Business Development Blog

A Couple of Logistical Notes
before the main article.

Only 2 days left to register for our brand new class: Foundations of Proposal Management on Feb. 2-3, 2012. This course offers a rich toolbox of the most sophisticated best practices-based techniques and tools for every step of the way. It is an interactive 2-day workshop with 40 percent lecture, 50 percent exercises, and 10 percent discussion. Register at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/proposal-management-training.

We have other neat classes coming up in February such as Win Themes Development Workshop (Feb. 22), and Proposal Speed Writing and Persuasion (Feb. 23-24) – that still have a few spots left. Both of these courses are for your whole team – to make your proposals sharper, and easier to write. We also still have early bird pricing on some February and March-April classes: Cost Strategy for Proposal Managers (Mar. 12), Advanced Capture Management (Mar. 15-16), Preparing Winning IDIQs and Task Orders (Mar. 19-20). Register for any of these courses at http://www.o stglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

Now on to our article of the day.

Today’s Article:
Developing Your 2012 Pipeline and Preparing For a Great Year of Winning Business

If you are anything like me, you’ve dealt with three challenges during the holidays – trying to keep from overindulging too much and gaining hard-to-shed pounds; fighting off a recurring cold; and trying to juggle family time with proposals that are due early to mid-January. By the way, I am officially envious if you faced no challenges or dealt with them through advance planning and orderly life. You are my hero. Read the rest of this entry »

At OST, we often get a call to line up proposal support for an upcoming RFP. We hear that “RFP is about to drop, so send us a proposal manager, pronto.” Instead of reaching out to our consultants, however, we first pick up the phone and call the contracting officer to find out whether the RFP is truly expected to drop on the stated date. Sadly, often our prospective clients operate with old capture data. They ramp up, spend the money, and all the while they don’t do the simplest thing – pick up the phone.

Same during the capture process – many times companies COULD find out from the customer what the customer really needs, but they don’t. It’s true that many govies won’t talk to us, and many of us have become gun shy. We are afraid to reach out. We are reluctant to ask for a visit. We get comfortable in that dark cone of silence that the government bidding process becomes at times – and forget to venture out to seek clarity. Or, we feel constrained by our jobs: “I am a proposal manager (or technical writer), and I don’t interface with customers in our organization.” It doesn’t help that your personnel designated to interface with the customer fails to do so as well. As a result, we miss precious opportunities to learn more about our customers’ needs – and to write winning proposals.

People generally lean towards one or the other side of the spectrum: “people people” and “project people.” If you are a people person, you are probably right now shrugging your shoulders and saying that you have no problem calling anyone. If you are more of a project person, like most proposal managers and some capture managers, the story may be different. Read the rest of this entry »