Laura’s Winning Ideas

By Chris Simmons, founder and principal member of Rainmakerz Consulting

In Part 2 of this series we discussed the two primary components of winning proposal themes (features and benefits) and how they are effectively used to create compliant and compelling themes. Part 3 describes how to get the most out of your themes by providing discriminating proof for the features and benefits that truly set you apart from the competition.

Great proposal themes highlight the important and relevant elements of your solution. They are found throughout proposals—most notably in theme statements, action captions, and feature/benefit tables. Highlighting themes in high-profile locations is the most effective way to avoid the common practice of burying important ‘golden nuggets’ in proposal nooks and crannies where they are sure to be overlooked. Well placed themes make the evaluator’s job easier by providing clear and compelling reasons to select your company and eliminate the need to read the proposal from cover to cover (most evaluators don’t do this anyway).

Use discriminators to substantiate your claims
Although theme development and placement is an important first step, most proposal teams fail to develop compelling themes with sufficient discriminating proof points to support their claims. This typically happens for a number of reasons:

1. Many writers don’t know enough about the sections and topics they are assigned;
2. The solutions haven’t evolved sufficiently to identify the discriminators and proof, or;
3. The team relies too heavily on generic boilerplate previously used for other customer requirements and solutions.

The predictable result is a proposal draft filled with fluff and unsubstantiated claims. These are two of the most frequent deficiencies found in proposal reviews and can render proposal themes virtually useless.

To read the rest of the article, click to go out here: http://www.24hrco.com/images/articles/html/GreatPropThemesPart3.html

My brother is wondering whether he’ll have to launch a job search after 20 years with his employer. Over the last week, I’ve sent my missives written for my brother, to several more folks, as well as posting them here.

As a consultant, I look for work constantly. Here’s my advice for job hunters.

Local Networking is important when you plan to remain in your current community.

I’m lousy at networking events, but here is my best advice to priortize your networking. First, find industry organizations and their local chapter meetings. These are a “must” for you to become a regular at, and once you sign on with a new employer, continue attending these meetings occasionally so you aren’t a stranger when/if you find yourself searching again.

Second, find professional events which executives, from the firms you are most interested in, might attend. Almost all organizations welcome newcomers to several meetings before they seek your membership, so scout out these events for likely groups to get to know.

Third, consider networking events. There are a variety of these, some inexpensive, such as Chamber of Commerce events, and others less so, professional tip exchange venues.

For all events, arrive early so you can get a look at the name tags or roster of attendees. You may be able to identify folks with firms you want to know more about, and watch for them.

Another good idea is to have your own name tag. If your name is unusual, or somehow your name tag is imperfect, folks will remember you more easily if you have a printed name tag instead of a hand written scribble on a sticky label.

Follow up with everyone you meet of interest. I call everyone who is a lead, and email everyone else I meet. I put everyone in my address book with a note of where and when I met them.

As I mentioned, I’m lousy at finding leads for myself at these events, but often can help match folks between events. So if you see me out, be sure to let me know what you are looking for, because I’m happy to help!

By Chris Simmons, founder and principal member of Rainmakerz Consulting

In Part 1 of this series we explored the definition of a theme and the benefits of theme development in telling a compelling proposal story that scores well with evaluators. Part 2 takes a closer look at the two primary components of winning proposal themes: features and benefits.

The development of proposal features and benefits is a key part of solution development and the critical first step in developing proposal themes. Most proposal teams use established methods and templates including storyboards, module plans, work packages, or some other form of pre-draft deliverable to provide a process and structure for feature and benefit development.

However, despite providing proposal teams with what might appear to be clear feature and benefit definitions, directions, and examples, many writers and subject matter experts ignore them completely or simply don’t understand what is required. At best, features are listed as benefits (and vice versa). Or worse, they are so vague and generalized that they fail to achieve the desired result – to provide evaluators with compelling reasons to select your company.

What happens next is predictable. Time pressures force the team to start writing before themes are sufficiently developed and the entire proposal process begins to unravel. Understanding proposal themes and the features and benefits that comprise them is a big step toward efficient and effective proposal development.

To read the rest of the article, Click to go here: http://www.24hrco.com/images/articles/html/GreatPropThemesPart2.html.

Sometimes folks try to tell me that government contracts are discount price competitions.

I know they are “Best Value” competitions, and there’s a difference that’s important.

Regulations require all government contractors to provide the “best price” when proposing to the government RFP. That means you can’t sell the same widget to Walmart for less than you sell it to the US Army.

However, it is flawed thinking to extrapolate this fact as commodity pricing.

Low price wins when there is not a valuable reason to pay more for an item or service. However, when your offer provides “Best Value” it can win an award in the face of lower priced competitors. Here’s how it is done:

Prove Best Value. Most often, this will be by providing a better warranty or a better schedule. Other times, best value is provided by a difference in the attributes of the product or service.

For example, if you are selling trailers to the US Army, and have a corrosion resistant finish that is proven more impervious in desert conditions, that may be a better value for US Army for deployment to desert climates. In that case, you may win the contract over lower priced competitors who don’t provide this feature.

However, you must prove this in your proposal response to the RFP. If you gloss over it, or leave it out, you have no case for “best value” and will be relegated to a price competition. In order to make a selection based on “Best Value”, your contracting officer must be able to point to specific proven attributes in your proposal which are their basis for selecting a higher priced but better value.

After all, if there is no difference between your offering and a lower priced competitor, you are on a going-out-of business slope. I’m not sympathetic to whining about producing a better product and being under-priced by cheaper competitors. If your offering is a better quality that is valuable (as opposed to stubborn overkill) then you must prove it, put it in writing, and highlight it in your proposal.

Whenever I’m uncertain about the competition’s pricing, I scrounge for “best value” features to distinquish ourselves, just in case we aren’t the low bidder.

When your proposal generation uses a proposal management system, such as The Magic of Winning Proposals, you incorporate strategy in your government proposal writing.