EP097: Capture Planning Best Practices – with Lisa Ehrlich & Tom Gillin
As proposal professionals, we know that the work of winning an RFP begins long before the request for proposal is released.
And if your team has developed a strong capture planning process, you will already know what issues the potential client is up against and have a solution that addresses their specific needs.
Lisa Ehrlich and Tom Gillin are the Vice President of Proposals and Vice President of State Partnerships, respectively, at Cognia, a mission-driven nonprofit dedicated to continuous improvement in schools.
The Cognia team also happens to be a capture powerhouse with an expertise in building trust with prospective clients and influencing the RFP before it is released.
On this episode of The RFP Success Show, Lisa and Tom explain why relationship-building is key to Cognia’s capture planning process and discuss the criteria they use to decide which potential client relationships to pursue.
Tom introduces us to the opportunity summary, the first step in Cognia’s capture process, and Lisa describes why it’s crucial to customize your solution to the client’s top challenges.
Listen in to understand how Cognia benefits from developing cohesion among its sales, proposal and operational teams and learn how Lisa and Tom ensure that an RFP is built around the information gathered in the capture planning process.
Key Takeaways
How Cognia set the foundation for its powerhouse capture planning process
The criteria Cognia uses to decide which potential client relationships to pursue
Cognia’s approach to building relationships with state government agencies
The pros and cons of Cognia’s long 18- to 24-month business cycle
Why an opportunity summary is the first step in Cognia’s capture process
Why it’s crucial to build your solution around a potential client’s top challenges
Tom’s take on what differentiates an RFP sale from a non-RFP sale
The cohesion among Cognia’s sales, proposal and operational teams
How Cognia’s review process ensures that the capture info gets into the RFP
RFP Success Show EP97 Transcription
You're listening to The RFP Success Show with eight-time author, speaker, and CEO of The RFP Success Company, Lisa Rehurek. Tune in each episode to learn what today's Capture and RFP teams are doing to increase their win percentages by up to 20, 30, and even 50%. And meet the industry street trailblazers that are getting it right. Let's get started.
Lisa Rehurek (00:24):
Well, hello everybody. And welcome to the RFP Success Show. I am Lisa Rehurek, your host and CEO and founder of The RFP Success Company. So I'd like to introduce you to our two guests today. We are talking all about capture planning best practices, and we've got Lisa Ehrlich from Cognia. She is the Vice President of Proposals. And then, Tom Gillin, I hope I haven't botched your names, Tom Gillin who is Vice President of State Partnerships. Both from Cognia. So welcome Tom and Lisa.
Lisa Ehrlich (00:58):
Yes. We're delighted to be here.
Lisa Rehurek (01:00):
Yeah. Did I botch anybody's names? I forgot to ask you. Okay. Perfect.
Tom Gillin (01:04):
You got us right.
Lisa Rehurek (01:06):
Awesome. Well, the reason that I'm super excited to have you both on today is that we've done some work with you and I've seen firsthand how great you are at the capture planning process. And not only just at the strategy behind it and how you have that process set up, but also then how you weave that into your proposals. So to all my listeners, this is what we're talking about today. Capture planning can be something a little bit elusive for a lot of companies and you guys do it right, so that's what we're here to do. You guys ready to talk capture planning?
Lisa Ehrlich (01:38):
Yes, we are.
Lisa Rehurek (01:42):
Awesome. Actually, before we get started, will one of you tell our audience a little bit more about what Cognia does?
Tom Gillin (01:48):
Cognia is a global not-for-profit that is very mission-driven. And when we say that, we mean it, we really are sincere about being mission-driven and consider ourselves improvement experts. And specifically, continuous improvement experts that really focuses on the learner. And we work across the spectrum of really accreditation, school improvement, assessment. And I think we're working hard to try and combine all of those efforts and have them not be as siloed as maybe they have been in the past.
Lisa Rehurek (02:25):
That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And I can attest to you all being mission-driven. I love your mission and what you all do. So, super fun. Well, I want to start out really kind of by talking about your capture powerhouse, because that's what I consider it. Absolutely capture powerhouse. You seem to really have that part nailed. So how did you initially kind of set a foundation for that strong capture process from the beginning? Maybe it's been an evolution, you can share that as well. Or did you really just start with a strong process out of the gate?
Lisa Ehrlich (02:56):
I think it has been an evolution. We've worked together for a long time and the basis of our capture planning resides in the work that Tom does in terms of building the relationship with clients. We're driven primarily by RFPs, so we respond to RFPs rather than create unsolicited proposals in terms of much of the work that Tom and I do. So what you want to try and do, to the best of your ability, is to influence the RFP before it is released. And that's primarily, although Tom does a lot more than that, primarily the work that Tom does. He builds the relationship with potential clients. In our case it's states, sometimes it's districts or schools, but predominantly states where he works with enabling the state, enabling the assessment directors, to envision what their assessment might look like and bring our solutions to the problems that they're trying to solve within their state, balancing what's going on in the state in terms of the federal statutes, the state statutes, what's going on politically in the state, as it relates to continuous improvement. Tom, do you have anything you'd like to add?
Tom Gillin (04:22):
As Lisa mentioned, it really has been a process that is evolving. And I think what we have been most successful at is taking several aspects or several models, and molding them to what works for us. And that is key. You can get stuck into a model or you buy a model and you're really stuck there. And we have been fortunate enough that our leadership has permitted us to make those moves and be very flexible about that. So we call it capture planning, and there is a distinct capture plan, but there are several sides of that. There's a beginning side that we start with collecting intel and information. And then of course the other side of that is the proposal. And again, we're very flexible with that and we have utilized all of what we've learned to improve upon that throughout the several years that we've been doing it.
Lisa Rehurek (05:15):
I love that you're talking about relationships because it's interesting. We have a lot of people that we talk to, or our clients and prospects, and they kind of want to go after everything. Like, "Oh my gosh, there's all sorts of RFPs out there. We want to go after everything." And we tell them, "You can't." Because if you're doing the capture planning correctly, there is only so much time for whoever is doing that. So how do you determine where you're out building those relationships? Kind of a big question, I know.
Tom Gillin (05:48):
Yeah, it is. And most certainly we want to look at a potential client that has the similar focus to us and possibly a similar mission, but what really fits for us, and again, size sometimes matters in that regard as to what we're pursuing. And then also we'll look at it as if we may need a partner or not. And we work very closely with a lot of B2B partners and other vendors at looking at a specific opportunity and determining, if it's a fit for us, if we then are a fit for them. And we use several different models to try and determine that. Obviously, there's a sales or a business development portion of this, where we look at what our percentage of win chance is, and incumbency has a lot to do with that. And relationships between incumbents and clients is important for us to look at, as well. So several factors go into that.
Lisa Rehurek (06:50):
Yeah. And it's so important to kind of have that criteria. From a bigger business development strategy, understanding your criteria and understanding how you identify if they tie to your mission and how do you... The size and all of that, and knowing the pieces of that puzzle. Hugely important to have all of that. Let's talk about the relationship building, because I also get a lot of, people throw their hands up in the air and say, "Well, it's government." How do we possibly build relationships with state government officials? It's impossible to do, but you all are proof that it is not impossible to do. So, do you have some best tips for how you actually get into talk to and build relationships with some of these state agencies or district personnel?
Tom Gillin (07:37):
Well, most certainly your reputation is key. If you've done a good job elsewhere, that really helps. But in our case, and Lisa has done a lot of this work in some previous positions that she has held within the company, but our client services team and our program management team is bar none the best, that they manage their clients well. And when I say that, we're doing the work for them that they require of us and we're flexible, we're motivated. And that really goes a long way. And that takes a long time to develop internally as well. And your leadership team has to be on board with that, your leadership team has to require and expect that, and we do a really good job at that. So it really is helpful for us. And then when we go in and explain our mission, that we are here to provide assistance and provide expertise, provide guidance, and provide mainly that assistance to them to help them do a better job, and being about the learner, it really gives us a leg up in starting to establish that relationship. And then of course, you've got to continually... You can't just talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk.
Lisa Ehrlich (08:49):
Yeah. I've always looked at it as part of a consultancy. You're building that relationship, you're bringing in a set of expertise for either an existing client or a client that you're trying to build a closer relationship with as a consultant. You understand what issues that they're coping with within their state or within their district. And can you bring the solution, how can you enable them to see what the solution might be and solve their problems. So you're walking in with, if you will, a portfolio of knowledge, certainly, but also of solutions and they're not off the shelf, typically. It's really a customized solution in the true sense of the word. And if you can help a client envision what that solution might be and influence what they're able to do, because procurement requirements are pretty specific for each state and you have to deal with procurement components when you're releasing an RFP. You know that, Lisa.
Lisa Ehrlich (09:57):
And oftentimes, again, you're trying to influence what the solution might be and help them to envision what that solution might be. And that's, again, a lot of the work that Tom does, and know that we are able to provide them a solution to whatever their issues are, and whatever their learning, continuous improvement, assessment challenges are within the state. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that through the years.
Lisa Rehurek (10:27):
Well, and it's amazing too, because there's two kind of key things that I heard there. One was you really have to build trust before the RFP, because we tell people this all the time is that your job in that RFP is to get them to trust you. But it's really hard to do if you have no basis going into it, so that's one key thing that I heard. And then, the other piece is if you don't know anything about their solution and you don't know anything about their hot buttons, all you're relying on then is what they write in the RFP. And do you find that that's generally a lot of times very different, or there's a lot missing in the RFP that you would find out in that capture planning process?
Lisa Ehrlich (11:11):
Absolutely. You do. I mean, Tom is the king of win themes, because he has developed the relationships with many of our clients and understands the business environment that they live in, the political environment they live in. Those are really very critical components and they drive a lot of the solution, the executive summaries that we write, the win themes that we write, that we flow throughout the proposal to make sure that we are... We say to them, "We understand what your challenges are. And we understand the environment in which you live, if you will. And we are providing this solution that meets the requirements, the RFP, and then some." It goes beyond in terms of really engaging them, in terms of what their real issues are that sometimes they don't state in the RFP. And yet, if you know though, the probability of success is exponential.
Lisa Rehurek (12:16):
Yes.
Tom Gillin (12:18):
And Lisa, we have a really long business cycle in the work we do. It can be 18 to 24 months, so that's good and it's bad in a way. It's good in that you have a long time then to try and inform what is occurring in an RFP. And then things can change in the interim. But we start that process with what we refer to as an opportunity summary that contains a lot of information about the state and what is currently occurring. And a big part of that are hot buttons and win themes. And as Lisa said, we try and focus in on those, and we focus in on those right out of the gate. When we have a kickoff meeting, post-RFP release, that's one of the first things that we talk about.
Lisa Ehrlich (13:05):
I was going to say what Tom just said is really important because when you look at the cycle, and he referenced to important components, the opportunity summary, the opportunity document that he essentially authors, and then there's the capture plan itself. Because the cycle tends to be long, I mean, you don't want to wake up one morning and say, "Oh my God, we got an RFP from so and so, didn't know it was coming, had no one idea was coming." You're caught flat-footed and you haven't done the work. And the work is all the front-end work that Tom and others do in terms of understanding what's going on. And that is where we begin to do our solutioning. So once we understand what the issue issues are and understand what... Perhaps there's an incumbent, and certainly in the statewide business you've got 50 clients, you've got 50 states in the assessment business. And every one of those has an incumbent.
Lisa Ehrlich (14:08):
You learn what the issues might be around the incumbent and build your solution around what we believe the opportunity is going to be. So we do a lot of that upfront work. The validating part of it, if you will, is when the RFP comes out. So we've spent all this time doing the solutioning, understanding what the environment is, and building out the opportunity and the capture plan, and then the RFP comes out and it's confirmatory. We confirm what we thought was going on, and there's usually some things that need to be tweaked. Sometimes there's a curve that we didn't think about, that we didn't know about, but it's much easier than being caught flat-footed and saying, "Oh my God, if we want to pursue this, we need to come up with a solution." And typically the timelines are four to six weeks for us to write a proposal.
Lisa Rehurek (15:00):
Right. It's not a long time.
Lisa Ehrlich (15:03):
It's not a long time. It is not a long time to go through the cycle of writing and reviewing, and so forth. So, sorry I went off, but...
Lisa Rehurek (15:12):
No, that's so important too. And I love what both of you were talking about with the time of it, that people don't understand. We always talk about winning culture. Build a winning culture. And in order to do that you've got to have that process laid out way in advance. And Lisa, to your point, a good portion of the work happens long before the RFP hits your desk, because if it hits your desk and you didn't know it was coming, the chance of you winning is pretty low if you have nothing ahead of that. So I think it's really important. And Tom, to your point that, 18 to 24 months, it is your cycle. I mean, there's a lot that's going on in that timeframe. And again, I said it at the beginning, I'll probably say it three more times, is you guys seem to have a very well-oiled machine when it comes to that, and it's very impressive. So thank you.
Tom Gillin (16:02):
Yeah, that cycle also helps internally in that it allows our functional groups to be prepared. It's not good to have them surprised by something either, because they're trying to plan to have a program manager in place. They need to have specific content development staff in place. They need to have psychometricians in place. And sometimes those folks aren't easy to find. And so the further in advance we know about it, the better planning they can do.
Lisa Rehurek (16:28):
Yeah, absolutely. So, so, so important. Okay. I want to circle back to one more thing on the relationship building. Do you think that relationship building is different for an RFP sale versus a non-RFP sale?
Tom Gillin (16:44):
I don't know that I think that. It's very much the same and built on trust and reputation. So I think the big difference there is in how, if you are able to articulate well in the proposal process. The relationship is built, you've got to have a good relationship. Sometimes price is king, and if price isn't king, the relationship can then take over. But I think the most important part of that process is a well-written, well-articulated proposal.
Lisa Rehurek (17:19):
Yeah. I love that. I love that so much. Kind of on the same vein of relationship building, as we're talking about external relationships, if we look internally, the other thing I'm very impressed with you all with is that you have a pretty cohesive process and you seem to work really well together with the internal team. So you take that capture process and then you flow that into the team, that's going to respond to the RFP and it always feels like there's just an ebb and flow and a continued communication there that does not exist in a lot of companies. It's kind of like sales is over here, captures over here, and then they just do a data dump and then they're gone. I feel like you guys have some really great processes there. What can you share with us around best practices for building that cohesiveness?
Lisa Ehrlich (18:07):
It's interesting. I'll start, Tom. And then...
Tom Gillin (18:10):
Sure.
Lisa Ehrlich (18:11):
[crosstalk 00:18:11] jump in. Let me step back a little, because the internal relationships that we have with our operational group, there's obviously the proposal, but we have to implement it. If we win it, we have to implement it. And we work very closely during the development of the proposal with each operational group as we envision the solution. So we have the solution upfront, it's gone through some conversations, the RFP hits. And then we go back with each operational group and we say, "This is what the RFP is now asking for. These are the requirements. And these are our hot buttons. These are important statements for us to be able to clearly articulate and let's check in with our solution." And there is change. There may be changes. As an example, we may have thought that the requirement is going to be what we call a fixed-form test. A test that has 60 questions in it. And it's a item by item. Everyone takes a certain set of items that the students are going to be scored upon, or it's an adaptive test, which is very different and has very different requirements.
Lisa Ehrlich (19:33):
And sometimes that'll happen. You think you're going to get a fixed-form test and comes in as a requirement and adaptive. What do we do? We work really closely with our partners. Tom referred to our B2B partners. They're critical in terms of our process, and our operational groups in terms of really tweaking the solution. And obviously, the writing of the proposal itself. The importance of the relationship between the work that Tom does, and the folks in the field, and the work that we do internally, it's really something that we do on a day-to-day basis. Tom will find something, or Tom will say, "I just spoke to so and so, and it looks like they are going to want to do X." And we funnel that through to leadership of the groups. We funnel that through to leadership and work together in terms of how we're going to respond to a particular opportunity. You said earlier something that's really important, "You cannot go after everything." So...
Lisa Rehurek (20:40):
It sounds great but you can't. Yeah.
Lisa Ehrlich (20:42):
I mean, it'd be great if you could, but you can't. And how do you make those decisions? How do you make that prioritization in terms of the RFPs that are coming in? And part of it is mission-driven. I mean, Tom spoke so eloquently about that. Part of it is our mission and how we... And those that we feel we are most aligned with, that funnels through the entire organization in terms of the opportunity and what we can provide. Because we can't provide solutions to everyone, obviously. It's got to meet what our strengths are in terms of what we bring to a client. Tom, I've spoken way too long. Go ahead.
Tom Gillin (21:24):
No, that's okay. It's very important and a best practice as far as the capture plan goes, I believe. And we've talked a lot about this when we try and provide information for our functional groups, because we have so many different ones. The operations, the distribution, the scoring, the reporting, the psychometrics, and each one of those functional groups has a very detailed look at the capture plan, but they also need the 30,000 foot look at the entire solution. And again, that's the beauty of how we do the capture plan. It shows the detailed version to those who need it, and it also shows them the 30,000 foot version, the big picture of looking at how their piece fits into the entire solution.
Lisa Rehurek (22:12):
That's really important too. I'm going to ask a question and then we're going to go to a quick break, but what I want to know and don't answer it quite yet is, are the proposal folks, the ones writing and managing the proposal, are they involved in that go/no-go decision, or do you guys basically make the decision and then tell them here's the proposal? And I'll talk about why I think that that's important. We're just going to take a quick little, I think 20 or 32 second, break for commercial. We'll be right back.
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Lisa Rehurek (23:07):
All right, welcome back, Tom and Lisa. Great conversation. And right before the break, what I asked you was, does the proposal team, meaning the writers and the managers of the proposal, do they have any involvement in the go/no-go decision, or are they just brought in once you've made the decision and then they know it's a go?
Tom Gillin (23:27):
Well, they certainly inform and influence it.
Lisa Rehurek (23:30):
Oh good.
Tom Gillin (23:32):
And we're lucky in that we have proposal managers and writers that have been with us for a long time and have a lot of experience. So we've seen things that have occurred in the past, and they're constantly reminding us, reminding me, especially, "When we did this the last time, don't you remember what happened?" And that is very important in us passing along all of that information for the executive team or whomever is making a go/no-go decision. Lisa, you can add to that.
Lisa Ehrlich (24:05):
Tom's point is well taken. It's really an iterative process where we'll meet with the proposal manager and writer and say, "This is an opportunity that we'd like to go after." Tom and I have put together a summary, and it's an iterative process in terms of the final decision as to whether or not something's going to be pursued, but we check in. And it frankly happens really quickly. When the RFP finally hits, we can't lose a lot of time, particularly if you've got a four week timeframe for getting the proposal delivered. Thankfully, today you can do it electronically. There are still some states. In fact, one we're working on right now that requires hard copy.
Lisa Rehurek (24:51):
Oh, I was hoping COVID would really shift that 100% to electronic, but still it's crazy.
Lisa Ehrlich (24:58):
Oh, it's crazy. But Tom's right. We do involve the people that need to be involved, including operational people, in terms of the decision of whether or not we're going to pursue something, because again, they own the implementation. So if the start date is relatively close to the award date, but you need the resources there in order to be able to implement. Once it's won, it's like, "The good news is we won the bad news is we won." You need people there.
Lisa Rehurek (25:32):
Yeah. It's such a... Again, kind of goes back to, I think I used the word earlier, you all seem to have such a cohesive team and that's not always the case out there where it's very siloed and there's so many benefits to having that cohesion. If you look at that now, of the way that your team flows, what would you say is the number one benefit to having all of those pieces of the puzzle together? And the reason that I ask that is because I know we have listeners out there that are saying, "Oh, I wish we had that at our company." And it's very siloed. I'd love to hear what your key benefit is to having it so intertwined.
Tom Gillin (26:17):
They are also busy. And day to day, their worry is implementing a contract and doing the best work they can for the client, and by us being there and involved in the proposal process and the capture process, it really helps them, I believe, in not having to take too much focus away from their real job, if you will.
Lisa Rehurek (26:43):
Love that.
Tom Gillin (26:45):
And I think that we've been able to develop some trust and cooperation from them to break down those silos by doing that.
Lisa Rehurek (26:52):
Yeah.
Tom Gillin (26:53):
And sometimes, and Lisa mentioned this that I'll come back and say, "I heard X at an organization or I heard X from a client." And they'll then put Y in the RFP. And that sometimes doesn't go so well, but we work through it and are flexible enough to pivot.
Lisa Rehurek (27:09):
Well, that's actually kind of my next question, is how do you make sure that all of that capture information you get, I know we talked about this a little bit, we hit on it a little bit, but how do you make sure that that gets translated in the actual RFP response?
Tom Gillin (27:22):
Yeah. And so, we hold functional groups accountable. We have, and Lisa will talk a little bit about our review process, red team, or pink team, red team, and gold team. And that's one way we utilize that when we provide information for the reviewers, we provide hot buttons, we provide win themes, and we provide them the capture plan so that they can read the solution first. And I think that's one of the most important pieces of how we do that and what we do.
Lisa Rehurek (27:52):
I love that. Well, Lisa, tell us a little bit more about your review process. And that was a perfect segue there, Tom.
Lisa Ehrlich (27:59):
Yeah, it was. So what we try and do is to, as Tom said, we... Most of the writing, not all the writing, but most of the writing is done within the proposal group. There's some rather technical writing that is typically part of our solutioning that are actually done by the technical experts, working with the proposal writer and the proposal manager. But for the most part, the solutioning that we do working with the operational groups, as I said earlier, is done in concert with the writer. The writer writes up what the solution is, driven by a number of different things, as we've been talking about, and we work with subject matter experts. As we're writing the initial draft, we work with the subject matter experts. And when we enter into pink team, and of course we're very driven by the calendar and [inaudible 00:28:55] to be submitted and so forth. When we enter pink team, if you will, we ask the middle management leadership within each of the operational groups to read their section in particular, and we do the assignments of writing.
Lisa Ehrlich (29:12):
And so there needs to be an introduction in terms of what we're trying to write to, what the opportunity is, and so forth. And we provide all that information, but we tend to focus on the components of it in pink team. The red team, if we can, and we've done this recently on a proposal, we'll bring in external readers as well. Experts that know the opportunity, that perhaps know what's going on in the state, to actually read it as an independent reviewer of the comprehensive proposal. We'll also have an internal review at a more senior level when we go into red team. And then finally, gold team is at the executive level and you're close to submission at that point. But the documents that drive the review are documents that are consistent throughout each phase.
Lisa Rehurek (30:07):
Yeah. So have you always, because you all also do a really good job of building all those reviews into the calendar and into the timeline. Has that always been that way or have you had to work to really adjust that so that the writers don't think they have till two days before the due date to actually finish their writing?
Lisa Ehrlich (30:27):
More recently. So I've been at the company 27 years. So I've seen a lot of changes through the years, but certainly in more recent times, in the last five to six years, we have evolved to what I think is a pretty well-oiled machine in terms of how we go about doing. I think people understand what their work is. People understand what their roles are. We're still tweaking it, but not in any dramatic way.
Tom Gillin (30:56):
It depends on the timeline too, Lisa. If we have three weeks to present and write an RFP or a proposal, we'll have a rolling pink team and a rolling red team, and kind of look at that review process as we're in the iterative process of the proposal.
Lisa Rehurek (31:13):
I love it. I love it. All right. I'm going to switch gears here just a little bit, but Tom, tell me what your biggest capture plan challenge is.
Tom Gillin (31:22):
Yeah, sure. And I think that really revolves around any change that occurs during the 18 to 24 month business cycle. Procurement rules and laws being what they are, I like to say we like to inform an RFP, not necessarily influence an RFP, but at least inform an RFP. And there are changes that can occur during that 18 to 24 month process. They could be political, they could be legislative-rule driven, they can be at the state level, looking at accountability at the state level with teacher evaluations, they can be at the federal level with ESSA. And when those changes take place, you've really got to be able to pivot and ensure that you're constantly updating your capture plan. And I think the most important piece of that is looking at any of those documents, be it the opportunity summary, the capture plan, and then looking at an RFP kickoff, they are living documents and they can change, and should change, on a daily basis. So keeping up with that change, I think is the biggest challenge and trying to stay on top and be flexible enough to pivot when it does occur.
Lisa Rehurek (32:33):
It's interesting when you're saying that I'm thinking the other big piece of capture planning that we haven't necessarily directly addressed is that it's not just about building relationships with the entity and really understanding what their needs are, but it's also really staying on top of the industry. And you all have really great authority and credibility in your industry that helps mirror what you're doing on the relationship building, so that's a piece. Would you consider that also a very important piece of that capture planning?
Tom Gillin (33:04):
No question about it. But again, trying to inform that and ensure we're staying on top of what the requirements are and what they could potentially change too.
Lisa Rehurek (33:16):
Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Lisa, what are your company's biggest RFP, in general, challenges? We all laugh because we all know we have them, right?
Lisa Ehrlich (33:28):
I do indeed. Time. Time is certainly a challenge. There are actually, RFPs are seeing more of these that actually limit the number of pages that the RFP can be. It's pretty well dictated that you've got 200, or you've got 250 pages. That's it. And if you go over that, you'll be non-compliant. Well, you don't want to be in that position, so the page count is important. The limitations, pricing is a challenge. And Tom does a lot of work around what is the winning price. He does a lot of analysis around working with our financial team, around how can we price this? And of course, there's a close relationship between the pricing and the solution. And just ensuring that the document is, to the extent possible, is really well reviewed. And from a number of [crosstalk 00:34:30] not only from a solution perspective, obviously from an editorial perspective, a presentation perspective, formatting perspective, and so forth, all those components are also very critical. You don't know who the review team is going to be.
Lisa Rehurek (34:44):
It's so true.
Lisa Ehrlich (34:46):
You have no idea who's going to be on the review team, so you can't make the assumptions that the review team is going to be made up of subject matter experts, and you can use jargon and they're going to know what you're talking about. Oftentimes, more often than not, that's not the case. So you have to write in a way that it's understandable for those that are going to be making the judgements [crosstalk 00:35:13] your proposal. So those are all challenges for us.
Lisa Rehurek (35:17):
Yeah. Such great points. And it's interesting too when you talk about pricing. It's really hard to price a proposal if you don't have a good capture planning process, because if you don't know a whole lot upfront, we could wax poetic about that probably for another hour. But if you don't have all of that upfront info and those relationships to understand how to price it, I don't know how people price things. It's crazy. All right. Tell me a little bit about what 2022 looks like for Cognia, like any exciting shares around what your overarching goals are, things that are tied to your mission that you're looking forward to in 2022?
Lisa Ehrlich (35:53):
Yeah. I'll start, Tom. Continuous improvement drives us. I mean, back to our mission statement, continuous improvement drives everything that we do. Equity, looking at our solutions through the lens of equity.
Lisa Rehurek (36:07):
Love that.
Lisa Ehrlich (36:08):
And understanding what is going on, not only at the state level, but down to the classroom level. And the solutions that we, again, our business is customized. The solutions that we craft, need to speak to equity from a very comprehensive perspective. And so, those are some of the focuses that Cognia, that I see coming in '22, that we have spoken about within the company.
Lisa Rehurek (36:39):
Beautiful.
Lisa Ehrlich (36:40):
Meeting the requirements of our clients, being able to meet the requirements of our clients. COVID has had a hit, needless to say, and we know, we know. Anyone who has kids, you know what's going on in the classrooms. You know what happened in terms of learning loss. We have been working very diligently, not only in terms of professional development, but in terms of what the challenges that principals, superintendents, commissioners, state commissioners are dealing with in terms of the last 18 to 20 months that we've all lived through, and are continuing to live through.
Lisa Rehurek (37:17):
Right. We don't really know where that's all going to land. What about you, Tom?
Tom Gillin (37:24):
Well, I think we are so incredibly lucky as an organization, where we have the opportunity to grow and continue to provide services for our clients in a mission-driven way. And I see that as our greatest opportunity for 2022 that will continue to grow, continue to develop and provide resources that are going to aid our clients, and especially the learner. We'd like to get everything down to the learner and ensure that the learner has every opportunity to grow and to show success. And again, as Cognia, I don't know that we'll ever say that we're perfect or that perfect is even on our radar because of that continuous improvement mission that we strive to achieve.
Lisa Rehurek (38:12):
Yeah. Well, it's beautiful. It's beautiful to watch, and it's beautiful to just see how you all have such... Again, I keep using the word cohesive, but such a cohesive team there. And something that my dad has said, and he always gets mad at me when I quote him, because he says, "It's not my quote." But he says, "If you don't get the foundation right, it's going to follow you all the way to the roof." I think about that when I think about relationship building, and capture planning, and all of that. That's that foundational element that if you don't have that, your roof's going to cave in, in the RFP process. So I want to thank both of you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom and your best practices with the audience. We greatly appreciate it.
Lisa Ehrlich (38:51):
My pleasure.
Tom Gillin (38:52):
Thank you.
Lisa Rehurek (38:52):
All right, everybody. Well, you have been listening to The RFP Success Show. If you haven't already done so, we always appreciate your five star rating. Just go into the platform that you listened to this on and click a nice rating for us. We would greatly appreciate it. And we'll see you here again next time.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
This has been another episode of The RFP Success Show with Lisa Rehurek, eight-time author, speaker, and CEO of The RFP Success Company. Thank you for joining us. If you have feedback on today's episode, email us at podcast@rfpsuccess.com. No matter your business size industry, if you have an in-house RFP team or need outside support, The RFP Success Company helps increase RFP win ratios by 10, 20, and even 50%. Learn more at therfpsuccesscompany.com.