Proposal Reflections

We’re just five days post the much anticipated APMP Winning Business Virtual Experience (WBVE)! The event proved to be the largest bid and proposal conference held anywhere in the world to date. Heading into the event, there were more than 2,000 registered attendees across the globe. Over two days, participants chose from a variety of educational presentations, including more than 120 educational presentations and 75 hours of content. Because there was no way for participants to take full advantage of the event in just those two days, APMP is graciously leaving up the presentations for another month or so, and I couldn’t be more excited. In this week’s article, I’ll reflect on some of my favorite events from the virtual conference, highlight some of the presentations that are on my list to check out over the next few weeks, and reiterate a few of my tips for making sure you get the most from this amazing event. Highlights from Day 1 With so many fantastic presentations to choose fr...

We’re just three days away from the much awaited APMP Winning Business Virtual Experience! The event has more than 2,000 registered attendees and features over 120 educational presentations and 75 hours of content spread over two days! This exciting event will be delivering 32 straight hours of industry-related education (plus some fun sessions as well) across all time zones. It’s so exciting because you can take advantage of this awesome event from the comfort of your own home. However, with so much content, and so many sessions to choose from, the idea of making the most of this event could seem a bit overwhelming. This week I’ll share my advice for making the most of this event—and provide you with a sneak peek of some of the sessions I’m personally excited about. Take Time to Understand How to Use the Event Platform Before the Big Day APMP is using a tool called Pathable  to host and manage the event. Before the big day, make sure you log in and play around with the appli...

We’ve all been there. We’re busy, strapped for time, and these RFP requirements look just like the requirements of the proposal we submitted last week. Let’s just repurpose that content and we’ll be golden, right? While this might seem like a great strategy, repurposing content can lead to some pretty embarrassing blunders if you don’t do a proper scrub of the material first. Reusing content can certainly be a great starting point, but be sure to watch out for these three common pitfalls that can quickly turn off your evaluators. Problem 1: You Don’t Sufficiently Scrub Out the Previous Customer’s Name If you’re using reuse material, it’s so critical to scrub out the previous customer’s name. This seems simple enough, but I see this problem so frequently with teams that consistently reuse proposal content. Leaving in the wrong customer name is such an easy way to turn off evaluators from selecting you and your team. First, you’ve offended them by calling them by the wrong name. Se...

Six weeks ago, I had the pleasure of presenting a webinar dissecting six key tactics to help improve your win rate. These tactics include: Applying a thorough strategy in the opportunities pursued Starting pursuits earlier to gain an understanding of the customer and competitive landscape Documenting the intelligence gained from the business development and capture stages Applying rigor in the bid decision process Making your proposals easy to score C onducting lessons learned so you can understand where you are doing well and where you need to improve In this week’s article, I do a deep dive into one of those critical tactics: making your proposals easy to score. Understanding Proposal Evaluation Before we can really understand how to make proposals easier to score, we have to understand how proposals are being evaluated. The first thing to understand is that proposals are typically first reviewed for compliance with the requirements as outlined in the proposal instr...