Let’s start at the very beginning…
You know those annoying earworms you can’t get out of your head for the rest of the day? Hopefully this one won’t last too long, but it’s making an important point: think of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music singing “Let’s start at the very beginning: it’s a very good place to start” and let’s consider how this can really help improve your bids…
Now yes, of course we can help you at whatever stage you present your bid to us. Our Proposal Rescue Service is there for a reason! And it gets an awful lot of emergency call-outs…. BUT…. there’s a better way! Starting with some expert help from ‘the very beginning’ can actually be more cost-effective for your bid overall. It can save considerable time and money if your writers are tasked and targeted properly from the start. (Assuming they will follow a storyboard or bid plan correctly just because you wrote one has caused more rewrites than anything else.)
Having us facilitate your bid kick-off and storyboarding/planning sessions gives you – as the bid manager/director – time and space to think, plan and listen properly to your team, while our experts lead the meeting and make sure nothing is forgotten or left out.
Having our experts examine the ITT/RFP before you set the writing tasks means you aren’t the only person in your bid team who will have read the whole thing…. Moreover, it gives you the benefit of specialist knowledge and experience to spot the pitfalls or traps you might just miss while you’re busy doing everything else to get the bid underway.
Our team are also expert at identifying the writers and bid team contributors who will need more help preparing their material. We can then help you provide that assistance from early on, not when these people are struggling halfway through and demanding remedial effort just when you don’t have time to give it.
All these reasons and more are why it’s best to bring our experts in early. It’s not about us needing to be with you at all times throughout the bid, although of course we can if you want that. It’s about making sure your bid starts and develops properly. Then your team are more likely to be able to follow the plan and be more self-sufficient. This approach means you can plan more precisely what help you will need and when you will need it, which means effective cost planning too, as I said earlier (‘at the very beginning’, in fact!). See? Told you that was a good place to start!
By the way, apparently the antidote to earworms is to sing the old favourite ‘Happy Birthday to you’ a few times. How useful that melody has been in recent years! Feel free to try that, if Julie Andrews’ voice is already embedded in your brain….
