persuasion | Lohfeld

In today’s blog post, Lisa Pafe follows up on her previous data call-related advice with insights on how to develop data calls during the capture phase of your business development activities… My previous blogs discussed what you can do pre-RFP to tie your data call to the win strategy and how to get proof points that POP. But, what are the elements of the data call and who should complete it? Below are specific examples of data elements that will help you create and issue data calls during the capture stage. Staffing data call (Points of contact (POCs): HR and Recruiting) Personnel details (clearances, education, certifications, domain areas) Recruiting statistics (average time to fill positions, number of recruiters, size of recruiting database, recruiting sources) Retention rate (company-wide and project-specific) Meatball charts (experience versus functional or technical requirements) Representative resumes Past performance data call (POCs: Project Managers, SMEs, Proposals, and Contracts) … Continue reading The art of the data call: 4 data calls you can issue today →

In today’s blog post, Lisa Pafe provides advice on 7 questions to ask before RFP release… Over the past few months, I have served as a Color Team Reviewer on many proposals that, while compliant, had a glaring lack of proof points. When I debriefed the team, I told them that they had forgotten an important proposal task: the team-wide data call. Unfortunately, too many companies limit data calls to resumes, past performance, and a company bio of revenues and full time employees (FTE). But, a data call should go beyond compliance; it must form the basis of persuasion. Persuasion is what makes your proposal compelling. Data calls provide the grist for win themes, discriminators, features and benefits, call-out boxes, and action captions. At the most basic level, the data call is an information-gathering request, internal to your company and external to teaming partners, which specifies: Who: the point of … Continue reading The art of the data call: 7 questions to ask pre-RFP →