One day I got a call from a company I had helped prepare a proposal. They are a staffing company that specializes in healthcare workers. They are a small business and had lost their last five bids in a row.
There are lots of ways to write a really great, but losing, proposal. Some companies are better at it than others, but I’d bet that all have found ways to lose that “sure thing” at least once in their history.
The five proposal “tactics” here as sure-fire ways to invite trouble. No matter how experienced you may be, it never hurts to ask yourself whether your proposal teams are at least a little guilty of these five popular ways to write a losing proposal.
After a recent telephone conversation with a long-time colleague I remembered a description of a DCAA operations audit (for economy and efficiency) presented by the CFO of a major Aerospace contractor almost 25 years ago. His presentation is shown below:
As independent proposal consultants, we are often asked by customers to evaluate their own processes against those of other companies in their industry. We prefer to call these "best practices." Most often, this request is accompanied by showing, or offering to show, a specific proposal the company has recently submitted.
OCI recently helped Chreso Ministries in Lusaka, Zambia win a $2M grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Chreso is a non government organization (NGO) that provides public health care in some of Zambia's poorest communities. Chreso's able doctors are easily recognized by their Boy Scout like uniforms.
OCI provided a Red Team review of the Chreso proposal as well as completing Gold Team fixes. The proposal enabled Chreso to become fully funded as an indigenous partner directly by the CDC in Zambia.
Let's face it: "Lessons Learned" is a bit of a misnomer. At the end of the proposal process, after all the trees have been killed, after the all-nighters and all the junk food, after the costing machinations (and imagination), from pre-RFP to delivery, Lessons Learned aren't worth the paper they're written on UNLESS they are manifested as "Lessons Applied." It's not merely doing the detective work to find out what went wrong, it's what you do with what you find out. To put it another way, "Now what?"
During the 15 years I have been associated with OCI, customers have called on me to assist in “fixing” their proposal process many times. The setting is always similar. The company has been losing important proposal competitions. Therefore they need help to iron out problems with their proposal process and start winning more contracts. This typically requires analysis of past proposals, fact gathering from cognizant personnel, preparation of recommendations, submission of a fix plan in conference, training, and documentation.
OCI shareholders held their annual board meeting on Thursday, January 19, in Reston, Virginia. OCI is an employee-owned company. Following below are highlights from the meeting.
During 2011, OCI had a strong and profitable financial year. OCI greatly strengthened its customer service capability. The company’s ability to serve customers in the southeastern United States was enhanced with the opening of a regional office in Orlando, Florida. Under the leadership of Sales VP Mike Summers, OCI has been able to focus their expansion in the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas.
Now that all Federal appropriations have been passed by Congress and signed by the president, proposal personnel can breathe a sign of relief. Last year business was slow because the gridlock in congress slowed the appropriations process down so much. We expect that this year will resemble 2010, when business was good, healthy and strong.
During the six-month fight over the federal appropriations, it has been obvious that uncertainty reigns supreme in the federal spending that drives the proposal business. As recently as 10 days ago, only 3 of the 12 major appropriations bills were signed. And most agencies were working under a Continuing Resolution (CR) providing temporary funding.