Laura’s Winning Ideas

I decided last fall to transition our yard to organic care, so this is my first summer trying to manage the lawn care without chemical assistance. I was glad to find commiseration with Gwendolyn Bounds, who is doing the same, and chronicling the process in her column in the Wall Street Journal, The Lawn Diary.

You see, once a yard has become dependent on the chemical high, it’s like taking away their drugs when you take away the dope and begin rebuilding the soil so it sustains stronger grass, less watering and a healthier environment.

Reminds me of installing a proposal process in a company that has been flying by the seat of their pants, and seems to enjoy the thrill of late night adrenaline rushes, and mad dashes to the airport, download portal, or FedEx.

They go through withdrawl when you suggest they need to give up the dope and begin a 12 step program to better living / selling / marketing.

For organic lawn care, the first year is hell. The weeds have a field day and the labor needed to hand pull weeds is back-breaking and must be kept up every day or the project is doomed.

In a proposal process installation, the first year is hell. The naysayers have a field day and the labor needed to attend to their whining and complaints is back-breaking but it must be kept up every day or the project is doomed.

At the same time, we are doing the same maintenance as usual. Lawn mowing and producing proposals, so we get pretty strung out.

However, the payoff begins to show up in the second year. The lawn begins to fill in some bare spots, and the soil begins to take on life again. You find more worms and bugs in the soil, and the birds want to eat in your yard because it doesn’t have that chemical dressing.

In the second year, a few proposal champions emerge. Some percent of the firm begin to master the strategy and avoid the late night re-drafts. One or two actually credit a win to your team. The hit rate creeps up.

In the third year, you move into a dressing mode on the lawn. Weeding is less frequent because the grass is getting too thick for weed seeds to find a place to root. Most of the bare patches are gone, and you are doing some seeding to fix those spots. Now, the neighbors are starting to notice that your lawn doesn’t go dormant and brown with the heat, and you aren’t running the sprinklers either. Humm. Could it be that the lawn is deeply rooted in rich soil so it doesn’t need constant infusions of water and chemicals?

In the third year of a new proposal process, you also move into a polishing mode. Some of the naysayers have actually converted to be advocates of the process, and most folks can’t remember that they ever did proposals any other way. New hires are coached by everyone on the process, so the proposal team begins to work with sales teams who arrive ready to work. The hit rate is higher and it is easier to NOGO poor prospects.

If you don’t have an organic lawn, you are on a constant cycle of gigging the lawn with cocktails of water and chemicals. The fix gets more expensive over time, and eventually the lawn fails and you have to rip it out and start over.

If you don’t have a proposal process, your proposal team is on a constant cycle of training new proposal meisters because they burn out and leave to work in a better environment. This gets expensive over time as you have no brain trust on which you can rely to bring the firm to life on paper and in PowerPoint. The hit rate is too low, meaning you are spending more money writing losers than the competition. Eventually these firms merge with firms who have a strong, well-rooted proposal process.

Humm.