Professional Training

Successful companies make training an integral part of their overall strategy and fully understand that consistently winning proposals start with well-trained, knowledgeable, highly skilled proposal teams. Give your employees the skills and knowledge essential to capturing new business and managing proposal development effectively and efficiently.

Capture and Proposal Training—Let Us Train Your Staff

Training Schedule

 

Training Courses

Winning proposals start with knowledgeable, highly skilled proposal teams. Give your employees the skills and processes necessary to capture new business and manage proposal development effectively with Lohfeld Consulting Group’s capture, writing, and proposal management training offerings.

We offer full-day training courses covering:

• Learn Capture Management - How government contractors win business
• Learn Proposal Management - How government contractors create winning proposals
• Learn Proposal Writing - How to write better technical and managerial proposals that outscore the competition

Each full-day course emphasizes team interaction and collaboration. Each course integrates team exercises designed to reinforce the lessons learned in the classroom and create actions that the company can take to improve its capture and proposal processes.

Content is based on Lohfeld Consulting Group’s distinct capture and proposal processes that are specifically designed for government contractors.

Courses include tips and tricks to avoid bidding pitfalls. Instructors share insight gained from leading capture and proposal activities for companies ranging from small and small disadvantaged businesses up to the largest companies serving the government market.

When and Where

Lohfeld Consulting Group delivers these instructional programs via public open-enrollment sessions and in private, customized sessions for your company in a private meeting space or on-site at your facility.

Public Classes

Public classes are available throughout the country. We limit enrollment to 25 students per class session to allow for one-on-one instructor/student interaction and effective group-learning dynamics.

Learn more about our 2012 public training schedule, and check back often for new additions.

How to Register

Registration for public courses is conducted by our partner organization, Deltek. Registration typically opens 1 to 2 months prior to each session. To register for a course:

• View our public schedule and determine which class you want to attend.
• When registration is open, click on the course name.
• Click on “register now” to link to the Deltek registration page.

Private On-Site Classes Just For Your Company

Lohfeld Consulting Group provides private sessions on a schedule that meet your needs. Class times are flexible. We can schedule the course during business hours, weekends, or after hours. For each on-site class, we ask that you provide the training room, projector, and screen, coffee service, and meals. We do the rest!

We can tailor these classes to meet your individual needs or develop special training classes that incorporate your methodologies—targeted to your company or team.

To discuss a training class and receive a price quote, contact Briana Coleman at 703.615.7596 or BColeman@LohfeldConsulting.com

 

Learn Capture Management - How government contractors win business

Capture Management is the process used by government contractors to pursue and win new business. In this seminar, you’ll learn the 10-step capture management process developed by Lohfeld Consulting Group, which covers the major capture management activities from identifying and qualifying new business opportunities through RFP release. Additionally, this seminar shows you how to conduct capture reviews and manage the entire capture process. Understanding this process is a must for government contractors.

You will learn how successful government contractors consistently win the programs they pursue. You will take away the Capture Management tools and techniques that your company can apply to make better decisions and increase your win probability. This is a LIMITED CAPACITY event – prompt registration is encouraged.

What you will learn:

In this Capture Management seminar, you’ll learn how to:

• Select and qualify new business opportunities
• Make a rigorous pursuit and bid/no-bid decision
• Develop your Capture Plan
• Create competitive solutions and service offerings that will earn a high score from proposal evaluators
• Position your company to win
• Create effective win strategies that will set your company apart from the competition
• Develop your teaming strategy and select your team members
• Establish your price to win
• Increase your effectiveness in capture activities

8:00 a.m.   Registration and breakfast

8:30 a.m.   Understanding the Business Development Life Cycle –
                  Identifying and Qualifying New Business Opportunities

10:30 a.m. Developing Your Capture Plan

• STEP 1 – Becoming a capture manager and forming your capture team

• STEP 2 – Understanding and influencing requirements

• STEP 3 – Developing your solution

• STEP 4 – Positioning your company to win

• STEP 5 – Assessing the competition

• STEP 6 – Developing your win strategies

• STEP 7 – Using teaming strategies

• STEP 8 – Setting the price to win

• STEP 9 – Assessing risk

• STEP 10 – Conducting capture reviews and managing the capture process

4:00 p.m. Seminar Concludes

This full-day course qualifies for 10 APMP Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

Course Instructor

Brooke Crouter, Lohfeld Consulting Group Principal Consultant

Who should attend?

This class is designed for professionals in business development, capture management, and proposal management, as well as company executives and operational managers—including project managers and technical professionals who support the acquisition of new business.

 

Learn Proposal Management - How government contractors create winning proposals

Proposal Management covers the process government contractors use to create winning proposals for full-and-open competitions and task order contracts. Proposal Management follows a structured process comprising a series of scalable actions and steps aimed at creating high-scoring proposals that result in winning bids.

Understanding this process is a must for government contractors. This seminar will teach you how successful government contractors consistently win the programs they pursue. You’ll learn how your company can apply this proposal management process, create better proposals, and apply proven techniques to raise your win probability. This is a LIMITED CAPACITY event – prompt registration is encouraged.

What you will learn:

In this Proposal Management seminar, you’ll learn how to:

• Work with your Capture Management team and understand how Proposal Management should integrate with Capture to build high-scoring proposals. We’ll examine our government Business Acquisition Framework and the components comprising the BD and Capture Management stages, focusing on opportunity identification and qualification, client interaction and the importance of client intimacy in understanding requirements and objectives, capture plan development, capture team organization, opportunity assessment reviews, positioning, competitive assessments, establishing price to win, and bid/no-bid decisions
• Plan and conduct effective pre-RFP activities to get a jump start on proposal artifact development and focus proposal resources on pre-proposal preparation activities, including assigning proposal resources, developing a strawman RFP, preparing draft storyboards/annotated outlines, developing early-stage proposal products, finalizing your proposal development plan, planning your kickoff meeting, and conducting a pre-proposal gate review
• Manage your proposal development process after RFP release, including finalizing and validating your proposal outline, design, and resources; conducting the kickoff meeting; finalizing your solution and storyboards/annotated outlines; writing compliant, compelling, and responsive proposal drafts; conducting structured color team reviews with realistic schedules, inputs, and outputs; developing effective proposal graphics; and producing and quality checking your final proposal
• Manage quick-response task order proposals as well as more traditional proposals for full-and-open competitions
• Prepare for proposal submission, conduct your closure strategy, clean up and prepare files for post-submission use, get ready for debriefs, and conduct lessons-learned and continual improvement reviews

Plus—you’ll learn how to use proposal productivity tools—and we’ll give you our favorite templates and checklists to help you better plan and manage your proposals:

• Capture Plan structure template
• SharePoint Proposal Workbench Structure
• SWOT Feature/Benefit/Supporting Example/Theme Template
• Sample Storyboard
• Resume Template
• Past Performance Write-up Template
• Proposal Management Plan Structure Template
• Proposal Schedule Samples Template
• Kickoff Meeting Planner

Seminar Schedule:

8:00 a.m.       Registration and Breakfast

8:30 a.m.       Introductions

9:00 a.m.       Lohfeld Government Business Acquisition Framework overview
                      and the role of Proposal Management

• Phase 1 – Opportunity identification and assessment review
• Phase 2 – Capture Management

10:45 a.m.     Phase 3 – Pre-proposal preparation for Proposal Managers

12:00 p.m.     Working Lunch

12:30 p.m.     Phase 4 – Designing, developing, reviewing, and

                      submitting your proposal

2:30 p.m.       Phase 5 – Post-submission activities for Proposal Managers

4:00 p.m.      Seminar Concludes

This full-day course qualifies for 10 APMP Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

Course Instructor

Beth Wingate, AF.APMP, APMP Fellow, 2012 APMP COO and 2010 - 2011 Director of Education, Lohfeld Consulting Group Managing Director, Proposal Development and Corporate Communications

Who should attend?

This class is designed for business development, capture management, and proposal management professionals as well as for company executives and operational managers, including project managers and technical professionals who support new business acquisition activities and need to understand the interrelationships between the capture and proposal phases and the importance of using a structured, repeatable proposal management process.

 

Learn Proposal Writing - How to write better technical and managerial proposals that outscore the competition

Do you have to write the technical or management sections of proposals? Would you like to learn the process professional writers use to create compelling content quickly for the technical and management sections of a proposal?

If you would like to learn how to write better proposals more quickly and consistently receive higher scores, then this 1-day training seminar is for you.

What you will learn:

In this Proposal Writing seminar, you’ll learn how to:

• Create a compliance checklist to ensure your written content addresses all requirements
• Identify features and benefits that set you apart from the competition
• Develop customer-focused win themes
• Plan proposal content using techniques such as templates, storyboards, and annotated outlines
• Create proposal outlines that are consistent with the proposal instructions and shape the proposal outline based on understanding the evaluation process
• Develop graphics with impact—and action captions that underscore key points
• Quickly write compliant, responsive, and compelling proposal responses
• Recognize good proposal content and use the skills learned in this class to improve your proposal content to better meet professional standards
• Practice some basic principles of proposal writing through hands-on exercises

Seminar Schedule:

8:00 a.m.   Registration and breakfast

8:30 a.m.   Proposal writing instruction

• Module 1: Why a proposal? Where do proposals fit in the business strategy lifecycle? How does the government evaluate proposals, and how does that affect writers? We’ll examine the various roles on proposals and how they all come together to create a winning effort.
• Module 2: Understanding the evaluation process. What is the Government looking for — and how do they review a proposal?
• Module 3: Preparing to respond to the RFP. Who are the players on your team? What are the key proposal roles and responsibilities?
• Module 4: Building the proposal strategy. Proposals are about the customer—and what’s in it for them. Maintaining a focus on the client, we’ll examine how to use hot buttons and other client concerns to develop winning proposal strategies, including effective discriminators, win themes, and ghosts. We’ll look at how to develop features and benefits.
• Module 5: Analyzing the RFP. No one wants their hard work to go to waste—or to find that a proposal was considered unresponsive to the RFP. How does a writer determine what is required and what is desired? What are sections C, L, and M? We’ll introduce how to parse an RFP and discuss why a compliance matrix is a key tool to facilitate proposal evaluation and prevent major proposal problems.
• Module 6: Coming to grips with the text. Everyone wants to save time and energy writing—and there are some proven tools that help writers do just that. We’ll use a series of exercises to demonstrate how to create a compliant proposal outline—one that allows evaluators to score the proposal easily, gets high marks, and helps integrate the proposal from the beginning. We’ll discuss how an annotated outline can help engineer section and paragraph flow so that your proposals persuade and sell the customer on your solution. We’ll also examine the importance of graphics, demystify the graphics process, and practice creating action captions that create an all-important take-away for each graphic.
• Module 7: Writing and Revising. How can writers improve their experience with writing checklists, style sheets, and proposal language do’s and don’ts? What are the techniques for self-editing? What is the purpose of the rainbow of formal reviews? We’ll acquaint writers with what they can expect as the proposal process unfolds.
• Module 8: Reviewing the Proposal. What are color teams and why are there so many? Learn about the purpose and outcomes of the various color team reviews.

4:00 p.m.   Seminar concludes

This full-day course qualifies for 10 APMP Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

Course Instructor

Brooke Crouter, Lohfeld Consulting Group Principal Consultant

Who should attend?

This course is designed for technical and managerial professionals, company executives, and proposal professionals who are called upon to write sections of proposals or lead proposal volumes.

 

These classes can also be taught on-site at your company location with up to 25 people in attendance. For private classes, contact Briana Coleman at 703.615.7596 or BColeman@LohfeldConsulting.com