A Proposal Professional’s Reading List – Part 2 (Leadership)

Recently, I wrote a blog post about proposal-centered books that belong on the reading list of all proposal professionals. Today, in part two of the series, I look at titles focused on a key skill for proposal management – leadership. We all know how critical strong leadership skills are to a winning proposal. Navigating the choppy waters of the bid environment while keeping the team focused, on target, and on schedule is challenging. 

The books below provide examples of strong leadership and how we can apply it to our day-to-day lives.

Leading – Sir Alex Ferguson. I am a massive Manchester United fan, but even if you are not, there are few better coaches in the history of world sport than Sir Alex Ferguson. Before his arrival in the late 1980s, Manchester United had faded from its glory days of the 1950s and 1960s to become an afterthought in the English game. Through his determination and ability, he led multiple generations in “the United way” to win 13 league titles, 2 European championships, and 5 FA Cups before his retirement in 2013. He has written several books, but this is the most appropriate for the topic at hand. It covers in depth how he dealt with success, loss, locker room struggles, and the challenges life threw at him. 

Churchill: A Life – Martin Gilbert. In 2017, I delivered an Ignite talk at the APMP Bid and Proposal Conference on how Winston Churchill would be the best and worst proposal professional (embed clip). There are countless biographies of Churchill available, and I am happy to recommend others if anyone asks (including the amazing The Last Lion series, which was my first introduction to an in-depth history of him). However, for me, Gilbert’s is the most straightforward. As the official biographer of Churchill, Gilbert does leave out some of the negative activities and interpretations of Churchill’s life. From my point of view, though, it is a good exploration of him as a leader and what made him the man he was.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power – Jon Meacham. I proposed to my wife on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, so the third president of the United States is a personal favorite. He was a complex man who lived in difficult and often conflicting times. Meacham does an amazing job of looking at the whole person, the contradictions between being a leader of his country and a slaveowner, and how he could move between the theoretical and the practical. It is an easy read due to Meacham’s style and serves as a great overview of the man.

Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow. This is on my 2023 must read list (I am about half-way through). Everyone in my house is obsessed with the musical Hamilton. Chernow’s biography of the (until recently) forgotten founding father (without a father…) was the inspiration for the incredible musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Another complicated man, and often at odds with Jefferson, Chernow’s book brings to life this amazingly brilliant self-starter and will give you a deeper appreciation for the lyrics and scenes brought to life by Miranda’s groundbreaking cast.

The Effective Executive – Peter Drucker. Drucker is widely considered the father of modern business management. This title provides great insight into his ideas and theories. It focuses on how executives can best manage their time, their teams, and their decision-making capabilities in a way to deliver value. It’s a great read for anyone interested in leadership, including eventually moving into senior leadership. 


The Effective Manager – Mark Horstman. Horstman is the now-retired co-founder of Manager Tools (include link), which is a great organization for those looking for actionable guidance on how to lead. I have been a follower of Manager Tools for years, and find their techniques and approaches to be on target. This book outlines Horstman’s basic ideas and provides a great introduction to their approach. A new edition is due out this spring that includes management in the post-COVID world. 

I hope these titles provide you with some resources and tools for developing and refining your own leadership style.

Tracking Your Proposal Steps Through a Clear Checklist

Proposals are a detailed-oriented project. With all the moving pieces at each stage, proposal professionals need a clear, focused way to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. Continue reading “Tracking Your Proposal Steps Through a Clear Checklist”

Do We Need a Capture Manager? Four Key Questions To Ask Yourself

Most businesses that have spent time in Government contracting have a clear understanding of what a proposal manager does. They are the miracle workers who work crazy hours to lead the team in transforming a semi-complete, semi-coherent document full of unsubstantiated declarations of greatness and word sprinkles like “we’ll write about this stuff here” to a fully-coherent, compelling, compliant proposal that stands out from the competition.  

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Be Open to Feedback

If we learn anything from reality television, it is you need to be firm in your beliefs but open to feedback. Lacking a core constitution is a death sentence – no one wants to hire or invest in someone who has no conviction. At the same time, inflexibility condemns many more candidates to the no pile. For example, in the 2022 series of BBC’s The Apprentice, the inability of finalist Jessica to listen to concerns and critiques over her fashion sense with her family pajama brand may have been the reason she came in second. 

In proposal development, we need to be open to feedback and be willing to listen to our peers and others inside and outside our bid team. But how do we do so in the pressing environment of an individual bid? Here’s three tips on how to best consider and incorporate feedback into your bid and your professional career.

Tip 1 – Truly Consider Feedback. Proposal reviews are the primary way in which our teams receive feedback on their content. Properly organized and led reviews lead to high-quality, actionable inputs to guide the recovery process and make the document better. Unfortunately, we all still have to deal with poorly phrased, incomplete, and/or overly broad comments from reviewers. 

No matter the type of feedback you receive, you need to keep an open mind and truly consider the comments received. Try to get to the heart of what the reviewer meant, even if it is not phrased in an overly helpful manner. Doing so may give you an idea or route forward that leads to a much better proposal product, even if it does not directly follow the advice provided.

My favorite example of this comes from Ed Catmull’s fantastic book Creativity, Inc. about the history of Pixar Animation. He relates a story from Brad Bird, the director of The Incredibles. In an early screening as part of the Brain Trust approach to content development, reviewers did not like a scene where the main couple, Bob and Helen, have a fight over Bob’s superhero moonlighting. They felt it came off as bullying. Bird didn’t see it that way, but after careful reflection he saw the size difference between the two led to that impression. So, instead of changing the dialogue, he changed the visual. Helen (whose superhero persona is Elastigirl), stretches to be taller and tower over Bob. The revised animation won over the reviewers and led to one of many memorable scenes in the film. 

Tip 2 – If You Don’t Follow the Feedback, Explain Why. There are going to be many proposal comments that do not help make a better product. They may be off-topic, not timely, or just not productive to the overall process. However, we do owe ourselves and the reviewers the courtesy of saying why we have not addressed the comment. As I mentioned in the first tip, even poorly formulated comments might lead to good ideas. Explaining why you did not follow a comment could help improve the overall product in other ways.

Tip 3 – Be Open to Mentoring in Your Career From All Types. Getting feedback is not limited to a single proposal opportunity. We should be looking throughout our professional lives for input and feedback from those we look up to. I highly recommend having mentors who can give you feedback on all aspects of your professional life. I have multiple mentors to help with various aspects of proposal development, consulting, and entrepreneurship. Likewise, I look to give back to people when they ask me to help them with advice or mentorship. 

Remember two things when working with a mentor. First, they are doing you a favor by being part of your support network. Second, their advice comes from a good place. Therefore, you should use the first two tips above when listening to and considering their feedback.

Conclusion. Our professional and personal lives, and our work product, can only be improved when we learn from our peers. Knowing how to incorporate that feedback in a positive, constructive way can be the difference between success and failure.

Top Four Takeaways from 2022 APMP BPC

What an amazing week in Dallas! For the first time in 3 years, bid and proposal professionals gathered for a full-blown APMP Bid and Proposal Conference, or BPC. It was my first time in attendance since the 2019 Orlando conference. I have to say I didn’t realize how much I had missed in-person conferences until I walked into the exhibitor’s hall on Monday afternoon (arriving a bit late as my hard-ball negotiating son turned 9 that day and insisted we have breakfast together before I headed to Dallas) . As I sit in DFW Airport waiting for my flight home, here are my key takeaways from the conference.

I’m With My People! One of the best parts of coming to a conference is to be among like-minded people. Every time I come to BPC, I am amazed by the expansiveness of our field. Both when I was a full-time employee and now since I’ve set up BZ and gone out on my own, I can lose sight of the size and scope of our profession. There are so many exceptional people working in the commercial, state and local, and other parts of the Federal bid and proposal world. I always walk away with invaluable insights from across our industry and learn so much from other people’s successes and shortcomings.

In addition, it felt incredible to catch up with so many people I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. BPC is truly a global event, and it was great to see professional connections in person from the UK and across the US. So many people have moved houses, had children, or experienced other life-changing events over the past 3 years. It was just fun to finally be with them all again.

Embrace the New Normal. Robin Davis is one of those friends I missed seeing in person, both to catch up and to hear her insights on the field. Her panel on tips for getting into consulting was informative, even for someone who has been navigating those waters for quite some time. My key takeaway from her presentation was how the pandemic has severely disrupted our industry but also opened the door for more consulting opportunities. By 2027, 60% of professionals will be working in some form of consulting and freelance work. As this becomes the new normal, there will be significant impacts through an increased supply of and demand for high-quality consulting services. As someone who stands proudly behind the work each of our consultants provide, I know my firm is well positioned to handle this changing environment.

Use the Tools You Have. Two sessions really spoke to how we can maximize our efficiency through the use of the tools we have available to us. Katherine Aucott walked through some helpful tips in Microsoft Excel, including using formulas to quickly develop a high quality compliance matrix. I cannot wait to apply those insights to my own Excel workbooks, creating efficiencies for myself and our clients.

Dick Eassom has forgotten more about Microsoft Word than most of us will ever know. His ever informative Wordman sessions always provide insights and tips to improve using an often troublesome word processing program. His tips on how to lock down styles, manage copy and paste options, and create appendix headings were incredibly beneficial. If you haven’t been to a Wordman session and you rely on Word for your work (and, honestly, who doesn’t?) you must attend one of his sessions.

Write Drunk, Edit Sober. I think my favorite session overall was The Power of Writing fireside chat with Sarah Reynolds Westin and Samantha Enslen, moderated by Rick Harris. There were so many great tips and insights, including a reference to George Orwell’s “Politics of the English Language,” which I use in every proposal writing training I deliver. In addition, Sarah spoke about writing like we talk and focusing on action oriented words. This language brings the audience in and highlights what we will do to make them successful. It dovetails perfectly with my belief in empathetic writing. Samantha mentioned how we need to write less and think about the visual layout and impact of the page. When we are trying to cut space and ensure we are inside of page count, it can be easy to lose sight of how the page looks. This is a mistake that can lead to negative impressions for our clients. For those wondering, the title of this section comes from an audience member, who quoted this Nashville music writing advice when talking about the importance of editing to our overall process.

Conclusion. I felt so at home, back among my professional friends and colleagues, in Dallas for 2 ½ wonderful days. The benefits of reconnecting with my network and meeting new people (including several new to our amazing profession) will stay with me for a long time. I feel supercharged to get back to work and help our clients filled with all the incredible knowledge I received. I am already counting down to BPC Orlando 2023, and I hope to see you there!

Four Tips to Improving Your Proposal Resumes

The right key personnel can make or break a project. It makes sense the Government would require resumes for critical staff positions on their bids. In fact, a GAO protest resolved in December 2021 is among many that specifically target resumes and personnel as grounds for unfair evaluation. So, how can we make our key people stand out from the crowd? How can we get top marks on the personnel section of our proposals? And how can we protect our resumes from protest? Here are four basic tips to help move your resumes from “good” to “outstanding.”

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Three Top Tips to Working with a Hybrid Proposal Department

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic shift in people’s lives. As the pandemic raged, many people took the opportunity to relocate. While everyone was working remotely, location was a minor concern. However, in the coming weeks and months, more firms will begin to welcome people back to the office. As the world continues to recover from the events of the last 2 years, those returning to the office face a changed landscape, not least of which is dealing with a hybrid workforce.

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Top 4 Tips for Virtual Reviews

Proposal professionals have learned a great deal on how to handle remote bid development and management over the past year. I expect the changes made as a result of COVID-19 will remain with us even when we return to our new normal. One of the most important changes, in my view, is the increased acceptance and promotion of virtual reviews.

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BZ Opportunity Management Offers APMP Foundation Level Certification Course

We are super excited to offer our first LIVE, online training course for APMP Foundation Level Certification on Monday 12 April from 9a to 4p. As an APMP Approved Training Organization, you know you are getting the best possible training that aligns to APMP’s best practices and body of knowledge. This interactive online class covers all key topic areas for passing your exam. We also provide tips and advice on applying these industry standards to your day-to-day career.

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My Exciting Podcast News

Recently, I had the good fortune to be a guest on not one but two amazing podcasts about our industry. These were my first two appearances on such a program, and I really enjoyed my time on both!

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