The art of winning proposals lies predominantly in mastering the capture process. Capture to proposal management is what attending the course is to passing the final exam in a law school that’s graded on a curve. If you attended the course during the semester, passing the final using your great exam-taking skills may just get you that highest grade. If you did not attend the course, scoring high on the final, no matter how you may excel at taking exams, is a risky gamble. If you have done little or no capture, no matter how skilled your proposal manager or writer is, they cannot wing it for you.

Companies that do very little capture, or jump at pop-up opportunities, end up spending huge business and proposal development budgets on something they should have never chased in the first place. They burn out their business development staff. This staff has no time to do capture and marketing since they are busy on proposals. The team spends the entire business development budget early in the year, preventing the company from bidding on other RFPs. Additionally, submitting losing proposals one after another is a sure way to lose face with the customer.

The most frustrating thing of all, however, is when a company seems to do all the right things, such as learning about the opportunity early and following a capture process, only to scramble during the proposal as if there were no preparation. Losing only adds insult to injury. Why is it so many companies with established processes end up in this predicament? The “secret sauce,” or the art of capture, is to stop focusing so much on completing the steps of the capture process—capture plan slides to fill out, reviews and steps to complete, and meetings to conduct. Instead, focus more on the desired outcome of the whole effort. When people think capture, they typically think of what they should offer, what their win themes should be, how they could outdo or ghost the competition, whom should they talk to in order to build a team, and how to best plan for the proposal effort. Sure, all of these are necessary, but often focusing on these very activities makes people mistake movement for progress.

The driver of capture should not be the steps of the process, but rather the strategy that gets you to answer three questions:

1. What would it take to win—what would a potential winner have to have to make it an obvious choice from the customer’s standpoint? You must define every aspect of what the customer would ultimately desire, whether you have it or not at the moment, and visualize and document your desired outcome as if it were an ideal world.

2. Where are you now? You should assess where you are in comparison to that ideal winning scenario.

3. What are the steps to get you there? You must come up with a plan and a schedule of activities predicated on getting you from where you are now to where you need to be in an ideal situation in the fastest way possible.

Then, and only then, your capture process becomes meaningful. It is your focus that makes all the difference. Instead of asking “what steps do I need to take to get through the capture process?” clearly define the purpose first, then describe in enough detail the desired outcome. Next, assess where you are and apply the steps from your normal capture process to serve this outcome. You may repeat this exercise as you discover more information in the course of your capture effort. This is classical strategic planning. This is also the path to efficiency, since all your efforts are naturally focused, rather than being scattered without a precisely defined purpose. If you are looking to win more proposals, allocate over half of your budget to capture. To make your capture more effective, shift your focus from process to strategy. It may just do the trick.

About the Author: Olessia Smotrova-Taylor is president of OST Global Solutions (www.ostglobalsolutions.com), a consulting and training company that helps businesses grow by winning government contracts. She is the chair of the APMP NCA Executive Summary newsletter, and a practicing capture and proposal manager with a 94% win rate. She teaches popular webinars on proposal and capture topics – find out more information at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule.  You can reach her at service@ostglobalsolutions.com or at 301.384.3350 .

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