Laura's Winning Ideas

Good conversation yesterday with Aina Vilumsons of the Wisconsin Procurement Institute.

I left her office with some nuggets that sparked several ideas today which can be used for marketing in the next few months.

Time is of the essence

The bad news has been delivered to the White House: infrastructure projects can’t get underway in less than 18 months, and money needs to be flowing NOW.

Consider holding a brainstorming session in your firm. Are there ways you can improve or drastically change the way you deliver that would transform the speed to market?

I’ve seen engineers split projects in a way that allowed construction to begin very early, with some loss of efficiency, but accomplishing the goal of an immediate construction start. If your team can come up with ways to expedite flow, you may find opportunities to land new work based on your ingenuity.

Architects, Engineers, and anyone early in the infrastructure pipeline has an opportunity. The challenge is to shift from focusing on scraping your fees down as low as possible to focusing on allowing the larger expense of construction to proceed earlier than usual, or in a way that solves the problem.

Remember, you can have two: Fast, Cheap, Good. The focus in this moment may be Fast and Good, rather than Cheap and Good.

Money Will Shift

Defense spending will go down, Energy spending will increase. DOE and EPA will have more opportunity as funding shifts. Where you market to federal agencies, a shift should be considered. Where you contract to prime contractors who work for DoD, you may need to look for prime contractors with relationships in other agencies.

Easy to see that some areas will have attention paid, and other areas will be starved for funding. Adjust your marketing accordingly.

These are my two favorite passages from today’s Inaguration Speech by President Barack Obama.

“We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

. . .

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Great piece of writing. Promising future if we can keep fear at bay and get back to work.

What passage from today’s speech will stay with you?

A portable death ray looks tempting today.

“Weaponized portable lasers for sale“

Rent a Reviewer: might be a good idea to get some fresh eyes on your proposals!

It is inexpensive to hire me to review a proposal for you. I can travel to review with your review panel, or work remotely on comments for your proposal team.

I also am available to come manage a review meeting, helping coax actionable, helpful, comments from your review team. In one instance, I was asked to moderate a review team of 20 executives from six firms, with a Senior Vice President with a reputation for gutting proposals at the last minute. The proposal team was worried about what reasonably could be done if the review became a drubbing of this large, important proposal.

In that case, we brought sucinct comments to the team, which could be implemented in the time remaining, and resulted in short-listing the team.

Call me to schedule a review of your proposal!