How to Hire a Bid Manager
Hiring can be a tricky business. Someone has either left your team and needs replacing, or you are in the positive situation of expanding the business. Hiring the right person for your team is critical and when you are looking for a new Bid Manager to join your team, there are a number of aspects you must consider.
This hiring guide will provide you with an overview of just some of the points to consider when selecting the next member of your team.
Know what you need from a Bid Manager
It’s important to have a clear understanding of what you need from the outset. Take the time to assess the skills of your existing team, think about what you have and what you need.
Do you need a Bid Manager or a Proposal Manager? What’s the difference? It’s one of the biggest questions in our industry and a common reason for new starters not working out – get it wrong and you’ve placed a square peg in a round hole. Here’s a guide to the difference between the two.
If you are expanding your bid team, think about what skills will complement the existing talent in your team. If you are replacing someone who has left, think about what was most important about their role, bearing in mind you probably won’t find a like-for-like replacement. Have a list of ‘must haves’ and ‘must not haves’ – this will help in your selection process. In addition to what you need now, be sure to think about what you will need in 12 months’ time – perhaps more commercial or technical skills? Use the opportunity to future-proof your team.
Take the time to create a job description
This is a critical but often overlooked element of the hiring process. Much like you would want to see a well-written CV, candidates will react well to a detailed job description. The more information they have will ensure they know what they are applying for. This will result in more relevant applications. If you don’t know where to start, our website has a selection of job descriptions for you to review. Take a look at common bid team job descriptions.
Quirky internal naming conventions are fine for people that are in-house but you could miss out on applications because job seekers won’t click on your advert, or you won’t be captured in their job board alert system. Keep it simple for external adverts. You can always reveal your internal job title at the interview stage.
Money talks
Ensure your salary range is competitive compared to the market. Make sure it is sufficient to attract the best talent if that’s what you are seeking. Don’t judge this purely against what competing organisations are offering – they may be struggling to hire themselves! The Salary Benchmarking section on our website can help with this. Take a look at bid manager salary benchmarks (note that these are for UK teams).
If someone has left your team and secured a big pay rise in the process, consider that you may have been underpaying them. Be aware that you might not secure the same caliber of candidates with your offered salary – they left because they felt they were worth more.
Also, if you hired someone on £X in 2012, inflation and time dictate that you won’t find your desired candidate for the same money. You must either move with the times to remain competitive or adjust your expectations as to who you can hire.
The interview process
Map this out at the very start. Think about what you need to know from candidates in order to make a decision. Do you need someone that can write content? If so, it would be wise to incorporate a written assessment to judge their skills.
Be open about what you can offer. If you can’t offer your bid manager a career path with the role, don’t say you can. It will only result in you needing to look for another candidate in the near future once the truth is out. To combat this, let the candidates ask you some tough questions too. It’s an ‘inter’-view after all.
It is always useful to get a second opinion, so think about who else you can get involved to meet with candidates. This has to be someone whose opinion you trust, otherwise, there is no point. On the flip side, don’t involve the whole company as this will be overbearing for candidates – not to mention the logistical nightmare of coordinating diaries.
Know your decision criteria and process prior to arranging the first interview. Chopping and changing will lead to frustration and you may realise after 3 months of recruiting that you have already rejected the ideal candidate.
Don’t make the interview process overly long – you will miss out on candidates to companies that have a more efficient selection process. 3 stages should be enough to make a decision. Any more than this could cause unnecessary delays and put a drain on your resource. Time is money after all and too many cooks and opinions will often lead to stalemate.
Reference checking
You’ve made your decision and found your ideal candidate. You have offered them the position and they have accepted. This is great news but you’re not over the finish line just yet. A full reference check is vital and will give you peace of mind that you have made the right decision. You will need to obtain consent from your chosen candidate to contact their referees and you must only ask employment-related questions. More information on reference checking and a sample list of questions can be found here
First day and beyond
You’ve finally made it. Your new Bid Manager has walked through the door and is ready to get stuck in. Be sure to stay close to them during their first month. Ensure that they are settling in, developing the relationships they need and are enjoying their work. Provide feedback on their performance, so they know if there is anything they can improve or anything that will help them settle in. Be sure to get their feedback too – it’s important to know if you can be doing anything better too.
Development plans are often overlooked. In the 2015 Salary Survey, 48% of respondents had no personal development plan in place and only 25% had attended a training course in the previous year. You should be putting in place a development plan for your new employee from day one. This is not just about employee satisfaction but also about future-proofing your team with skills they might not have.
In summary
Hiring is not an exact science and gut feeling will come into it at some stage, particularly if you are going to be working with this person on a daily basis. You will need to strike a balance between skills and attitude. That being said, much like any bid, the better you plan at the outset, the better chance you have of reaching a successful conclusion.
Learn more
Visit www.bidsolutions.wpengine.com to learn more about the services Ben and the team can offer.
If you’d like to learn more about the state of the bid industry, including the challenges they face, please download our 2016/2017 survey report
Author: Ben Hannon
https://www.qorusdocs.com/blog/how-to-hire-a-bid-manager
‘Sixfold’s initiative to provide Foundation training in Manchester proves to be a great success’
Last year Sixfold, one of our training partners, launched APMP Foundation level training in Manchester. These courses have been well attended and the feedback has been phenomenal. Based on this success, Sixfold has scheduled these bid writing courses quarterly for 2017 (the next is scheduled for March 7th).
All of the students elected to take the exam on the day and so left with a Foundation Level Certification from the APMP. This Certification will not only help raise their stature within their companies but it will also help their career prospects.
The day is about more than Certification. Sixfold weave into the syllabus a great deal of practical advice and guidance that will help attendees improve their job performance and their company’s internal processes. At least, that is the feedback Sixfold got from many of the delegates. Here are a couple of comments from the Mancunian students:
‘It was a great day all round and Peter, you were just a great instructor and I have taken so much away from the day, so much that I can hit my Directors with! They are very much looking forward to me sitting them down and going through the facts and figures of what we should be doing and why.
Thank you very much for a great day, so informative and I am very much looking forward to putting it into practice.’
Gill Tidmarsh. Bid Manager
‘Very much enjoyed the course last week and it was lovely to meet you at last. My boss is very keen to look at our BD and bid process in light of my new qualification’
Jean Isherwood, Senior Proposal Writer
More Bid Writing Courses
Sixfold are considering running courses in Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow if there is the demand, so please do let us know if you think that would be helpful to you. Email enquires@bidsolutions.co.uk
To learn more about bid writing courses, click here.
Fantastic initiative from Strategic Proposals to recognise the next generation of leaders in our Profession
Strategic Proposals’ ‘Rising Stars’ Award Programme
Calling the next generation of leaders in the UK bid and proposal management profession! This year, Strategic Proposals’ is celebrating their 30th anniversary with a range of celebratory events worldwide. The first of these is their ‘Rising Stars’ award programme, with free training and activities for a group of up to twenty of the brightest and best young professionals working in bidding, proposals and work winning.
You will get three days of free courses (London on 5th April, and Stratford-upon-Avon on 12th and 13th September). With a range of industry-leading speakers, they will pool views on best practice, helping you to improve your own efficiency and effectiveness – and to win more business for your companies as a result.
You will get free coaching from one of Strategic Proposals’ senior team and there will be a chance to work on a short project with your fellow participants, looking at the future direction of our profession. (All they ask your company to do is to cover your travel costs).
It’s easy to apply (by email, no later than 17th February): full details can be found on Strategic Proposals’ website: http://www.strategicproposals.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Rising-Stars.pdf
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Career planning for bid professionals – top tips from Bid Solutions
What is your Proposal Writer or Bid Manager Career Path?
It’s that time of year when a lot of people decide they want a change. This can mean a variety of different things to any one person but for a large number it means new employment. It is crucial, however, that you make the right move for your career, rather than change for the sake of change itself. To help, Ben Hannon and the team from Bid Solutions have shared a selection of things to consider when planning your career.
1. List your goals
Understanding what you want to achieve in the long term will help you decide what you need to do in the short term. This list does not need to be set in stone, it will more than likely change several times as you react to the environment around you, both personally and professionally.
2. Think about your likes and dislikes
What type of environment allows you to flourish? What are your strong points? Do you even like your strong points?
Being happy at work is crucial to being successful and will provide you with the motivation to carry on when the going gets tough. For bid professionals, there are a variety of skills that are all crucial when pulling together a submission, so pinpoint where you fit in. If you aren’t sure what the bid lifecycle looks like, you can read more here: bidsolutions.wpengine.com/bid-recruitment/hiring-guide/bid-lifecycle/
3. Look into professional development
There are a number of bid writing courses available to improve your skills and further your career. Off-the-shelf courses that promote bid best practice are useful for all bid professionals and will give you a solid base upon which to build. Further to that, you can look more specifically at the roles you wish to undertake. Perhaps you need to develop your writing skills for executive summaries, or maybe you need to use a creative software package to enhance the look and feel of your submissions? There is no limit to what you can learn, so be sure to explore all available opportunities.
You can find more information about bid training on the Bid Solutions website.
In addition to training courses, there are a number of networking events you can attend to share ideas and understand how other organisations / industries approach bidding. The more you know, the better chance you have of success.
4. Keep your CV updated
Sometimes you can find yourself in the situation of unexpectedly having to find a new job. Having a CV ready to go will help you save time with your job search. It is recommended to have a base CV that provides an overview of your career and key bids that you have been involved with. Depending on the position you are applying for, be sure to tailor your CV so that your relevant skills are unmissable e.g. if you are applying for a bid writer role, make it obvious that you have written bids before.
5. Review your progress
Rome wasn’t built in a day, so be aware that achieving your goals will take time. Set time aside to review where you are in your overall plan. Are you on track? If not, what can you do to get yourself back on track? Professional development could be the answer, as mentioned previously. For bid professionals in permanent employment, it is recommended to review your progress on an annual basis. For interim bid professionals, review your progress either once every 6 months or at the end of each major contract. Most importantly on this point, don’t forget to celebrate how far you have come!
It is important to remember that career planning is not an exact science and these are just a number of points to consider. There will be many bumps in the road along the way and you will have to react to whatever life throws at you. However, the better prepared you are, the better chance you have of success.
As we say in our office, hope is not a strategy.
Here’s what other bid professionals had to say about their careers
Download our report on the state of bid management to find out what your peers around the world think of their careers. Download the report
Author: Ben Hannon
http://www.qorusdocs.com/blog/career-planning-for-bid-professionals-top-tips-from-bid-solutions
If a Competitor Makes an Accidental Mistake, You Can Stop it Being Corrected!
Why A Late Bid Submission Could Help Your Chances
We have all been there! The computer system has collapsed in the final hours of the bid submission or a document has not been uploaded in time on the portal. Or, as happened to us once, the numbers should have been in dollars and not sterling (saving almost 40% of the cost). When it is discovered after the deadline, the sales lead panics and the pragmatic Bid Manager picks up the phone to the client and explains the problem, pleading for understanding and some mercy.
When this has happened in the past, on many occasions the client’s procurement team have relented and allowed us to recover the situation. Not anymore!
In recent months, we have seen procurement teams taking an increasingly harder line when unforeseen problems have occurred. We have seen bids being refused which were only a few seconds late and the problem was the portal and not the bid teams. However, a landmark court case in Scotland last month, showed a court would only allow the submission of missing information after tender submission deadlines in the most exceptional cases. These exceptional circumstances would not include slip-ups made by the tenderer, however simple and easily rectified.
In this case the tenderer was bidding for a framework contract lot. It inadvertently omitted percentage figures for overheads and profits in two lots and submitted a blank financial template for the third. When the Council’s procurement team pointed this out, the tenderer realised its mistake and immediately provided the missing information which it had to hand. After several days, the procurement team told the tenderer its bid was not going to be considered.
Legal action taken
The tenderer immediately launched legal proceedings and argued that as its omissions were obvious and easily corrected, it should have been allowed to correct its mistakes.
The Court found that there was no duty on the Council to give a tenderer the opportunity to correct errors discovered after the tender deadline. The tender documents only allowed the procurement team to “clarify” information in a bid, but not to permit late submission of information which should have been supplied before the deadline.
The Court considered that the fundamental principle of equal treatment should take priority when handling tender errors, in accordance with PCR 2015. The Court also observed that the tenderer left itself no margin of error and only submitted its tender on the day of the deadline.
The lessons for us are clear:
• If you suspect a competitor is introducing new information into its bid after the deadline you should object immediately to the procurement team
• Upload a complete version of your bid (even if it is still in the final authorisation and tuning stages) on to a portal the day before the portal closes. You can always choose to update your bid later, but you will not be able to submit if you are late
• Find a detail-obsessed individual who has had no part in compiling the bid to independently verify its compliance. Instruct them that they are only checking for adherence to the process and accidental omissions. Make sure you have time to respond to their findings before the deadline expires.
If you do find yourselves in a situation like this and want to get some quick advice on what your options may be, do give Sixfold a call on 01227 860375.
They would be delighted to give you some feedback and thoughts with no obligation on your part.
If you would like to read more about our bid support services, which includes quality checking, please follow this link.
Places remaining on Sixfold’s APMP Foundation Workshop
Pass the Examination and Become APMP Accredited
The next APMP Foundation Workshop and (Optional) Examination with Sixfold is taking place on Thursday 2nd February 2017 https://bidsolutions.co.uk/event/pmp-foundation-workshop-4/
The Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) is the professional association for people working in any sales environment where formal bidding and tendering takes place. APMP certification is the global standard for developing and demonstrating proposal management competency. As an Authorised Training Organisation, Sixfold can help you prepare for and take the Foundation level examination.
The APMP accredits its members at three levels of increasing competence; Foundation, Practitioner and Professional. Once certified, recent salary surveys have shown that these members earn an average of 15% more than their peers.
The survey results are very compelling. For specific levels of accreditation, progressing from Foundation to Practitioner level typically attracts a 14% pay rise, whilst advancing to Professional level leads to a further 30% increase.
To start you down this road, Sixfold will guide you through the Foundation level syllabus and the examination itself, maximising your chances of passing the first time. Should you wish, you can choose to attend the course and then take the APMP Foundation level examination online, at a later date.
Suitable for: Sales professionals who wish to enhance their ability to succeed at winning formal bids and tenders, including public sector bids.
For more information about all their courses please contact please contact Sixfold directly at courses@sixfold.biz or call them on 01227 860375.
For more information about bid writing courses, follow this link.
Amanda Nuttall Appointed New Chief Executive Officer for 2017
Amanda Nuttall Appointed APMP UK New Chief Executive Officer for 2017
The APMP UK has announced the election of Amanda Nuttall as its new Chief Executive Officer for 2017, following Richard Bannon’s completion of his second term.
As a Director of Strategic Proposals, Amanda advises and works with sales, marketing and bid teams across a wide range of sectors supporting on live deals as well as driving systemic improvements to their proposal processes. A member of the APMP since 2006, Amanda achieved her APMP Professional Certification in 2013 and has previously held the positions of both Apprenticeship Director and COO. As Apprenticeship Director, Amanda was responsible for the creation of the first ever bid and proposals apprenticeship programme in the world, where work continues with the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills to deliver a new set of standards designed specifically for the bid and proposals industry.
The full article can be viewed on the APMP website http://www.ukapmp.co.uk/index.php/apmp-news/item/final-press-release-16th-january-2017
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Proposal software: Is it worth the investment?
Proposal software: Is it worth the investment?
The quality of your pitches, proactive proposals and RFP responses can have a huge impact on the success of your sales activities but they always seem to take ages to create.
Proposal software (and RFP Management Software) is designed to speed up the process by ensuring that the best content is readily available and by making it easy for users to put the right combination of content into branded templates and then merge it with CRM data to create a proposal that is personalised.
The idea is not that you can now send that proposal off to a prospect, but rather that, by saving a load of time by auto-generating a solid first draft of it, you can spend more time tailoring and adding context to it.
How do you know if a proposal generator is something that’s worth investing in?
Here are three questions that can help you decide:
1. How much time (and therefore) money is your team currently spending on proposals and presentations?
• Count up how many proposals, pitches or RFPs are produced on average each month.
• Multiply that number by the average number of hours expended on each one by everyone involved in the production process.
• Multiply that answer by the average hourly wage of those employees.
This will give you an estimate of what your proposal process is costing each month. If you are not seeing the return on these activities, or if your team is having to rewrite standard content every time, then proposal software would be worth investigating.
2. Do people complain about how difficult it is to find content to include in proposals?
This is a common complaint from sales teams who need to get information to a prospect immediately but are often either delayed because they have to wait for their colleagues over in marketing to send them the content, or tempted to use an old version they have had on their desktop for two years, or worse – to write their own content.
An easily searchable content library makes its quick and easy to find the right content without having to hassle colleagues or dig through old proposals and RFPs. The content stored in the library is pre-created, pre-approved and re-useable, so sales guys always know where to find the latest information and marketing guys can rest assured that the right content and template is being used.
3. Do people struggle to collaborate on a document?
When its crunch time, the last thing you want to hear is “oops you’ve been working on the wrong version.”
The ability to collaborate and co-author a document in real time can make a big difference to the quality of the final product.
It not only reduces the risk of old versions of content being used, it also simplifies things for whoever is managing the project and saves a lot of time.
4. Do looming deadlines often result in less time for customisation?
When the pressure’s on to get a document out the door, it can be tempting to send a ‘vanilla’ version that is only minimally customised.
A proposal generator that integrates with your CRM system and automatically merges customer information into the final document makes simple customisation as easy as a click of a button. It also vastly reduces the risk of embarrassing ‘copy and paste’ errors.
A word of advice
Like marketing automation and CRM systems, proposal software will only be as good as the people using it.
You need to sort out your content and proposal processes before you can streamline them. If you’re aware of this, then you won’t be disappointed when a solution isn’t an automatic fix. That said, sometimes implementing a solution like this is the catalyst you need to get your house in order.
If you are considering investing in a pitch and proposal generator, we recommend that you take a look at Qorus Software’s Website to help you know what to expect.
Author: Qorus Software
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Keeping Them Honest!
Keeping Them Honest!
We all have a great fear that, no matter what the rules say, a large and powerful Contracting Authority can play “fast and loose” with the procurement competition to meet their own agenda.
This has now been clearly and substantially curtailed.
Scoring practices
In a recent High Court judgment, we have seen the Court underlining the importance of correct evaluation and scoring processes being used by the evaluators when they consider competing Public Sector bids under EU rules. In this case, the Authority was castigated for not adequately recording its scoring and assessment decisions, inconsistent scoring practices and manipulating the evaluation processes to avoid a particular bidder being disqualified!
Mistakes made
The list of “errors” on the part of the Authority included:
* Informal (and unrecorded) conversations forming part of the evaluation process.
* The evaluator’s use of “cut and paste” techniques for the evaluation.
* The decision support system used to process the tender submissions being altered.
* Admissions from the evaluators that they had been inconsistent in their analysis of the competing tenders.
* Evaluator’s notes, not in the decision support system were expected to be destroyed.
The Judge noted that where there is an express obligation of transparency, as in the procurement process, the Authority’s approach to note and record keeping and then proposing not to keep all written evaluation material, was not justified.
Following correct procedures
For us, this means we can rely upon a Court requiring complete and fair disclosure of the evaluation processes in a procurement challenge. It will be up to the Authority to show it has:
* Run a process in line with the EU principles of transparency and equal treatment, and all bidders having been marked against the same objective criteria.
* Consistently followed clear and objective marking criteria.
* Enforced mandatory requirements.
* Properly recorded the evaluation process (including dialogue sessions) and retained the records.
* Not attempted to impede a legal challenge.
So if you are having problems with any Contracting Authority which you think has not evaluated your competition fairly, mention Energy Solutions EU Ltd v The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency in your next conversation and see if their attitudes suddenly change.
Of course, if you find yourself in this type of difficult situation, you may want to chat it through with Sixfold first. Please call Sixfold at any time on 01227 860375 for a no obligation discussion about how they might help with your next bid or challenge.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
The PQQ is Dead – Long live the SQ!
The PQQ is Dead – Long live the SQ!
On the 9th September 2016 the Crown Commercial Service announced that the standard Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) may no longer be used in Public Sector procurement and that it must be replaced with a standard Selection Questionnaire (SQ).
It has yet to be adopted in Scotland. However, the SQ must be used immediately by contracting authorities in England and in Wales and Northern Ireland that intend to pursue competitive procurements which are above the EU thresholds and which require pre-selection.
What is a Selection Questionnaire?
The SQ requires a supplier to self-certify its standing against both the exclusions grounds and the key selection criteria. Then, the Authority is only required to verify the winning supplier’s responses.
Nevertheless, it can choose to verify the responses of any suppliers at any stage in the process, if it is concerned that there may be a problem.
The SQ has three parts:
Part 1 – Information about the supplier
Part 2 – Exclusion grounds
Part 3 – Selection criteria
Authorities will not be allowed to change the questions in Parts 1 and 2. They can ask additional, project specific questions which relate to the supplier’s technical and professional ability in Part 3. However, if they want to change the standard Part 3 questions or ask questions beyond this scope, they will only be allowed to do this if they have reported their intentions to the Mystery Shopper Scheme.
The SQ is the latest development in the continuing push to simplify the selection processes and make it easier for SMEs to compete in Public procurements. The questions in the SQ comply with the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) and the CCS has said that Authorities must accept responses provided using the ESPD instead of the SQ, where they are offered.
Straightforward planning
For the Bid and Proposal professional, this move should make our lives a bit easier. Responses to the entire SQ can be pre-prepared. Then, so long as there is a process for keeping the information up to date, responding to Parts 1 and 2 should be a trivial administrative task.
Similarly, much of Part 3 can be pre-prepared, in the same manner as Parts 1 and 2. However, we will still need to create individual responses for project specific questions and tune the content of the other responses to make sure they show our capability for the project in the best light.
Nevertheless, this change will reduce the load on our bid teams and allow them to concentrate on the important stuff – maximising scores against the questions in the full proposal. All we need to do is create our baseline SQ document and then keep it up to date.
Author: Peter Lobl APMP Director, Sixfold International
If you need any more information about the SQ and its impact upon the way you respond to Government procurement opportunities, please call Sixfold International on 01227 860375.
Don’t know your PQQ from your BAFO? We can help!
