Chapter 17
Post-Proposal Submittal Phase
The post-proposal submittal phase begins officially when the customer receives your proposal. The first order of business once this happy day arrives is to express your gratitude, and the company’s, to the proposal team. Take them to dinner, buy them a drink, or take them to a ball game. Do whatever is appropriate for your organization and the members of the proposal team. Submitting a proposal is an event to be celebrated regardless of the ultimate outcome. Just do something meaningful, and do it shortly after the proposal is submitted.
Give the proposal team and yourself a few days off, if possible, to recharge your collective batteries. Then review the entire proposal to identify any omissions, critical errors, or areas that require improvement. This will prove to be valuable information if the procurement cycle includes customer discussions or a request for final proposal revisions.
In addition, have each member of the capture team document the lessons learned from the entire proposal effort. Note those things that worked well and those that did not. Include observations, suggestions, and recommendations to improve your company’s proposal process. If appropriate, provide the lessons learned to senior management so they can review the recommendations and respond to them. If not, maintain a file of lessons learned to help guide future proposal activities.
If your organization gives bonuses for proposals, complete the process to recommend those who went beyond the call of duty. If not, consider writing letters of commendation for those people. Send the letters to the appropriate managers in your organization, and try to get a copy placed in each employee’s personnel file. Few people are amply rewarded for their proposal participation. Do what you can to recognize their efforts.
After the euphoria of finishing the proposal has worn off, prepare for the next phase of the proposal process. The road from here to contract award can be especially treacherous. A lapse in focus during this phase could lead to unpleasant consequences. An excellent proposal effort can turn to ruin if you fail to prepare adequately for any required oral presentations or if you slip in responding to customer inquiries about your proposal.
These are two rich areas where you can recover from a less-than-spectacular proposal and potentially gain competitive advantage. Alternatively, they represent opportunities for an otherwise winning proposal to become a losing effort. Many contracts are won and lost during this important proposal phase.
ORAL PRESENTATIONS
Some procuring agencies require an oral presentation as part of the proposal response. In other cases, customers might request an oral presentation of your overall proposal or responses to questions they have about your proposal. In some instances, your entire technical proposal may consist of an oral presentation.
Section L or M of the RFP will identify those cases where an oral presentation is considered part of your proposal submittal. Regardless of the reason for the oral presentation, always take seriously the opportunities and dangers involved in making such a presentation to your customer. Most contracts are won or lost by a narrow margin. The quality of your presentation and the people who give it may well represent that margin. Two stories with vastly different outcomes will help illustrate this point.
The first procurement was a two-phase affair where three bidders were selected to design an entire integrated system. One bidder would then be selected to implement its design during the second phase of the program. At the end of the first phase, each bidder was given the opportunity to present its design and program approach during a four-day, system-level design review. The audience consisted of the people who would select the winner.
To prepare, we worked with authors to script their presentation. Then we brought in a communications consultant. Each presenter delivered his or her presentation in front of a small audience while it was being videotaped by the consultant. Through repeated rehearsals, critiques, and practice, each presentation was honed to perfection. Our presentation to the customer was a smashing success, and we won a major contract.
The second story involves a situation where an oral presentation was part of our technical proposal. We delivered our presentation slides with the proposal and made the presentation several weeks later. Presenters were limited to the people who would execute the program. Despite all my urgings, I was unsuccessful in convincing management to script our presentation or practice it beforehand. We traveled to the customer’s site the day before our scheduled presentation to prepare. Unfortunately, several of our presenters experienced travel problems. Consequently, we went through our presentation for the first time the night before.
Our lack of preparation was painfully obvious. One speaker, who was presenting an especially critical aspect of our program, got stage fright and froze at the podium. The results were disastrous. Everyone who attended experienced that uncomfortable embarrassment that comes from watching someone sweat, stammer, and generally struggle through a presentation. Needless to say, we lost this important contract.
Was either of these contracts won or lost solely on the basis of our oral presentation? Probably not, but it likely contributed significantly to the balance that tilted the scales to a win in one case and a loss in the other. Use oral presentations as yet one more opportunity to wrestle advantage away from your competitors.
Oral Presentations as Part of Formal Source Selection
Since 1994, various agencies have experimented with selecting contractors on the basis of oral presentations instead of hard copy or electronic technical and management volumes. Since 1997, oral presentations have been covered by FAR 15.102. A variant of this approach is to use oral presentations as a supplement to an offeror’s written proposal. In either case, there are some important guidelines for preparing and delivering your oral presentation. Good presentations are the result of planning, development, organization, and practice.
Review Section L carefully to determine the details concerning the oral presentation. These include where, when, time allowed, and presentation content. Note whether copies of your presentation have to be included with your submitted proposal.
Build the content of your oral presentation concurrent with the development of your written proposal, if both are required. This will ensure that the two complement each other. Based on the content requirements of the oral presentation, decide what information to include with your written proposal and what to include in the presentation. Plan to include copies of the oral presentation as part of your red team review.
Analyze the details of the required technical content and prepare an author guide for each separate requirement of the oral presentation. Normally, Section M will not list separate evaluation criteria for the oral presentation. However, you can correlate the content required by the Section L instructions with the Section M evaluation criteria to determine which are relevant to the presentation. Prepare a detailed outline for each separate requirement. Likewise, develop themes, conduct a feature/benefit analysis, and identify potential strengths to emphasize.
I recommend that you prepare a written response for each oral presentation requirement, just as if you were going to submit it with your proposal. Then transform it into an oral presentation.
Organize the presentation according to the order asked for in Section L. Start by allocating an equal amount of time for each topic requested. Then adjust this allocation based on the relative importance of the corresponding evaluation criteria. Translate this into the number of slides per topic. Be careful not to build too many slides. Oral presentations are time-limited, and overrunning one topic will shortchange another. This could negatively affect the evaluation of your presentation. Allocate at least two to three minutes per slide, except for introductory or title slides. You will be able to fine-tune the specific timing when you practice the presentation.
We refer to presentations with visual aids as oral presentations, but they really are visual presentations with an oral narration. The information contained on the slide and its appearance may be more important than what you say. Some experts claim that an effective presentation is primarily made up of vocal (38 percent) and visual (55 percent) elements, while the verbal content accounts for 7 percent. This means the visual information and how you deliver your presentation are critical elements. Keep this firmly in mind as you develop your presentation slides.
Because the presentation is so visually oriented, graphics can play an important role in making key points and helping evaluators remember them. Key points of your presentation and important themes should take center stage, normally as bulleted or numbered items on your slides. Your oral narrative fills in the details and emphasizes themes. That is not to imply that your presentation should resemble a sales pitch. Your oral presentation, like your written proposal, is primarily a technical presentation with a persuasive message.
Here is a simple checklist to help guide your planning:
If your customer is located out of town, plan to arrive the day before your scheduled presentation. Devise one or two alternative routes to the customer’s location or alternative forms of transportation that can be used if the unexpected happens. Plan to arrive early, and leave enough time for unforeseen contingencies. Being late, regardless of cause, gets you off on the wrong foot with your customer.
Find out as much as possible about the room, the seating arrangements, and the location of the projector at the customer’s facility.
Find out how soon you can get into the room before the presentation to set up. Once you know the room layout, decide where each team member will sit.
Know the dress code of your customer audience and wear clothes that are appropriate. This is the wrong time to have your key technical person show up wearing a plaid suit, striped shirt, and paisley tie, or in a neon mini-skirt with hot-pink glasses. Discuss what each team member will be wearing. The best approach is to dress conservatively.
Plan the role of the team leader and each participant.
Organizing Your Team
Many government procurements limit presenters to people who will work on the program. In these cases, your proposed program manager must be the team leader and lead presenter. Other members of the proposed management team can present selected topics based on the technical requirements of the presentation.
Even if it is not a requirement, having the program manager lead the team is most often the best choice. Under no circumstances should you allow marketing to lead the oral presentation. Except as an observer, marketing should not attend oral presentations when they are part of your formal proposal submittal. On more than one occasion, I have heard government personnel complain about receiving a sales pitch when they expected a technical presentation covering the details of the bidder’s proposed approach.
Marketing plays an important role in business acquisition. They can even participate in preparing the presentation, where their knowledge of the customer can be especially valuable. Just keep in mind that customers want to see and interact with members of the program team proposed to perform the contract—those with whom they will interact in the future.
Each team member should know exactly what they are supposed to do for the presentation and when and how they are to do it. Plan to choreograph the entire presentation. Create a responsibility matrix to show team member assignments. Be sure to have backup team members available among your staff in case a team member is unable to perform his or her part of the presentation due to illness, accident, or family emergency.
Find out beforehand whether the customer will ask questions during the presentation, after the presentation, or not at all. Decide which team member will be responsible for handling customer questions. The program manager should field each customer question and then direct it to the person on your team most qualified to answer. This helps create a favorable customer impression that you are conducting an effective, well-coordinated team effort.
Practicing the Presentation
Practice may not make perfect, but it certainly affords an opportunity to work out the bugs and deliver an effective customer presentation. The amount of required practice depends on the presentation skills of the speakers. If possible, practice early versions of the presentation as it is being developed. This will enable speakers to become familiar with the presentation content early, which should reduce practice time later.
Have individuals practice in front of a small audience until they are comfortable with their presentation and can give it in the allotted time. Then practice the whole presentation at least three times with the entire team present.
Give the first presentation to a group capable of critiquing your performance and scoring it. Practice looking like a cohesive team and making transitions between speakers. If the customer will ask questions during your presentation, have the audience ask questions during practice. The second presentation should incorporate the comments from the first presentation. The third presentation is a dress rehearsal. Schedule additional presentations as required. If practical, plan a final dress rehearsal the day before the scheduled presentation.
At a minimum, have speakers memorize their opening and closing remarks. I prefer they memorize their entire presentation. Delivering an important presentation to the customer can be an anxiety-laden experience, especially for inexperienced speakers. Similarly, having a video camera pointed at you, which is a common practice at oral presentations, can be very unnerving. Memorization is good preventive medicine to overcome a fear-induced blank mind, which can plague even the most practiced speakers. Having recited the opening from memory, most people will be calm enough to gain control over the rest of their presentation.
Scripting each presentation is also a good safeguard against speaker anxiety. Under pressure, speakers tend to ad-lib. Without a script, they may engage in verbal meandering, causing them to overrun their allotted time, miss making the key points of their presentation, or make inappropriate statements. Alternatively, anxious speakers may freeze up and be incapable of delivering their presentation. Avoid disaster through practice, memorization, and scripting of presentations.
Team presentations should be conducted exactly as they will be given to the customer. This includes introductions, closing remarks, transitions between speakers, and presentation slides. Do not let a speaker talk through a presentation, telling you what he is going to say. Have the speaker deliver the entire presentation just as he or she will at the real presentation.
Assign a timekeeper, and keep time for each presentation during both practice and the actual presentation. Work out subtle signals to alert speakers when they appear to be going over their allotted time.
Presentation Tips
The manner in which a presentation is delivered and the conduct of the presenter affect the perceived quality of the presentation. They can even affect the perceived competence of the presenter. The “presence” of the speaker can be as important as what he or she has to say; sometimes it is even more important.
An oral presentation is not the time to try to transform the entire program organization into gifted public speakers. Nonetheless, it is worth reviewing some presentations dos and don’ts and having your team incorporate as many of them as possible into their presentation style.
As a starting point, do everything you can to appear relaxed. Speakers who appear tense or anxious cause the audience to tense, which can be an uncomfortable experience.
When speaking, do:
Look calm and confident.
Sound positive.
Project your voice.
Vary your rate of speech.
Pause after a key point for emphasis.
Make direct eye contact with audience members.
Move purposefully.
Be aware of your posture.
Allow your hands to fall to your sides when you are not using them.
Remember to breathe; smile if you can.
Pay attention to other team members who are speaking.
As you make your presentation, do not:
Speak too softly or in a monotone voice.
Use non-words like umm, ahh, or er.
Clear your throat too often.
Use qualifiers like maybe or perhaps.
Roll your eyes, frown, or make expressions of exasperation.
Lean on the podium.
Slouch, stand too still, or appear stiff.
Keep your hands in any one place for too long.
Hold an object in your hands unless you plan to use it.
Look expressionless or unhappy.
If you are going to project slides electronically, bring along a backup presentation to use in case the primary medium fails to work. Murphy’s Law says that if anything can go wrong, it will. I think Murphy was an optimist. Plan ahead and be ready to cope with unforeseen contingencies.
From the moment you arrive at the customer’s facility until you are safely driving away, everything you do and say is important. When interacting with the customer, be cordial and polite. Act friendly, and suppress any visible signs of frustration or anger.
The Relative Importance of Oral Presentations
There is a tendency to relax and let down your guard once the written proposal is submitted. This is a deadly mistake. Whenever an oral presentation is part of your proposal submittal, it should be accorded the same diligence and attention to detail given the written portion. You would not consider submitting your written proposal without a red team or some comparable review. Similarly, you would not willingly release a proposal without editing the final copy. Nor would you submit it on the back of an old envelope.
Preparing and delivering an effective oral presentation is difficult and time consuming. In some respects, it is more difficult than preparing the written portion. Yet if you attempt to follow the presentation guidelines contained in this section, eventually someone will ask, “How much is enough?” The answer is: When you are absolutely, positively convinced that your presentation is superior in every way to all the competitors’. Anything less may permit the competition to steal away an advantage that could belong to you. Your goal is to gain competitive advantage, not to forfeit it.
Other Oral Presentations
Sometimes customers ask for an oral presentation of your proposal as a verbal executive summary. Such presentations are not part of the formal source selection process, so your presentation will not be scored. Nor will it officially contribute to the overall evaluation of your proposal. Nevertheless, do not take these presentations lightly. They afford an opportunity to make a favorable impression on your customer. Everything counts.
To determine presentation content, follow any customer instructions contained in the RFP. In the absence of specific direction, organize your presentation around the evaluation criteria contained in Section M of the RFP. You can also call the customer’s contracting officer to ask for specific instructions. Use the guidelines presented above to prepare and practice your presentation. This type of presentation need not be as polished as when it is a part of your evaluated proposal. But why not put in the extra effort? It might be the best opportunity you have to distinguish yourself from the competition.
Oral executive summaries typically last an hour or less, so one person can make the entire presentation unless you choose to showcase the proposed team. The proposed program manager is usually the best person to make the presentation, unless he or she is an abysmal speaker. In those cases, the better part of valor is to let another credible person give the presentation.
Again, avoid the temptation to let marketing take the lead. The customer is not looking for a sales pitch but a summary of your proposed program solution and technical approach. Marketing personnel will not be viewed as credible for this type of presentation regardless of their actual capability.
Occasionally, customers will send each bidder a set of questions based on an initial review of the bidder’s proposal. Each bidder is asked to prepare and orally present its answers to these questions. To prepare for this type of presentation, read the following section describing how to respond to customer inquiries. Then use the presentation guidelines already discussed to prepare and practice your presentation.
Customer inquiries about the contents or intent of your proposal contribute to its final score. Treat them accordingly. Ask the contracting officer for clarification if you are unsure about how an oral presentation fits into the source selection process. Ignorance is not bliss in this situation.
RESPONDING TO POST-PROPOSAL CUSTOMER INQUIRIES
The first phase of government source selection is to conduct an initial assessment of each bidder’s proposal. Based on this assessment, the customer then decides whether it requires any additional information to clarify its understanding of what is being offered. If so, several avenues are available to solicit information from bidders.
First, the government can elect to award the contract without discussions. However, it must declare this intent in the RFP. Discussions is a somewhat vague term. In general, it means giving each bidder a chance to change its proposal. An award without discussions limits exchanges between the government and offerors to situations where a bidder may be given the opportunity to clarify certain aspects of its proposal. The magnitude of the allowable clarification is where the definition of discussions blurs. The government is not supposed to permit a bidder to make material changes to its proposal but only to clarify minor points.
For example, the government might ask a bidder to clarify the relevance of its past performance information and adverse past performance information to which the bidder has not previously had an opportunity to respond, or to resolve minor or clerical errors. Under an award without discussions, the government does not have to solicit clarification information from all bidders.
The second condition under which the government may ask for additional information occurs when the government decides to conduct discussions with all bidders in the competitive range. Based on the initial ratings of each proposal against all evaluation criteria, the contracting officer establishes a competitive range comprising all the most highly rated proposals. Proposals outside the competitive range are eliminated from further consideration, and the contracting officer notifies the unfortunate bidders. The remaining bidders then receive written inquiries from the customer concerning their proposals.
Exchanges between the government and bidders within the competitive range can take the form of oral discussions, written questions, or both. The intent of these exchanges, or “discussions,” is to allow bidders to change their proposals. Discussions are tailored to each offeror’s proposal. The stated objective of discussions is to maximize the government’s ability to obtain best value, based on the requirements and the evaluation factors defined in the RFP.
Discussions most often consist of written questions. Evaluators write questions to identify significant weaknesses, identify deficiencies, and clarify other aspects of your proposal (e.g., cost, price, technical approach, past performance, terms and conditions). The questions represent areas that could, in the opinion of the contracting officer, be altered or explained to materially enhance your proposal’s potential for award. On the flip side, they are areas that, if improperly addressed, will result in your losing the contract. Keep this important piece of information firmly in mind: You can be dropped from the competitive range and eliminated from the competition at any time during discussions. One fatal slip, and you are out!
Customer inquiries are typically referred to as evaluation notices. Some agencies call them information for clarification or information for negotiation. Regardless of title, customer inquiries usually point out a deficiency in your proposal or an uncertainty where the customer is not sure what you are proposing. If you fail to fix a perceived deficiency, your response for this portion of the proposal is scored as “unsatisfactory” and you run the risk of being eliminated.
Other cases involve a situation where the customer is requesting more information to understand what you are proposing. How you respond will determine the final score, assessed risk, or both for that proposal section. The wrong response can turn a satisfactory score into a deficient or marginal rating. A good response can transform a marginal score into a satisfactory or higher rating or reduce the level of assessed proposal risk.
On the battlefield of competitive proposals, wars are frequently won and lost in the trenches of responding to customer inquiries. To say this phase is critical to proposal success would be a monumental understatement. Like other pivotal points throughout the proposal life cycle, this area represents a significant opportunity to capture competitive advantage.
By this stage of the process, you have made the competitive range. You are a serious contender. The customer has flagged some areas where it perceives some deficiencies, omissions, or potential shortcomings in your proposal. You now have the chance to fix these sins. Moreover, with some perceptive hard work, you have the potential to transform your final proposal into a powerful and effective document that will secure a nice piece of new business for your organization. Take advantage of this opportunity.
Developing Written Responses to Customer Inquiries
For planning purposes, ensure you have ready access to key members of the proposal team. This should be coordinated well in advance so you don’t have to scramble for resources at the last minute. Proposal team members might be reassigned to new jobs after the proposal is submitted.
Responding effectively to customer inquiries requires that you perform a miniature proposal development activity. Key activities include developing a schedule; analyzing customer questions; preparing, reviewing, and editing responses; and producing those responses and delivering them to the customer by the due date.
On page-limited proposals, your response might be similarly limited. So, plan accordingly. In addition, responses to customer inquiries are time-limited. Make sure you plan enough time for preparation, review, final production, and delivery to the customer. Customers often allow only a short period in which to respond. You must be prepared to move quickly.
If the customer requires change pages to your proposal, you must develop them concurrent with your written response. Pay close attention to the customer’s instructions concerning how to mark and submit proposal change pages. If the customer wants an oral presentation of your answers, use the information in this chapter to prepare one.
The first and most critical step in preparing your response is to fully understand what precipitated the question. Why is the customer asking this question? What information does the customer need to give this section a good score or a low risk rating? Start by reading and rereading the section of your proposal referenced by the customer’s question. Compare what you said in your proposal to all of the associated RFP requirements in the proposal requirements matrix. What is missing? What needs to be added? Why doesn’t the customer understand what you proposed? If you fail to understand why the customer is asking this question, you run the risk of providing a wrong answer. Ask marketing to participate in the review. Their customer insight may help decipher the question.
Sometimes the proposal team is too familiar with the proposal to grasp an evaluator’s inability to understand what they have proposed. In this case, bring in someone fresh to review the customer’s question and your proposal response. Also, do not view any customer question as trivial. Every question is important no matter how straightforward it seems. If the customer thought it was important enough to ask, it is important enough to take seriously.
Once you clearly understand the genesis of the customer’s question, begin to formulate a response. Prepare a draft and subject it to a critical review. The focus of this review is to determine whether your response has addressed the customer’s question adequately. If the customer’s question identified a deficiency, have you fixed it to everyone’s satisfaction? If the question asked for clarification, have you provided ample information that will lead to a high score?
Edit your response to accommodate review comments, and review it again if you have enough time. Repeatedly compare your response with the customer’s question to ensure you have completely and clearly dispelled any customer concerns. Make sure your entire answer is contained in the narrative response. Never refer evaluators to a section of your proposal for clarification. This will cause them extra work, and they might not have ready access to the referenced proposal section. Also, never instruct evaluators to go back and reread your proposal for the answer. If they did not understand it the first time, it is unlikely they will get it on the second reading. This approach might give evaluators the impression you think they are stupid. But I think we can easily identify the stupid person in this scenario.
Preparing a Final Proposal Revision
Making material changes to your proposal might change your bid price. As you prepare responses to customer questions and change your technical proposal, you must assess the cost impact of any proposed changes. Clarifying your proposal response will not normally alter your cost. However, fixing a deficiency may significantly affect cost. In such cases, you will need to balance the merits of how you fix the deficiency against its impact on the overall cost evaluation. Moreover, you will need to update your cost proposal to reflect any changes that have a cost impact.
After a customer has opened discussions, bidders are usually (but not always) afforded the opportunity to adjust their proposed prices. Sometimes the customer formally requests an adjusted price as part of the request for final proposal revisions. In other cases, pricing adjustments are made along with responses to written questions or on the basis of pre-award negotiations. In either case, build and maintain a record that traces changes in your technical proposal to corresponding changes in cost. Annotate each change in cost with comments that briefly explain the adjustment. This will prove invaluable after contract award.
Make sure you understand whether any post-proposal inquiries from your customer constitute discussions. If the customer does not consider an exchange to be discussions, you will not be permitted to adjust your price. Theoretically, any changes that are not discussions should not require any cost adjustment. However, some agencies have liberally expanded the envelope of information they solicit under the guise of award without discussions. If inquiries do not stipulate whether they constitute discussions, ask the contracting officer for clarification.
Making a Good First Impression
The government may award a contract without discussions. The advantage of submitting your very best product the first time out is obvious under these circumstances.
Making every effort to submit the best proposal initially is still important, even for procurements that include discussions. Under these circumstances, proposals are evaluated twice—once to determine the competitive range and once after discussions. The final evaluation is the one that counts, but the impression created by the first evaluation will be carried forward. It is far better to be perceived as the apparent winner after the first round of evaluations than to try to come from behind. Moreover, if you submit a great proposal the first time, you may relieve the customer from the burden of having to enter into discussions with all qualified bidders.
In yesteryears, a bid strategy of saving the best for last dominated the approach of many bidders. This mentality persists in some organizations. However, it is an ill-advised strategy for two reasons. First, by saving the best for last, you might never get a chance to show your best. Second, you might never overcome the initial view that your bid is a loser regardless of what you do during discussions. Use your initial submittal to make a favorable first impression with your customer. Continue to provide information to further enhance this view.
Resist the impulse to let down your guard, or you might get knocked out of the competition. The post-proposal phase is where the government attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff. Use this opportunity to gain advantage over other bidders. Prepare oral presentations and customer inquiries to better the competition and waltz your way into the winner’s circle.
Treat the preparation of an oral presentation to the customer with the same diligence and attention to detail you used to prepare your written proposal. Develop author guides for the presentation. Prepare written scripts, and practice the presentation until it is perfect. If the oral presentation is part of formal source selection, it might be the pivotal event that determines the winner. Make sure everyone knows his or her role. Prepare the presentation as a team. Practice as a team. Win as a team.
In responding to written inquires from the customer, make certain you understand why the question or clarification is being asked. Otherwise, you might not respond properly. What information does the customer need to give you a high score? Prepare your response to address the inquiry clearly. Review it. Critique it. Prepare a compelling response that gives the customer all the information necessary to dispel a noted deficiency, or clarify your proposed approach in a way that will lead to a favorable evaluation.
This is the final stretch. The finish line lies just ahead. Seize advantage and cross that line ahead of the other bidders.