Are you doing it wrong?

This is a recap of the most valuable ideas we talked about in October 2023.

For the busy pros, it starts with:

• A bit about technology (especially artificial intelligence) in proposals
• One key idea for doing better in our profession
• The proposals billboard of the month
• The most viewed short video

Then, for the geeky pros, I've included a compilation of the rest of the topics.

The Proposals Tech Bit of the Month

Are you doing it wrong?

I just found an interesting old comment on PiE (the proposal pros community).

But first, some context.

Our peer posted a concern about how the AI hype wasn't delivering in her AEC case.

Basically, she doesn't see this augmented intelligence technology up to the level to "answer plan, outline, or even make first drafts of responses".

I know this feeling is common, so that's why this email.

Now, the comment.

And two notes:

#1 DeepRFP performing better than generic end-consumer applications is not a surprise; we have focused our tools on bidding and RFPs, so that gives it an edge.

#2 If you're getting "just word salads" you're not using the right tools, with the right inputs, in the right way.

This is certainly true for DeepRFP, which offers you a kit of +15 tools—I mean the paid version, not the free trial—but also for many of the legit AI-powered tools out there.

So, here's the takeaway:

? It isn't true that AI is only good for boilerplate content.

And my tip: learn how to use this tech in a way that works for your particular case.

?? Here is the easiest way to start that I know

The Proposals Tip of the Month

Do this, win more

There is one thing I've realized after +12 years in proposals.

A thing that has been constant, first in corporate biz dev, then as a full-time freelancer, and now as a proposals tech business founder.

A thing that, once you master it, allows you to win more contracts. Not a little bit more, but plus 10 times more.

Here it is:

?? Clients are much more interested in what you're trying to hide than in what you want to show them.

Why is this insight so key?

Because there is no way to win a proposal—aka closing a sale—without addressing precisely that, and the sooner you clear that off the table, the sooner you can get to the point where customers buy, where procurement teams decide to award.

We're all tempted to go the hiding approach, trying to avoid the difficult conversation, skipping "that point" quickly hoping they don't wonder more. This is what most people do, and it's why they fail to win many proposals.

Trust me, I was one of these fools; I won way less.

?? Instead, do the opposite. Lead with the most painful point and give it a twist so you focus the bid on your strongest points.

# If you're the expensive option, tell them the price right away, then tell them why that's indeed great news.

# If you're the newbie, lead with that and highlight how that makes you better to work with than the big names in your industry.

# If your offering doesn't comply with some requirement, put that in a focus box and teach them why your approach makes that requirement unnecessary.

You get the idea.

And I get you rarely have time to think about these deep questions when approaching each of the many RFPs you have in that calendar.

Fair enough.

That's what motivates me to do my best at what I do nowadays.

Building AI-powered tools to free proposal teams from the menial, time-consuming stuff that prevents you from focusing on what makes you win.

Plenty of hours to focus on what matters are just a few clicks away

?? You learn more here

The Proposals Billboard of the Month

Facts about #Proposals #Bids #Tenders #RFPs

The Short Video of the Month

Before the rest of the recap, 15 seconds

As promised, below is the rest of the month's recap, but if you're reading this, you must be in proposals, so give me 15 seconds because being on this list interests you.

Every week, I send two emails to the pros on this list ???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 these:

???Top Jobs in Proposals—fully remote positions with salaries disclosed at companies with excellent ratings—featured in the emails.

?? Exclusive access to?The AI in Proposals one-pager—a 5-minute read about the status of artificial intelligence in bidding that I keep up to date.

?? Exclusive access to the?GPT use cases in Proposals?compilation—the most practical AI uses that proposal pros and businesses can implement today.

?? Exclusive?DeepRFP trials.

One-click on, one-click off.

Easy, because we already have hard jobs.

Check it out! ???jescartin.com

The rest of the recap, below:

• My rarest email in months
• So What?
• 72 days alone
• Horror stories
• Picasso, proposals, and the Final Boss
• The trap
• We have been struck

My rarest email in months

Picture this.

French biologists have discovered a species of dolphin whose adult females wove large, compactly meshed fishing nets that can reach up to twenty dolphin lengths in diameter.

You must be in awe now. Wonders of the world!

Now, back to reality, if that'd actually happened, it wouldn't be me leading that headline but your mass media of preference.

It hasn't happened.

However, somewhere near your house right now, there's a spider doing exactly that, and we don't care. Even think it's annoying if it happens in a visible corner of your house.

Why?

Because spiders do it on instinct, without merit, while in the case those dolphins would exist, they'd do that by thoughtful design, as we do.

That's how powerful thoughtful design is, how important it is for your clients, and why proper proposal planning accounts for a big part of the wins.

Now, let's be honest: how much time do you spend working on thoughtful, meaningful actions that make you win vs. the trivial, menial stuff you do "on instinct"?

I believe that,

To have a bright future in proposals, you must maximize the time you work on the former actions, the stuff that makes you win.

That's what motivates me every day to do my tiny bit: build tools we all can use (and afford) to free up time for the things that make the difference.

?? Check two of these tools here

So What?

You have likely heard of the 5 Whys technique in a business context, that problem-solving method of drilling down to the root cause by asking "Why?" five times.

From my personal experience, it's great and delivers real business value.

The other day, Richa Chadha—the award-winning Indian actress who led?Masaan?and conquered Cannes—discovered me a more personal approach to the technique.

It's not like I met her or something; I was reading an interview.

She calls it the "So What?" exercise and applies it to personal problems like "X was rude" or "that procurement manager did it again".

You can consider the above this email's tip; below is the experiment.

What if we do the "So What?" exercise on two of the most common fears proposal professionals have about artificial intelligence in our fields?

I don't want to use AI-powered tools in my proposal management job.

So what?

I'm worried that using AI will make my job redundant.

So what??

If my job becomes redundant, I might lose my job.

So what??

If I focus on more strategic activities, I can provide more value and secure my career.

So what?

Embracing AI could lead to better job security and even career advancement.

Using AI-powered tools that remove the menial stuff allows me to focus on more important activities and make myself more indispensable like understanding client needs, forming relationships, and crafting tailored strategies.

?? Here is one to start freeing up your proposals day.

I'm not familiar with AI and it seems difficult to learn.

So what?

If I don't learn, I'll continue to spend long hours on menial tasks.

So what??

By adopting AI and spending a bit of time learning it, I can save a significant amount of time in the long run and improve the overall quality of my work.

So what??

This means that embracing and learning AI tools now can provide substantial future advantages.

Freed-up time can be better spent on more critical activities; thus, the short-term effort of learning how to use AI-powered tools can lead to long-term benefits both professionally and personally.?

?? Here is the easiest way to get time back from bid writing stuff.

72 days alone

making tiny decisions.

That's what took Ben Saunders—polar explorer and motivational speaker—to cover the 966 km (600 miles) of his solo North Pole expedition in 2004.

Seventy-two days completely alone (like, really, not seeing another person). But, as he has said, that wasn't the hardest part.

The hardest was contemplating the "huge decision"; the idea of that distance and the plan to go through was horrifically overwhelming to contemplate.

To overcome that, he focused his day-to-day decision-making to "getting to that bid of ice a few meters in front of me".

It's like succeeding in bidding and proposals.

I mean the decision-making approach, not the ice and isolation, even if sometimes our profession can feel a little bit like that ??

See, big decisions are hard to make. That's bad. Yet even worse is that big decisions are hard to change. Once you make one, you tend to believe you made the right decision; you stop being objective because of the effort it took you.

Ego and pride start playing their game and tell you can't change course because you'll look bad.

This is true for individuals, teams, and organizations. And it's a fact we can't change.

One example you may be familiar with: expensive proposals software that anyone rarely uses, but management keeps renewing because of the effort it took to decide and the pyramid of too-much-ego personalities that took it.

However, as Saunders did, we can achieve big things through one tiny decision at a time.

This is way easier because when we make choices that are small enough, they're like temporary; you can afford change. It's no big deal if you were wrong; you just fix it.

That's the reason I decided to offer what we do the way we do it:

Affordable tools under monthly subscriptions that can be canceled anytime.

You make the tiny decision of investing $75 and see if this tech is for you.

If it is—as for +90% of our peers—great! You save a ton of time and write better proposals faster. You focus on your big thing and keep working towards it.

If it isn't—you cancel the subscription and that's it. Fixed it. No big deal. No face to save.

?? The bid writing AI tool for smart peers that like tiny decisions

Horror stories

It has been a year since my first email on this topic, so let's compile the best (worst) stories.

For the over a thousand of you—amazing proposal professionals—who are new to this series, here's the intro:

Because I talk proposals non-stop, peers tell me stories. As you know, Proposals is one damned thing after another, so some of these stories are horrific. I share them so we can all reflect and be prepared.

# You check 3 boxes of paper proposals onto a flight to DC to 'hand deliver' the next morning ... only two boxes come off the aircraft.

# Wrong address for bid delivery ended up in running 2 km with huge packages on a shoulder

# An amendment is issued a month AFTER the submission date (find out by asking if they are still reviewing) and extended; now you have to reprice and rewrite.

# Finding out that the owner has added a requirement you can't satisfy on a re-compete.

# The IT department decides to do a computer upgrade without warning in the middle of the night before submission while the bid team is finalizing the bid.

# In INGO work--the country you are proposing to work in has a coup/ riots, and the internet is shut down such that you can't collaborate with the national team for days.

Phew, some inspiration for nightmares here! ??

What can we do about these?

Nothing

Rien

Nada

But work on preparation; ensure you're ready; sharpen your processes and tools.

If you want to free some time to work on preparation, here's a kit of +15 tools to give you quick wins everywhere:

?? Freeing bidding pros so they can work on the crucial stuff

Picasso, proposals, and the Final Boss

Pablo Picasso—one of the greatest masters of the twentieth century—once said:

"Without great solitude, no serious work is possible."

At that time, most people were not knowledge or creative workers, so that was news. Today, I suspect every one of us has realized this in some way.

Great proposals don't happen when you're constantly interrupted by coworkers, calls, your kids, or the delivery guy.

Difficult work, such as the key parts of a proposal, requires elite professionals with alone time. Long stretches of alone time, "in the zone", full-focus time.

That isn't free. You have to work for it, which often involves two steps:

#1 Getting into the zone. You can't switch immediately to "amazingly-productive" mode; it takes time and intentional steps.

#2 Protecting the zone in advance. Once you're there, you're the most vulnerable to interruptions, and you can't avoid them proactively, so preparation is much needed.

It's like getting good sleep: you can't go deep instantly; you have to wind down and "sleep" your way into it. And you need to prepare the environment so you're not woken up unwantedly.

My obvious tip is that you should work to ensure you have, and then protect, these uninterrupted windows of time to do your best work.

But that isn't the Final Boss.

The Final Boss, the big problem, the wall I see bidding peers crash into over and over, is that once you get into the zone, once you're ready to deliver your best, thoroughly talented output, your to-do list is full of menial tasks that add nothing to your winning chances.

You know this is true because you have been there.

Finally alone just to end rewriting poor SME's inputs, editing sections to fit under word limits, ensuring compliance matrices are complete, aligning content with style guides, and so on.

What a waste of your time and talent! What a pain!

A pain that drives me every day to work on enhancing you so you can use your talent where it matters, where it wins business, where it advances your career.

?? A kit of +15 tools so you can work on what makes you win .

The trap

that we all face in proposals.

You already know RFPs are full of noise: formalities, unnecessary complexity, jargon, non-relevant details, just-in-case legal terms, etc.

If you're in B2G, you know this is a curse.

As a human who makes a living in a knowledge profession, chances are you don't like navigating those noisy documents.

I don't. I don't know any peers that do. And guess what? Procurement teams don't either.

And there is the trap most proposal pros fall into: you get framed by noisy, fluffy RFPs and prepare bids the same way.

You must be thinking, "Javi, they asked for it!". You're right; they don't know better. However, as good salespeople know:

One thing is what the client asks for, and another very different is what they want. For example:

They issue a noisy RFP but want a straight-the-point proposal.

They issue an infinite list of conflicting requirements but just want to solve their business problem.

They ask for your company background but just want someone who knows how to do what they need.

The cost of falling into this trap is enormous; it means losing their attention, it means not winning.

So, no matter how complex the RFP you get to respond to is, break it down to the fundamentals and ensure you're answering it in the simplest way to ensure compliance.

Just doing this right puts you ahead of +90% of your competitors.

This is the type of work that makes you win.

Rewriting project descriptions to fit the current RFP format doesn't. You need to do it to be compliant, but it doesn't make you win.

This is one example of what I mean by elevating bidding teams.

To win more. To really win more. We need to free proposal professionals to work on the important stuff.

The problem has always been the time available. Now, we have tools to free that time so we can work on the stuff that matters.

?? Here are two of these tools

We have been struck

In 1994, Dr. Tony Cicoria was 42 and had become a known orthopedic surgeon in upstate New York.

One fall afternoon, after calling her mom from a pay phone at a lakeside, he got struck by lightning and got three pretty wild things:

An out-of-body experience when he saw himself being given CPR.

A near-death experience with an enormous feeling of well-being and peace.

And a sudden obsession for listening, composing, and playing piano music (even though he had no interest in music before).

Yes, it's a wild true story.

As you can imagine, this event changed his life, and he embraced his music obsession to the point of getting divorced and turning into a composer and pianist.

Sometimes, we need a lightning-strike moment—hopefully less drastic and with no health risk, but a strike nonetheless—to feel inspired and reignite our passion.

I know—because you tell me—many of you are kind of bored about most of the tasks involved in our profession. Especially those that are just about complying with some procurement nonsense: write your project description in this form, put resumes in this way, limit your technical approach to these many words, etc.

Well, we just had our Dr. Cicoria moment with the advent of artificial intelligence-powered tools for bidding.

Whether we like it or not, we have been struck.

Personally, I'm finding it much more fun to manage proposals with this technology, a lot less boring!

It's true I don't work on as many as before launching DeepRFP, but the feeling with the ones I do is very different. I have much more time to focus on what really matters, strategizing how to win that contract for my clients instead of cursing at RFP teams.

?? The secret of +100 proposal professionals to deal with The Big Struck

Thanks!

And this is it for this edition of this?newsletter.

I you don't want to wait a month to know what's going on in proposals and tech, join us on the hottest list in the space.

Let's talk proposals and tech! ???jescartin.com

Besides the valuable updates, tips and ideas, you'll get access to top proposals stuff such as:

???Top Jobs in Proposals—fully remote positions with salaries disclosed at companies with excellent ratings—featured in the emails.

?? Exclusive access to?The AI in Proposals one-pager—a 5-minute read about the status of artificial intelligence in bidding that I keep up to date.

?? Exclusive access to the?GPT use cases in Proposals?compilation—the most practical AI uses that proposal pros and businesses can implement today.

?? Exclusive access to?DeepRFP?trials.