Lessons from the Real World 3: Applying Business Examples to Opportunity Development

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NOTE: This post is the third and final in a series of three posts expanding on ideas in a recent webinar I conducted for the APMP California chapter with the same title.

Be Known for Something

When you are known for something, you create a better connection with the customer and increase satisfaction. Companies look to build solid reputations based on an area of expertise. Many companies have great reputations based on what they do well. For example, Honda makes a lot of products, including cars, trucks, lawn mowers, and more. But if you ask Honda, they really want to be known for high-quality engines.

Amazon has continued to change what they are known for. First, they were the place online to buy books. As they have continued to grow and change, Amazon is now known as the place to buy anything (if you look at their logo, the smiley face underneath the word “Amazon” runs from the “a” to the “z”). That includes being the leading distributor of e-books, creating a market for self-published authors around the world.

Proposal teams should be known for being experts in their field and being able to develop high-quality responses that help the team win. Developing that internal reputation increases our standing in the workplace and our overarching professional development. We need to be the experts on how to put together high-quality, compliant, compelling, clear bids. We can do this through any number of ways, including training/self-learning, APMP certifications, and just working on individual efforts and gaining experience.

You can also become an expert in translating your company’s capabilities into proposal terminology. Proposal professionals should know their company and market(s) inside and out. This, for me, is a requirement for those of us who are permanent employees of firms. However, even as a consultant you can get to know your client as well as possible, especially if this becomes a recurring relationship. Plus, you can learn as much as you can about markets and technologies where you frequently provide support.

On individual opportunities, proposal professionals also need to make sure the bid makes clear what the company is known for and how it translates to this particular proposal. We need to know the answers to the questions “Who are we?” “What are we known for?” and “Why are we the right partner?” and translate those into the proposal. If that information is not clear in the executive summary and throughout the document then we have already lost. We need to work closely with writers and capture teams to get that information up front and make sure it runs throughout the proposal. Making “why us” clear in a client-focused and client-centric document is the difficult part. Helping our teams achieve this will just add to our reputations as experts.

How to Handle Yourself in a Crisis

There are plenty of business case studies about how to handle a crisis, and how not to do so. For example, many people look to the case around Tylenol tampering in the Chicago area in 1982, when seven people died, as the right way to handle a catastrophe. Johnson & Johnson took a very proactive strategy to handle the problem. They distributed warnings to hospitals and distributors and halted Tylenol production and advertising. On October 5, 1982, they issued a nationwide recall of Tylenol products; an estimated 31 million bottles were in circulation, with a retail value of over US $100 million. The company also advertised in the national media for individuals not to consume any of its products that contained acetaminophen after it was determined that only these capsules had been tampered with. Johnson & Johnson offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules already purchased by the public for solid tablets.

On the flip side, United Airlines made headlines for the wrong reason in April 2017. On an oversold flight, passengers were selected at random to be removed from the flight to make room for a United flight crew that needed to get to Louisville. David Gao, a Kentucky doctor, ended up being dragged off the flight when he refused to leave. Since it occurred in the age of social media, multiple passengers recorded the incident and posted online. United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, wrote an email to United staff that appeared to blame Dr. Gao and seemed tone deaf to the criticism being leveled at United from passengers and the media. This forced Munoz into undertaking a full apology tour afterwards.

Proposal professionals deal with crises of all sizes on individual bids. Some are minor storms that quickly blow over, while others have the potential to derail a bid and partnerships. The key lesson of these examples is to, first, make things right. Do not try to save face – do what needs to be done to make the situation right and move on. Focus on making sure the client is happy and gets what they need.

After the bid, take time to reflect on what went well (and what didn’t) and apply that to the next opportunity. To make lessons learned effective, we need to make sure there is an atmosphere of trust and a lack of personal attacks. This allows us to better learn from our mistakes and makes everyone more open to accepting any critical feedback.

Series Conclusion

So, to summarize the ideas across this three-part series of posts:

• Be Innovative!
  • Thinking outside the box can improve your proposals and professional development
• Be Repeatable!
  • Customized standardization ensures you deliver a proven message and incorporate client needs
• Be Client-Centric!
  • Knowing what your internal and external clients need improves your overall capabilities
• Be Known for Something!
  • Make sure you and your company have consistent brand messages
• Be Responsible!
  • Knowing how to handle crises improves your reputation