proposal, you're weak and not committed enough.
Guess what? Your colleague is out already because she figured out a better way to get things done.
That's what should be celebrated: clever, efficient, sustainable work ethic.
An investment with high ROI? Proposals
The case for investing in proposals is as clear as the case for investing in sales.
Yet, while sales is often a business area with huge investments focused on improvements—training, variable packages to raise performance, technology tools—proposals improvement is still underrated.
Not convinced? One example.
Think of a company without a CRM. Now, think of a company not managing proposals based on Excel.
I bet you get it now.
Good news is that, because it has been a traditionally undervalued business area, proposals offer a massive opportunity for internal investments and usually impact positively many factors that drive cost reduction and revenue increase at the same time.
Proposal teams, training, automation, processes, design, and systems are all areas offering positive ROI cases in many companies.
I get that forwarding this email to your Sales VP may be too much, but why don't you copy your proposal manager?
Meanwhile, let me know what has been the last improvement you made in your proposal department. Best!
Challenge your customers to win more proposals
Imagine you going to a car workshop, and besides telling the mechanics what the problem is, you tell them how to do their job.
No sense, right?
If you're in proposals, you know that's exactly what most procurement teams do.
When an RFP describes specific project work breakdowns, work packages and tasks, schedules (not deadlines), and technical and management approaches, that's the procurement team telling their vendors how to do their job.
You know it's a mistake they keep making, and yours is giving them what they ask for instead of what they need.
Your company knows how to do your job; procurement teams don't. That's why they need a contractor in the first place. So,
if they ask for an unmanageable work package, challenge it.
if they ask for a non-sense deliverable, challenge it.
if they put duration on tasks instead of deadlines for outputs, challenge it.
You get the idea.
Proposal teams can win more by challenging customers and taking control of the technical conversation, focusing on "how to achieve what you really need".
Guess what, they wish for a bidder that does this, a bidder that shows them how things are really done, one that shows understanding and know-how.
Good sales pros understand this very well. Proposal pros should as well.
Proposal Pros' unique opportunity? Work in any industry
There aren't many jobs as transferable as proposal management.
I don't mean proposals require transferable skills—they do—but that good proposal pros can do their magic in any industry.
Sure, experience in a certain space is an advantage; knowing the players, understanding procurement cycles, and being fluent in its jargon help a lot. Now, someone who knows how to manage complex proposals can change markets and be up to speed in no time.
Not many professionals have this opportunity. For sure, not SMEs, but neither other more transferable jobs like marketing or project management—most professionals would have a harder time than proposals pros when moving from AEC to pharma, for example.
I took advantage of this unique opportunity when I left my corporate career in Aerospace to serve clients in a broad range of markets as a freelance.?
Have you?
As a proposal pro and entrepreneur, I always try to offer maximum value and ask for something less valuable in exchange. For me, that's value creation; that's business.
Treat proposal pros as capable adults
There's a common excuse that bad directors use to block proposal management going remote; it takes a form similar to this:
How can I know they're working if I can't see them?
Before talking about remote work, let's be clear: if you can't trust your people, remote work is the least of your problems.
Back to remote work, this excuse is flawed in two senses.
First, having people sitting in your office from 9am to 5pm (or 7, or 9...) doesn't equal productivity. If someone doesn't want to work, they'll find a way; there're plenty of opportunities to be a slacker in an office!
Second, if you can't trust people to manage their own workload and schedule, why would you trust them to manage your proposals in the first place?
Everything comes down to trust and professionalism. Treat people as capable adults, and they'll get results.
As Sir Richard Branson once said,
"To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done wherever they are, without supervision.”
Does your proposal department have this?
Today's email is shorter than usual. I just want to share on insight and let you think about it.
Since I started full-time freelancing as a proposal manager, I've had the opportunity to work with many companies in different sectors.
This is one thing I've realized makes a huge difference in how proposal teams perform.
Reputation. Brand. Prestige. Credit. Character. Whatever you want to call it.
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That thing, built over time with real actions, is what I've found differentiates the proposal management departments that are always rushing and the ones that are always on time.
In a profession that depends so heavily on managing stakeholders' expectations and contributors' inputs, having a solid brand is priceless.
As said, this is it. I'd recommend you think about what your proposal department is doing to build and maintain a reputation that makes your life easier.
Read this email at your own peril
Seriously, be careful. Especially if you're:
I don't want to mess up your day.
I like to read Nassim Taleb's aphorisms book "The Bed of Procrustes" in a certain way: I open it on a random page and read aphorisms until one hits me—the book is so good that I rarely have to read more than four aphorisms.
Yesterday, this one made it:
"Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working; be selective about professions."
Being in proposals, I couldn't relate more.
I kept thinking about it and realized that three factors protect "my soul from being destroyed" (Taleb got a little bit epic ??), even if ongoing proposals stay with me when off work:
I love proposals—well, it's more like a love-hate relationship with the space, but there's plenty of love in it.
I work for myself—this helps because even if I think about a proposal on a Sunday afternoon, that ultimately benefits my services business.
I've developed routines to strengthen boundaries—the non-distraction mode on my phone works the other way (blocks work apps ??), and I do activities where it's impossible not to disconnect from work (high-intensity training, movies, engaging non-business podcasts).
A revolution is coming to proposals
I deeply believe you, as an amazing proposal pro, have a bright future where leadership and creativity will dominate most of your working day.
But, hey! This is not a self-help email; I'm not playing Tony Robbins here.
I truly believe the pros that adapt to the coming revolution will have a huge opportunity.
And what revolution is that?
Narrow artificial intelligence.
And with narrow, I mean the type of AI specialized in doing only one thing and doing that way better than people.
Forget sci-fi movies; this is not software that replaces proposal pros but takes care of the repetitive tasks you're now doing with tech tools.
If you're doing something over and over with a computer tool, it's likely humans won't be needed for that in the next 10-years.
And once many of these land your tech stack, the proposals race will be about having the best tools, the best data, and being in a better strategic position.
Of course, for the latter, you'll be much needed and even more key than today. Proposal preparation won't take much of your workload; strategic leadership and creativity will.
I think this is a bright future for the proposals community, one when jobs are more fulfilling and better paid.
As you know, I'm doing my part to make this future happen with DeepRFP, which right now is the best narrow AI for generating compliance matrices in the world.
And I don't say this as a marketing exaggeration; that's a fact and can be proved.
Avoiding meetings like the plague
I spend most of my working time focused on two things:
From the above, you may guess I'm a lot in meetings.
You also may guess that I wouldn't be writing this email if that was the case. And you're right.
I don't attend or schedule almost any meeting, whether with my team or my clients.
It took me some time, especially when working with clients, but I've found ways and established processes by following these steps every time I'm tempted to call a meeting or invited to one:
There is only one type of meeting I keep scheduling because I haven't found a better way yet: brainstorming for problem-solving.?
The ideas flow that real-time conversations generate when trying to find solutions to complex problems is unmatched. It's like magic.
What's the most exciting proposal you've managed?
This email is about two things.
Know about the most exciting proposal you've managed, and share mine.
For the first thing, I'll need you to email me. Here comes the second:
My proposal was not the biggest—the ones I did when in corporate were bigger—but everything from the RFP to the project itself made it exciting.
I managed it as a consultant for an environmental recovery company in response to the tender:
? Removal, processing and disposal of derelict boats in the British Virgin Islands.
Following the passing of Category 5 Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, over 200 boats were left stranded along the coastlines and bays of the British Virgin Islands.
The Recovery and Development Agency of the BVI issued an RFP to, basically, make them disappear while minimizing impact and not killing anyone in the process.
The latter may seem obvious, but it gets risky for this type of work when you can't make a road to access a remote mangrove to tow a boat, or you can't touch the seabed to refloat a sunk vessel.?
The safety requirements were hard. We had to subcontract very niche diving teams from the U.K. and South Africa. We had to quote for scarce equipment—have you ever heard about what a containerized DDC is? I hadn't.?
By the way, the U.S. had to send their Coast Guard to do this in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The tender scope had nine work packages to find, remove, and process the vessels into recyclable materials (to be reused in the islands) and spare and non-recyclable parts (to be exported).
This proposal will be with me for life.
Disastrous unexpected bottlenecks
You probably know that I'm launching—and personally funding, so everything hurts a little bit more ??—a new business with a bold vision.?
This email is not about that business; you can check that below.
This email is about unexpected bottlenecks, those tasks that, without warning, become your main pain, preventing progress as planned, usually costing money.
I've recently suffered one of these nasty unforeseen, and I've promised myself I will never start any kind of project without sketching a process diagram and double-checking my assumptions.
Of course, this applies to proposals, which is what I mostly do for a living. It's common in proposal management to have identified some usual bottleneck suspects such as SMEs, subcos, or a VP's signature always coming late. But most of the risk is on the hidden ones, the ones I can't list because, well, they're unknown.
The only way I've found to discover these in advance is to draw a flow diagram and challenge every assumption. And I mean "every". I recommend you do the same. Hopefully, you discover a few where you're wrong and save you some hassle.
Before you go,
You must be in proposals, so being on this list interests you.
Every week, I send two emails to the pros here ?? jescartin.com, one on how to do better at proposals and one about proposals technology.
The coolest thing on this list is the emails, yet the hundreds of proposals pros on it also get exclusive access to top proposals stuff for free.
Like what?
Like access to the Top Jobs in Proposals—a job board including only fully remote positions with salaries disclosed at companies with excellent ratings—or the GPT use cases for RFPs & Proposals compilation including the most practical AI uses that proposal pros and businesses can implement today.
One-click on, one-click off. Easy.
Check it out! ? jescartin.com ?