❯❯ Lead up, down, and sideways. Proposal professionals must lead their teams, their peers, and even their bosses during a proposal project.
❯❯ Write like an angel and edit like the devil. Proposal professionals hone their writing and editing skills more than all the other skills they use because what the proposal says is ultimately all that matters.
❯❯ See the forest and the trees. Proposal professionals understand their company’s overall business as well as the detailed techniques and processes of proposal development.
❯❯ Be a good cop and a bad cop all in one. Proposal professionals, like project managers, do whatever it takes to coax the finest work from proposal contributors.
❯❯ Believe in the process, but know when to cast it aside. No two proposal projects are the same, so a proposal professional has to know when to bend or even break the rules to succeed.
❯❯ Do what few can and fewer want to do. Proposal professionals have a wide range of skills that, frankly, a lot of businesspeople either can’t or won’t learn. Doing what others can’t or won’t can make you indispensable.
❯❯ Listen twice as much as you talk. Proposal professionals depend on others to get their jobs done. Understanding others’ perspectives and needs is crucial to proposal leadership.
❯❯ Stay cool no matter what. One clear differentiating characteristic of proposal professionals is their ability to accept and manage the stresses of urgent, important bids.
❯❯ Think three to five years ahead. Technology paradigms shift in months, and successful proposal professionals are also futurists: They know technology trends and how those trends will affect their profession.
❯❯ Be a disciple of change. Proposal professionals are change agents because customers are always changing what they want and how they want it.
How do you match up?
Chapter 2
Understanding Different Types of Proposals
IN THIS CHAPTER
Delivering on a proposal request
Initiating a proactive proposal
Looking at the difference between small and large proposals
Creating proposals in different environments
Business proposals come in two major flavors: reactive (or solicited) and proactive (or unsolicited). Reactive proposals, also known as RFP responses, are the way most mid- to large-size businesses acquire new products and services; these companies know precisely what they want and have the clout to formally ask suppliers to deliver on these requirements.
Proactive proposals can work for any size of business (some large companies run proactive campaigns for particular industry or solution sets) but are more suitable for midsize and smaller companies. Bidders write them on their own initiative with no guarantees that their efforts will succeed.
In this chapter, you discover the differences between these two major types of proposals and some other considerations that can complicate the primary differences. You also find out how to develop strategies and tactics for writing proposals in each situation.
You write a solicited proposal when a prospective buyer formally requests solutions from you and a number of other bidders. This type of proposal is also known as a reactive proposal because you have to react and respond to the customer’s topics and specifications rather than prescribe a solution in the manner you may prefer (see the section “Writing a Proactive Proposal,” later in this chapter). Your goal with this type of proposal is to get “out in front” of the request – to be collaborating with the customer so you know when a problem is about to reach a breaking point and force the customer to seek a solution – and not be scrambling to pull together a response under duress. To win this type of bid, you need to know as much as possible about the customer as you can and as much about the specific opportunity before your competitors get wind of it.
In the following sections, we take a look at the RFP, some of its sibling request types, and ways for you to stay ahead of the curve and play within the ever-changing rules of the game.
Joining the game: The invitation to bid
An RFP is an invitation to do business. Some are open invitations, posted publicly so any company can respond. Some are private invitations, sent to a select few providers. And some require that potential bidders prove their mettle by meeting strict requirements in a qualification step before being formally invited to submit a bid.
RFPs can be simple and small – a few pages that identify a need and ask for a solution in relatively broad terms – or they can be complex and large – hundreds of pages of precise requirements, often in the form of nested questions. Bidders must read the RFP carefully and be on the lookout for requirements meant to disqualify careless, would-be suppliers. Bidders must answer each question thoroughly, preferably in a consistent manner, and read between the lines to discover unstated requirements that can mean the difference between winning and losing the business.
RFPs are the standard way of doing business for many industries for several reasons, including the following:
❯❯ They establish a supportable and repeatable rigor for procurement.
❯❯ They create tangible and comparable views of alternative approaches to solving a business’s problems.
❯❯ They quickly weed out the pretenders from the viable providers.
RFPs are a way of business life throughout the world. What was once a staple of doing business with only the largest companies and government entities is now a recognized standard throughout all industries and markets.
Sometimes, the RFP isn’t the first stage of the process. You may need to work through a Request for Information (RFI) or a Request for Quote (RFQ) first. You may even find that you have to undergo a pre-qualification step before you can move forward. In the following sections, we outline these possibilities in more detail.
Understanding requests: RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs
As you gain experience in business development activities, you may run across some relatives of the RFP. Table 2-1 lists the different types of requests that potential customers may have, listed in the sequence they normally follow, and what they mean to you.
TABLE 2-1 Common Types of Customer Requests