How to Increase Your Company’s Win Rate in 7 Proven Steps

Bob Lohfeld, Lohfeld Consulting Group

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About Lohfeld Consulting Groupwww.lohfeldconsulting.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/Lohfeld

Lohfeld Consulting Group specializes in helping companies

create winning proposals. As the premier proposal services

consulting firm focused exclusively on government markets, we

provide expert assistance to government contractors in Capture

Planning and Strategy, Proposal Management and Development,

Capture and Proposal Process and Infrastructure, and Training.

Contact Bob Lohfeld

CEO of Lohfeld Consulting Group

Email: RLohfeld@LohfeldConsulting.com

Tel: (410) 336-6264www.lohfeldconsulting.com

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What really works to raise your win rate

People

Process

Tools

Technology

Leadership

Creativity

Quality

Morale

Measuring your win rate improvement

Agenda

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Win More Business

Focus on 7 Proven Steps To—

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Advance in Your Career

Write Better Proposals

PROPOSAL

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7 Keys to Winning in Team Sports (and Government Procurements)

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Every Good Coach will Tell You:

1 Recruit Great AthletesGet the right people on the team

3 Use the Right ToolsEnhance your level of play with

the right tools

2 Have a Solid Game PlanUse the right processes

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7 Keys to Winning in Team Sports (and Government Procurements)

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Every Good Coach will Tell You:

4 Focus on CoachingCall the right plays

6 Avoid TurnoversEvery proposal is compliant,

responsive and compelling

5 Focus on Your StrategyBuild a winning solution

7 Enjoy the GameHave Fun at What You Do

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Build Your Core Team

Like a National Football League team, you start by drafting the right athletes

Aptitude: excellent organizational and writing skills

Domain expertise

Experience

Avoid unapplied labor (slugs)

Augment Core Team with Special Players

Consultants used for surge and special skills

Major companies use a 70/30 (employee/consultant) rule

Step 1: Get the Right People1

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What to Look for in Consultants

Professional expertise:

real consultants vs. migratory labor

Recognized accomplishment: more

than a business card, peer

recognition as among the best

Commitment to the profession:

Association of Proposal

Management Professionals (APMP)

certifications

What to Avoid

“Accidental proposal consultant”

who will do “anything for money”

(AFM) between full-time jobs

Step 1: Get the Right People (cont.)1

Professional development training: raise its level of understanding

and competitiveness (do you have a training program/plan with courses

identified?)

Skills training: train like you play/fight/fly; train using your process and tools

Step 1: Get the Right People (cont.)

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Train Your Team

Proposals are an intellectual competition. Look at your market (small business,

mid, large) and ask, “Are we smarter, better trained and more agile than our

competition?”

Look for the best and brightest who can work under tight deadlines (reliable);

can handle long hours under stressful situations (durable) and are smart,

creative and driven to be successful (talented)

The objective is not to produce a proposal, it is to create the

winning proposal

Do You Have a Team That Can Win?

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Step 2: Use the Right Process

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Establish a Business Acquisition Framework That Covers 5 Stages:

Business Development

Capture Management

Pre-proposal Preparation

Proposal Development

Post-submittal

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Defined:

written and available process (framework) and instructional materials (procedures)

Repeatable:

the process has survived multiple acquisitions

Managed:

use the process to manage the pursuits and don’t manage around the process

Measured:

track not only your wins and losses, but also how well you carried out the process

Optimized:

work to continually improve processes based on results and statistical analysis

Step 2: Use the Right Process (Cont.)

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Work Toward Building a Mature Business Acquisition Process

(for Major Competitions and Task Order Responses)

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Step 2: Use the Right Process (Cont.)

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A Mature Process Will—

Increase efficiency

(everyone knows what to

do and how to do it)

Reduce costs

(reuse artifacts)

Increase win

probability

Do You Have a Winning Process, or is Every Pursuit a New

Adventure? (Reminds Me of the Movie 50 First Dates)

Percentage of companies

we interview who admit to

having inadequate

processes

Percentage of companies

that actually do anything

about it

80% <20%

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BD pipeline management tools include:

Excel spreadsheet

Deltek’s GovWin Capture Management (server or cloud)

SalesForce.com (cloud)

Microsoft Dynamic CRM (server or cloud)

Capture Management tools:

Capture Command Center (Lohfeld’s SharePoint-based framework for managing

capture and proposal activities)

Deltek’s GovWin (Contracts and Task Orders)

Step 3: Use the Right Tools

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Define Your Overall Business Acquisition (BA) Lifecycle and Then

Select and Use the Best Tools for Each Phase (Not The Other Way

Around)

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Proposal Management Tools

SharePoint (Microsoft)

Privia

Virtual Proposal Center (Intravation)

SalesEdge (Sant)

Custom development

Establish an Enterprise Repository with Appropriate Levels of Security to Archive Artifacts and Get Them off Your PC

SharePoint (server or cloud)

Oracle

Siebel

Compusearch

SAP

Step 3: Use the Right Tools (Cont.)

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Establish 5 Special-purpose Capture and Proposal Productivity Tools

Résumé database

Past performance database (not the same as a contracts file)

Reusable graphics library

Pre-written proposal content

Online archive of past proposals

Personal Proposal Productivity Tools (Microsoft-centric)

Office 2010 and Windows 7, but keep other versions available for government electronic submissions

SharePoint 2010

Adobe Creative Suite

Adobe Acrobat Pro

See Beth Wingate’s list of tools on our website

Step 3: Use the Right Tools (Cont.)

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Choose the battles you are going to win and invest appropriately

Stand down on those you are unlikely to win

Make the Right Management Decisions

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Use a scorecard to evaluate bid opportunities

Use a “portfolio approach” to include some lower investment, higher payoff, lower win

probability bids to maximize your likelihood of achieving your revenue goals

Build your “A list” of programs that you plan to bid and a “B list” of backup programs to bid if an

“A list” program is delayed (always have a backup plan to make your revenue number)

Measure Your Pursuit Progress and Don’t Be Afraid to Shut Down a Pursuit If

You are Not Making Real Progress (See Color Mosaic on Next Slide)

Get a Running Start on Your Proposal

Start proposal planning and development in anticipation of request fort proposal (RFP) release,

not after the RFP is out

Manage Your Workload to Avoid Burnout

Make the Pursuit and Bid/No-bid Decisions

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Step 4: Call the Right Plays

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Pursuit Decision Scorecard

Color code: Blue (excellent), Green (good, but could be better),

Yellow (poor and needs much work), and Red (we don’t know how to begin)

QUALITATIVE DECISION MODEL

Pursuit Decision Factors Color Scale Assessment

1. Strategic Fit Blue

2. Understand the Requirement Green

3. Right Solution Blue

4. Customer Advocacy Green

5. Competition Favorable Yellow

6. Financial Objectives Red

7. Pursuit Investment Green

Overall Assessment Green

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Step 4: Call the Right Plays (Cont.)

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Winning solutions are created (engineered), they don’t “just happen”

Address all requirements of the RFP

(explicitly or implicitly)

Link your solution to the goals and objectives of your

customer

Build features that will be evaluated as proposal

strengths (features and benefits) and— Demonstrate high likelihood of mission success

Exceed contract requirements whenever practical in a

way that is meaningful to the customer

“Best informed wins.” If you understand the requirement better than your

competition, you should be able to offer the best solution

Step 5: Emphasize Creating a Winning Solution

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Winning Bids Will Always be “Feature Rich” With Many Strengths,

No or Few Weaknesses and Offer Low Risk

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Do you have a win laboratory or victory lab as

part of your process?

Step 5: Emphasize Creating a Winning Solution (Cont.)

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Build Solution Development into Your

Capture and Proposal Processes

Never start writing your technical or management

proposal until you’ve agreed on the solutions and

features that you’ll showcase

Agree on Your Solution

Creativity may be your only real competitive advantage

because today’s breakthroughs are tomorrow’s

obsolete technology

Focus on Creativity

Capture Management

Pre-proposal Preparation

Solution

Sessions

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Make no mistakes in the proposal that cause you to lose points

Make it easy to evaluate (score)

The battle should be won by having the best solution—assume your

competitors’ proposals will be well written!

Step 6: Build a Compliant, Responsive, Compelling Proposal

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Professional Proposals Are Expected to be Compliant, Responsive and

Compelling and Convey Your Solution in the Most Favorable Way to Receive

the Highest Evaluation Score

Compliant

Compelling

Responsive

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Always follow these rules:

Never criticize the person, only critique the solution

or proposal to make it better

Encourage innovation, experimentation and creativity

within the framework of your business acquisition

process

Recognize and appreciate the contributions to

success and don’t chastise those who tried hard but

didn’t win

A happy team builds a culture around winning and

your team can become invincible in your

competitive market

Step 7: Have Fun!

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People Who Have Fun at What They do Are

More Engaged, Creative, Productive and Motivated to Win

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On a Scale of 1 to 4, Rate Your Company in Each of the 7 Factors

How Well Do You Stack Up?

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4

4

32

1

4

3

2

1

43

21

43

21

4

3

2

1

4

3

2

1

3

2 1

PEOPLE

PROPOSAL TOOLS

The Graphic Gives You

a Clear Indication of

Where You Need to

Focus Your Energy

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Want to Know More with Deltek? View the resources below or visit Deltek.com for additional information and analysis to help you find and

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Thank You!