This is brilliant. If you are selling cat food, what does your target audience like? Watching videos of cute cats, but better yet, watching their own precious feline being cute.

What the heck does this have to do with your firm? Plenty.

The leaders in our industry are already developing their social media chops. Barton Malow has an executive focused on Social Media, and they are a Construction Management firm.

No, you don’t need to be tweeting your lunch selection to the ether. But if you were the FDA, you’d be a hot twitter feed by posting drug approvals via Twitter. They are now a must have app for Pharma execs. (search for @FDAMedWatch at Twitter.com)

Think about what would help and thrill your clients. Could a preview of an aspect of your proposal be put on YouTube? Saves your client having to manage a video file and you having to forego “showing them” how it would work. YouTube allows you to select Private settings so you send a link to your video and it doesn’t get displayed with Lady Gaga’s latest music video. This isn’t high security, but it is “good enough” for straight forward information that isn’t sensitive.

I delivered an electronic file to a client a few months ago. It is a pretty nifty file, which converts a Goals to Metrics chart to a Gantt Chart and allows them to use the file as a living document. We worked from a set of dummy data to design the file. I hired a consultant who turned my nightmare idea into a dream. He video taped his demo of the file so I could approve it. Once it was finished, we loaded the client’s proprietary information into the file and delivered the file. However, I posted the video for them to refer to as instruction when they started using the file. That was helpful for them since I couldn’t be there in person to demo the file.

Is there a helpful bit that could be made into an App? A lookup table particular to your industry? A reference document that could be interactive and distributed to clients?

The folks at Solar Roadways are making great headway, and they accomplished most of their publicity with social media. They do a great job on videos, even though they have a lousy website.

Can you turn a manual you have written for internal use into an eBook for clients and customers? <shameless self promotion> One of my books: The Magic of Winning Proposals is available as an iBook and at Amazon as an eBook for the Kindle. </shameless self promotion>

Proposal folks are creative souls. What do you have that would be better communicated with a video? What would help you stand out from the herd in a crowded competition? Cruise the app store of your choice and download a variety of apps to see what might spark an idea for your firm. Keep it simple at first.

When I discovered that the YouTube search engine is the second only to Google, I started shooting video for my husband’s small business. (As my friends say, tell’em what your husband does, because THAT’s interesting.) Take a look a few of our videos, shot by an amateur and edited by a professional. These videos helped his business close its best year during the worst recession of our lives.  These are the car guy equivalent of cute cat videos: Davids4Speeds – Restoring 4 Speed manual transmissions for 1960′s and 70′s muscle cars.

Can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

Gotta love the idea of engineering change by adding fun to the equation. What about your process could be changed positively by adding fun?

Lottery for resume updates? Video dance of Joy for on-time submissions?

Look at the Other Side of the Coin

However, I have an alternative viewpoint when my own copyright is violated. When folks “borrow” my materials, I am thrilled so long as they attribute the work to me and/or my website.

I was not born with this enlightened perspective.

Back in 1996, I was writing my training manual, The Magic of Winning Proposals. Friends were subcontracted to help me write and edit the manual. I threw all the pages up on the web, so everyone would have one source for the latest version of each page. I knew the search engine spiders would eventually find these pages, and made a note to myself to remove them as soon as possible. (This was before a small operator could easily firewall portions of their website, and FTP was too slow for our purposes.)

At the same time, I was new in my consulting practice. I was tracking my time carefully so I could figure out my split of of hours spent on billable, marketing, and administrative tasks. Because I was tracking my hours, I knew exactly how much time I spent responding to freeloaders. Freeloaders are the folks who called and snowed me as to their actual ability to pay for my advice. They would talk about hiring me, pick my brains, ask for a full blown proposal and then disappear. I knew I had to get better at screening freeloaders so I could spend my time in a fashion that would pay the mortgage.

After a few weeks work on my training manual, the search engines found my pages. I was surprised to see that these draft pages rose in the search engines over my carefully written home page and website pages. I was determined to wrap things up in the next 3 weeks and take those pages down.

However, I noticed something that didn’t make sense. The hours I spent on freeloaders dropped off to almost nothing. And, I’d started getting thank you notes from people who couldn’t afford to hire a consultant or trainer, but who needed some tidbit of information about my areas of expertise, Winning Proposals and Building Virtual Teams.

I’m a sociologist by training, and figured out what was happening. Some folks needing help couldn’t afford to hire me. They would find my website, and knew I had knowledge they needed but could not afford. When they were unsuccessful finding answers to their questions, they would begin to justify their “need” against my “fees.” Then, they would approach me to get the help they needed without paying me, and justified a dishonest approach because I was “withholding” from them.

Without realizing it, I’d created a negative vortex that was costing me hours of wasted effort, PLUS eliminating any positive impression that might result in work for me in the future. With this mindset, these people would never come back to hire me when their firm got bigger. With this mindset, they couldn’t regard me well. With this mindset, they wouldn’t remember me and call when they’d moved on to a larger firm where my services would be helpful.

This stopped when I “gave away” my training manual.

And I’ve been given contracts by people who found my manual, used it, and later were in a position to expand their expertise, and hired me to help them.

Funny thing is, I’ve never lost a contract because my manual is available on-line for free. Larger firms who can afford my services realize there are lots of books on my topic. They aren’t buying my manual, they are buying my expertise and ability to motivate their staff.

My competitors were sure I was nuts.They can’t believe I have my training manual on-line, though some of them are catching on to the profitability of “giving it away.”

My clients regularly get the pitch to cut costs by giving away data. One of my clients, a fortune 50 company, realized they’d wasted thousands on sales calls because they had a database they’d locked behind their firewall that non-customers needed to query. Once they unlocked the database and “leaked” the URL to the query page, they dropped a nice percent of sales calls (costing $5,000 each) and got thank you notes instead.

What valuable materials are you keeping locked away that are costing you money by witholding them from the wild?

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!

Your fortune may be changing.

If you sell to the Federal Government, your firm may have been rebuffed in the past with ideas to help the agency.

However, the time to polish up those new ideas is upon us. The new administration has made it clear they will reward new ideas and encourage change. I expect this is not the usual political rhetoric and will be backed up with funding.

Times are ripe for change. Goodness knows, we are in some trouble and need to find new ways to do many things if we are to succeed. Agencies willing, but suffering from lack of an environment to entertain change, now have their chance.

Even the folks reluctant to consider new ideas will feel pressure to build a political cover for themselves as a change agent. You may be surprised by who is willing to hear you out, and help you.

State and Local government agencies may feel this wave later, and it may be less strong, but infrastructure will see increased funding as the federal government prints money to get people moving and back to work.

If you chair or attend your business development meetings, consider whether your firm should re-consider promoting new ideas NOW to your clients and customers.

Most often, my team has put out our shingle and spread the word that we would help with resumes. If your team has the ability, and your organization is going through change, you might consider doing the same.

Here’s the first steps I recommend:

1. Suggest they get a book to help

My favorite is The Damn Good Resume Guide by Yana Parker. This book is short, has lots of examples, and guides you through the process of writing a great resume. The resume and cover letter are simply a proposal, and getting an interview is the same as making the shortlist. In this book, the page of action verbs is worth the price of the entire book.

2. Suggest they start a master resume file

The goal is to look like you’ve been preparing for the specific opportunity at hand for years. The goal is not to work hard on the perfect resume and then make 200 copies to send out.

Sigh. Everyone should update their resume regularly in your proposal database, but not everyone does this. Sigh. Your corporate resume database should include career long activities so you have lots of fodder to customize resumes for proposals, but many organizations only maintain the latest version of each person’s resume.

Therefore, most folks will need a list of everything they’ve accomplished in their career, not just their latest activities. As they remember brilliant things they’ve done, these should be added first to the master resume file before using them in a current resume.

Most job searches will take longer than hoped for. You’ll need to create custom resumes on the fly, responding to opportunities within a day. With a career long master resume file, you have a checklist of your experiences from which to quickly build a responsive resume.

As a consultant, I’m always looking for work. I often find an opportunity in another industry, one with which I’m familiar only because I worked with that industry many years ago. My master resume file jogs my memory for those less recent activities.

A master resume file is just a list of all your previous activities. You’ll edit the ones you use for a resume, and update this file every time you create a new resume. I keep mine in MS Word, and any software will work.

3. Order personal business cards

If possible, they’ll want to hand out new business cards to everyone as they depart. And they’ll want to have them handy to give to everyone they meet along the job hunt.

Don’t be cute. Just have name, address, phone and email on a professionally printed card with a blank back so folks can note where they met and how impressed they were!

My favorite printer is VistaPrint. Pick a style from the FREE BUSINESS CARDS and then pay ($9.99) to leave off their logo on the back. Don’t use the microperf business card stock you print at home. It looks unprofessional, and costs more.

4. Bring in their sample resume for editing

Finally, you can edit their resumes. Fresh eyes and a professional writer are valuable gifts you can offer. Sometimes outplacement is offered, and you may be just an extra option. Sometimes placement doesn’t cover resumes right away and your offer may calm nerves. If no placement assistance is offered, you will be most welcome.

However, the good news is that the weak economic news will likely result in federal funds being released for a variety of projects your firm can perform. Your Local and State agencies will see an influx of funds with requirements for public spending. Therefore, you’ll want to stay in touch with your local and state agencies.

Mini Marketing Plan

The GO / NO GO worksheet is a great guideline for the tasks you’ll want to work on now. Get positioned to win your next contract!

Visit The Magic of Winning Proposals to plan your Business Development

Call a team meeting now, go through the GO/NO GO worksheet, and then make a list of the things you can be doing now to get ready to assess RFPs.

Get Ready to Write Proposals

You will have some decisions to make about which RFPs you should respond to. Be sure to evaluate each RFP and select the best candidates to win. You don’t want to waste time writing loser proposals and lack the energy and dedication to write the proposals you should WIN.

GO /NO GO

The quickest way to improve your hit rate is to focus on the opportunities you are ready to win. Frankly assess each opportunity before committing resources to write a proposal. Then kill the losers before you spend time and money needlessly. Winners have the discipline to pass by losers and get ready to work hard for the contracts you WILL WIN.

Black Hole Report

Some organizations have the GO / NO GO process mastered. In your case, take a few minutes to review the Black Hole Report and see whether there are some gaps here you can help your team evaluate to improve their intelligence for the next opportunities.

Be ready!

Adidas won a Trademark suit this week as covered in The Wall Street Journal here. (available for 7 days from this post, thereafter you’ll have to register in order to access the story)

It seems that Payless Shoe Stores purchased Adidas shoes, sent them to a Chinese manufacturer with instructions to copy but change the three strips to either two or four stripes. They sold approximately $400 million of these knock-offs.

The jury agreed with Adidas, that Payless had infringed the trademark of Adidas with the intention to benefit from knocking off the Adidas shoes. The award of $305 million drove down the stock price by over 16% with the news.

The formula for the award was as follows:

Actual damages = $31 million
Disgorged profits because the jury found willfulness in the defendant’s actions = $135 million
Punitive damages (equal to the disgorged profits) = $135 million
TOTAL VERDICT = $305 million (figures above were all approximate and added up to $305 million)

Payless says they plan to appeal, but they might want to rethink this strategy. The attorney for Adidas acknowledged that the verdict might be reduced on appeal, but it is possible it could be increased because the judge could add plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and may also triple the actual damages portion of the verdict. Add the plunge in stock price to the mix, and this was a very expensive stunt to pull.

Food for Thought

Copyrights and Trademarks are protected property. Next time someone delivers a nifty photo they found on the internet for a proposal, you might want to ask a few more questions before inserting it into your document. And don’t think a quick photoshop “editing” of an image makes it your own, it is merely proof of “willfulness” and expensive when discovered.

If you’ve heard me speak on the topic you know that photographs are exceptionally well protected by copyright law, so don’t think you’ll even get as much grace as the music industry has extended to folks caught downloading music files illegally. (which ain’t much grace if you’ve followed the news.)

Scrum is taken from a term in Rugby, a sport similar to Proposal writing.

A scrum project is organized into sprints, just as proposal teams organize around individual proposals.

Team members are divided into Pigs and Chickens:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. However, while chickens make a contribution, pigs are fully committed.

Chickens include the SMEs, salespeople, management, technical staff and stakeholders in your organization. The pigs are the ones who must get the proposal out the door. Chickens can edit the “Product Backlog” (AKA the proposal storyboards) and provide input to pigs as requested. However, the Pigs are fully committed to the effort and will make the proposal happen.
At the daily status meetings, only pigs are allowed to speak, though chickens may attend. The daily meeting is “time boxed” to 15 minutes, and everyone arrives on time or suffers the team punishment. This meeting is held standing.

The Sprintmaster (aka proposal team leader/proposal manager/proposal coordinator) keeps a Burn Chart, detailing what remains to be done before the end of the sprint (proposal delivery).

Every “sprint” (proposal) is followed by a debrief meeting called a Sprint Retrospective.

When trying to explain what and how we work, having other examples is helpful.

My experience backs up his research: Corporations think good managers are able to manage virtually, as well as site-based, but unfortunately this isn’t true.

In my experience and research, superb virtual managers differ from superb site-based managers in several ways. I found by tracking manager’s profit performance that there is a distinct difference between the managers who were successful with virtual projects, and the managers who were successful site managers. Virtual skills might be taught, but the skills aren’t intuitive to successful site-based managers.

Organizations with an advantage in the next decade:

• Train managers in Virtual Skills
• Watch for new managers whose natural talents give them an advantage in virtual realms, and make sure these folks are promoted to best advantage
• Evaluate managers to match the skill set to the specific challenge.

Read about the results we found by clicking here. 

Things to do now:

• How are the virtual management skills in your team? Proposal teams need these skills to manage proposals across offices and with subcontractors. Do you struggle to communicate action needed? Have you built rapport with those you’ve never met?
• Second, how are the virtual management skills of your project managers? Can you document capabilities in this area? Now would be a good time to dig up statistical evidence of your firm’s virtual management expertise. This will be a real deal maker for capable firms who can prove their virtual management expertise.

And of course, if I can help, please call me! I’ve worked with several large organizations to train and help identify upcoming virtual managers. Lately, I’m training managers of one branch of the U.S. military.