Laura’s Winning Ideas

GBC is best known to proposal teams as the comb-binding folks. Their binding equipment is ubiquitous in most proposal centers. As well it should be, they are the world leader in Bindery.

I had the chance to interview Greg Koperna of GBC last week and catch up on the latest ways they have to make a good impression.

As sponsors of the SMPS  Chapter meeting in Detroit, they displayed all their latest promotional materials for branding campaigns. Some of them were sexy attention-getters. Lots of attractive packaging for brochures, CD and DVD holders, and complete branding campaigns for firms. Of course, branding campaigns are focused on the firm, and getting the image perfect, means getting a luxurious schedule.

However, GBC knows proposals have different requirements than branding campaigns:

• Speed of binding (since we often are binding after hours and within minutes of the last overnight delivery drop),
• Ease of last minute changes,
• Ease of reading (i.e. needs to lay flat) 

We still need the same professional treatment, and want to make a great impression, but we are under the gun to produce a large document that meets the client’s specifications.

I asked Greg what they had for proposal professionals that was new.

In addition to plastic comb binding, GBC supplies wire spiral binding (I use this on some of my own proposals) and their latest product is called Pro-click.

Pro-click has a look similar to spiral wire binding, but the ease of last minute substitutions so common when finishing a proposal, and it lays flat for easy reading.

For documents requiring good security, Vela binding is a good secure binding that prevents page substitution. This is good for legal documents. Sometimes I use Vela binding for addenda that are legal backup we don’t want to take a chance on binding in a three ring binder or comb binding.

These folks work throughout the US and Canada.

Greg and I talked about the SMPS meetings he has been attending and he always comes away with a nugget. His last meeting included a speaker who is a procurement officer and they reminded everyone that they want to hear plenty about the team of folks who will actually do the work, and not so much about the bigger picture of the firm.