Month: November 2022

The Three Things Oral Presentation Evaluators Are Looking For But Aren’t Evaluating

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Oral presentations have gained in popularity with the Government over the past 5 years. Why has there been an increase in demand for these types of proposals? What does the Government achieve through having your personnel present, either in person or virtually, to the evaluators instead of submitting a written document? Through my experience, there are three things the Government is looking to see from your team when they request oral presentations. While not part of the defined evaluation criteria, the impression these three things leave with the evaluation panel can mean the difference between success and failure.

Reason 1: Are You Technically Capable? This is the basic table stakes of any proposal – can your team execute the work required? In a written proposal, firms can use partners or consultants to put together a clear, compelling narrative. However, in an oral presentation, there is little room to hide. Your presenters need to be able to clearly and convincingly speak to the complex technical factors. It is easy to spot when a presenter did not write their own content, and they are not experts in the subject matter. In addition, when the opportunity to ask questions arises, the Government will quickly see the inexperience and lack of knowledge of the presenter. The technical capabilities of the presenting team and the offeror are important. However, reasons two and three are significantly more important and, as such, provide a clear way for your team to differentiate yourselves. 

Reason Two: Can Your Team Work Together? When asking for an oral presentation, the Government is doing a group interview. The instructions often mandate the key personnel identified in the solicitation deliver the presentation. These individuals are the ones the client sees as the core of your delivery team. As such, they want to know if your team can work well together, or if they are a group of individuals. Did you put together a cohesive team that can execute and handle the day-to-day challenges of the program collectively, or are they a bunch of people you threw together based just on the personnel requirements? 

For me, this is a great opportunity to illustrate the chemistry your team has. There are many ways we can demonstrate this cohesiveness. The first opportunity happens before the presentation begins. I tell my teams they are being judged from the second they walk into the building until they leave. Therefore, any chance you have to show team chemistry and understanding is a positive. The small talk you have walking into the presentation room may seem insignificant. However, when you ask about Jon’s daughter’s softball game or Jane’s nephew’s piano recital, it shows you have pre-existing relationships and connections. To achieve this, I try to get my teams together outside of the practice room. I have them all go to lunch or out for a drink together. I have them sit near people they do not know. People begin to chat and get to know each other in these situations. It builds chemistry and cohesion amongst your presenters and helps develop them into a singular team.

Secondly, building cross-talk into the presentation helps show you know your teammates and what they bring to the table. Whenever possible, reference other parts of the presentation and the individual responsible for it. For example, “later on, Steve is going to talk in detail about our security approach” or “earlier, Sally introduced our approach to security. Let me provide you with further detail now.” This reference shows your team has understanding of the rest of the presentation and the roles of the team within it. 

Reason Three: Can They Work With You? This might be the most important hidden question the Government is asking during your presentation. Are you, both individually and collectively, someone they want to work with? Just like a resume can present skills but an interview is required to see if someone is a good fit, a written proposal can speak to capabilities but oral presentations bring out the character of your team and whether or not they would be a good fit for the environment and style of the client.

My number one tip here is to be authentic. I work with my teams to not memorize scripts or dramatically change their speaking styles. I work to maximize their strengths and then mitigate any dramatic weaknesses (speaking too quickly or too quietly, for instance). This allows the real person to shine through and for the evaluators to clearly see you are someone they want to work with.

Conclusion. Oral presentation skills are increasingly becoming a must have for every Government contractor. By being aware of what the Government is looking for that is not explicitly in the evaluation criteria, we can prepare more thoroughly for the presentation and show the Government we are the team they are looking for.

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How Annotated Mockups Help Our Teams Develop Winning Content

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Writing a proposal section can be a daunting task, especially for people who do not regularly do so. When we pull people who normally work on a contract or other areas of the organization, we are asking them to sacrifice their time and effort to do something they likely have not been trained to do and for which they probably lack significant experience. Given those hurdles, how can we make the process as seamless and painless as possible?

I like to use an annotated mockup approach to steer my content creators in the right direction and maximize their efficiency. An annotated mockup provides a template to guide proposal development and facilitate content creation by using an easy to follow, bulleted approach. The main benefit of the annotated mockup approach is it provides a way for your writers to get the key ideas and concepts on paper quickly and without much stress. By focusing on the ideas, and not the narrative, it frees the mind of our contributors to focus on what they want to say, not how they need to say it. It also provides an easy document for people to review at pink team. It allows the reviewers to best judge where the concepts and approach are and see if we are on the right track.

Below is an example of an annotated mockup template I often use. You’ll notice the Word comment bubbles along the right side. These contain guidance and key ideas for the writer to continue when developing each individual section in the proposal. This approach gives the writer the specific information we are looking for in each area and enables them to develop content quickly while minimizing the risk of the writer not providing the type of content we need.

The template has five main areas, built around my five key proposal section needs.

Introduction. The introduction should be about the client, what they need, and why they need it. It needs to reflect the key issues/hot buttons/pain points learned during capture and tie closely to our win themes.

Approach. Details HOW we will do the work. Your writers should look to add a step-by-step process here of how we will provide the support required to accomplish the needs of the client. Ask your writers to be specific – What tools do they use? Who defines this as a “best practice?” What methodologies work, and which do not, for this type of environment?

Benefits. In short, what does the client get from your approach? Why should the evaluator care about your approach? What will you deliver, especially to solve their problems as outlined in the introduction?

Substantiation. “Prove it!” Provide short summaries of where this has been done before and the results. Be specific – your team should be able to provide the writers with metrics on performance. While we may not have them at the end of the annotated mockup stage, knowing what we need here is critical.

Graphic. A first-generation graphic is all that is needed. A sketch, a previously used graphic with notations, something drawn in PowerPoint – anything that provides a sense of the direction the writer wants to go with the graphic.

Preparation for the review cycle is easy: I strip the writer guidance, lock the document for comments only, and circulate to the review team. You can either stitch them into one document or have the reviewers look at each file individually, like you would with a more traditional storyboard review. After the review, I have the writers remediate comments and develop the narrative structure around each bullet. They need to put meat on the bones and begin to create full sentences. However, if we need to, this is a great stage to hand off from a contributor to a professional proposal writer. Either way, the content and ideas developed during the annotated mockup stage provides a springboard for high-quality content.

Annotated mockups provide writers, both experienced and inexperienced, a tool to get the right ideas down on paper before worrying about how the content reads. This simple yet effective tool dramatically improves our team’s ability to create compelling proposals focused on the evaluator and answering their needs.

For more examples on how you can make your proposals resonate better with evaluators, check out my new book, Keys to the Castle, available through Amazon now!

Three Key Tips to Make Your Corporate Experience Stand Out

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A good corporate experience section does more than check a box. It provides the client with definitive proof you can deliver what you promise. As I focus on in my book, Keys to the Castle, the proposal is about the client and the need for our bids to make a clear connection with them. People buy from those they know and trust, and clear proof of past experience really helps build that trust factor. Here are three quick tips to make our corporate experience sections stand out from the rest.

Use the Client’s Language.

The first clue to making our proposal focused on our clients is to use their language. This applies throughout your proposal. There are standard definitions in the industry for corporate experience (what you have done) and past performance (how well you have done it). However, that distinction is not always clear to everyone. Sometimes, clients ask for “past performance” when they actually mean corporate experience. In these cases, do not fix their terminology – use their terminology.

We should also apply this as we detail our relevant experience. Focus on using terminology from the solicitation and statement of work to describe the work you have done. For example, facilities maintenance and management is called base operations support for the US Navy, but operations and maintenance by the General Services Administration (GSA). In these instances, we should use the terminology the solicitation uses when describing the work. In addition, minimize the jargon you use throughout the proposal. When this is not possible, explain the alignment between what you do and what they’re asking for clearly. Show the parallels clearly and concisely to ensure your evaluators know the work you have done aligns to what they’re asking for.

Highlight the Relevance.

Too often, people rely heavily on prior write-ups when putting together your corporate experience examples. When developing your submission, however, taking boilerplate and putting it in the proper format is not an option. Just copying and pasting in a generic list of work performed and achievements does not speak to the individual needs of the client. Therefore, besides just using the client’s terminology, you need to select the portion(s) of the work you are currently doing that are clearly relevant to the solicitation. I have my teams talk in broad strokes in the opening paragraph with a two to three line summary of the overarching contract. Then, I have them specifically state how it is relevant in terms of the evaluation criteria and work expected. For the former, often in Federal Government bids we are asked to write to size, scope, and complexity. For the latter, we want to show alignment to the work required (the performance work statement/statement of work). In either case, a nice summary table can work wonders. Include all the PWS/SOW requirements and allow for a checkbox or a meatball chart to show that alignment.

Then, in your write-up, only include the work you currently do that aligns to the work expected. The evaluators do not care about everything you’ve done on the contract – just how it maps to their work. Therefore, and continuing on from tip 1, use the PWS/SOW headings throughout to organize and align your experience.

As always, be specific. Provide metrics and details to ensure the alignment is clear and the experience you have meets the client’s requirements.

Be Honest.

As hard as our teams work to execute on all of our contracts, nothing is perfect. Things go wrong. Sometimes it’s something minor. Other times, it is a serious issue that results in escalation, cure notices, and egg on our face.

We should not run from these contracts, especially if they are (1) extremely relevant to the work we are doing and (2) if we have a great story to tell. My advice in these situations is to own the mistake and, more importantly, own the correction. Use the write-up to show how you’re stronger, what you’ve learned, and how you’ll avoid the mistake here. Describe how you have exceeded expectations since the incident. Most importantly, do not lie. Nothing kills credibility on a bid more quickly than a lack of honesty and transparency.

Conclusion.

Too many people view corporate experience as a cookie cutter exercise. However, much like resumes, these sections provide a chance for us to rise above the rest and really build a connection with our client. Using the three tips I’ve outlined above can take your corporate experience section from good to great.

For more examples on how you can make your proposals resonate better with evaluators, check out my new book, Keys to the Castle, available through Amazon now!