Honorable Mention "Tweats" from Lohfeld Consulting Group's Drawing at 20th Anniversay APMP International Conference

Here are some of our favorite "tweats" of lessons learned collected at the APMP conference. Enjoy - and perhaps learn from our colleagues' experiences!

• Make sure the hole punch is set correctly. -D. Holden

• Sales rep sent us an RFP on Monday afternoon that was due the previous Thursday. He had had it in his box for 2+ weeks but forgot it. He wanted to know if we could turn it around by the next day. The lesson learned was a deal is never too small to get a "chief" involved. The rep lost his job, we lost the client, but Proposal Services did not lose face. -C. Sanford

• Never let the technical team storyboard without the proposal manager. They scheduled the meeting without me - and had their response up to 20 pages before I found out about it and gave them their true page limit - 6 pages! -L. Garner

• Poor Practice: So many times I have seen proposal teams struggle and waste B&P because they did not nail down their baseline...causing a lot of heartache. Always baseline first. Best Practice: Baseline first! Next, storyboard and graphics…then write. This process works - it's the best and most efficient use of B&P and resources. -S. Jones

• After 25 years of proposal management, I've come to realize that proposal development is simply common sense mixed with project management and a burning desire to win. I've heard and studied all types of processes and found that by keeping your methodology simple, incorporating some world-class software, and hiring professionals who are dedicated, knowledgeable, and willing to adopt ultimately is the best formula for a best-in-class proposal center. -L. Bryant

• Lessons-learned Haikus!

  • Frantic proposal, just got rep yesterday noon, should not be bidding. -D. Kumpf

  • RFP just out, no technical solution, much, much pain ahead. -D. Kumpf