EP119: Building Empathy into the Bid Process—with Kevin Switaj
Most proposal professionals understand the importance of putting the client at the center of the bid process.
But what if a client centric proposal is not enough?
According to Kevin Switaj, a winning proposal takes things one step further, leveraging empathy and creativity to build an emotional connection with the evaluator.
Kevin is President and CEO of BZ Opportunity Management, a full life cycle proposal consulting firm out of northern Virginia.
With more than 15 years in proposal development, Kevin is a recognized thought leader and regular contributor to industry publications.
On this episode of the RFP Success Show, Kevin joins me to discuss his new book, Keys to the Castle: Building Empathy and Creativity into Bid Processes.
Kevin discusses how an empathetic proposal builds emotional connection with prospective clients and describes how we might apply Pixar storytelling techniques in an RFP response.
Listen in for Kevin’s insight on helping subject matter experts write with empathy and learn how to develop content that speaks to the client’s perspective and opens a conversation with evaluators.
Key Takeaways
How Kevin’s thinking around connecting with evaluators inspired Keys to the Castle
How an empathetic proposal builds an emotional connection with prospective clients
Kevin’s take on why writing to the client’s needs is not enough
How we might apply Disney or Pixar storytelling techniques to a proposal response
How to develop empathetic content by focusing on the client’s point of view
Kevin’s annotated mockup approach to helping SMEs write with empathy
How to reorganize the capture process around Kevin’s empathetic approach to RFPs
Logistics
Intelligence gathering
Idea development
Why you should only bid on opportunities that align with who you are as a company
What it looks like to put the client at the center of the proposal process
The first step in building empathy and creativity into your team’s bid processes
Connect with Kevin
Resources
RFP Success Show EP119 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 trailblazers that are getting it right. Let's get started.
Lisa Rehurek (00:24):
Welcome to the RFP Success Show podcast. I am your host, Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company. Today's episode, we are going to be talking about building empathy into bid processes. And our guest is Kevin Switaj. Kevin is president and CEO of Be the Opportunity Management, a full lifecycle proposal consulting firm based in Northern Virginia. Now, Kevin's actually been a guest on our show before, we were talking about this before the show, I don't know, maybe sometime in mid 2020. It was back in COVID days. Right?
Kevin Switaj (00:59):
Yep.
Lisa Rehurek (00:59):
I'm really excited to have you on again, because you just wrote a book. I'll show for those of you that are watching, you can see it's called Keys to the Castle, building Empathy and Creativity into Bid Processes. There's a lot of great golden nuggets in this book, so Kevin's going to be sharing some things with us. Of course we're going to have the links so that you can purchase this book. All you bid proposal professionals definitely need to get a copy. Kevin, welcome back.
Kevin Switaj (01:25):
Thanks, Lisa. It's great to be back with you.
Lisa Rehurek (01:27):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you. I just want you to kick off and tell our listeners about your background with RFPs. Again, I know you've been on before, but I'm sure we've got a lot of new listeners. So, yeah.
Kevin Switaj (01:39):
No worries. Yeah, I've been in proposals for about 15 years now. I started as a proposal coordinator, primarily with government contractors here in the DC area and moved from proposal coordinator into proposal management and then into director-level positions at a couple of mid-size government contractors. About five years ago, it'll be five years in January, I set up Easy Opportunity Management to fill what I saw in a market gap, especially in consulting in the government space, in terms of finding high-quality candidates that allow us to work closely with our clients and provide people not resumes. We really look to make sure that our clients get the right person for each individual gig, and we've been doing it for about five years. We also do a lot of training and contracts and subcontract support. It's been a really great ride so far and I'm looking forward to continuing to do so. I love working on proposals and bid processes. It's a passion of mine, which makes me just a little bit crazy.
Lisa Rehurek (02:39):
I was going to say, you don't hear that from a lot of people. Most companies that are bidding on things are like, "Oh, we hate RFPs." Those of us in the business, were like, "We love them."
Kevin Switaj (02:47):
Yes.
Lisa Rehurek (02:49):
Kind of crazy. Well, what led you to write this book?
Kevin Switaj (02:52):
About three years ago or so, I believe it was, at one of the APMP Bid & Proposal Cons, I saw Bruce Ferrell, who was one of the best speakers in our industry talk. There was a line that he said that really struck with me, and it was that people make buying decisions based on emotion and then justify it with logic. When we think about that in terms of our everyday lives, that's why advertising is such a big industry. But I hadn't really thought about it in the business sense. I know recently you've been talking about the fact that proposals are evaluated by people.
(03:21):
Kind of connecting those two ideas, it's thinking about how can we best make our connections with the evaluators, and how in an increasingly competitive marketplace with lots of barriers to entry having gone down, especially post-COVID, that we're seeing a lot of virtual bids in the ability for our teams to work across the country, how can we truly make a mark and resonate with our evaluators? That was kind of the beginning of this process. Going forward, I realized that there was a really important story to tell about taking our proposals to the next level.
Lisa Rehurek (03:58):
Well, I love it. I think it's such an important topic, and we do, we talk all the time about the human element. There's some weird thing about when companies get in front of the RFP, it just becomes so robotic because the RFP itself is so robotic. I love that your book is based on empathy and that's really the main crux of it. What is an empathetic proposal? What does that even mean?
Kevin Switaj (04:21):
Yeah, so for me, an empathetic proposal is one that makes an emotional connection with the evaluators in a way that shows them that we get who they are. It speaks specifically to not just to them or at them, but it's about opening conversation with them. To me, it's the logical extension of proposals being about the client and being client-centric, to being for the client, so really taking it the next level of APMP standard and best practice of client-centric proposals and really taking it to the next level of making that emotional connection.
Lisa Rehurek (04:57):
Yeah, it's interesting, because one of the things that I highlighted that I liked is that you said just writing to your client's needs is not enough. It's something that we all promote, write to their needs. But you really said that's not enough. That's important, but it's not enough. That kind of ties to that client-center piece. Can you tell us more about that? Because that's interesting, right? That's a little spin, a different spin.
Kevin Switaj (05:22):
Yeah, I think we need to write to the clients' needs, and that's the crux of clients in a customer-centric proposal. But in that environment, you're still talking at the client and not opening up a conversation, and not making a connection. Right? Because we can talk about what the client needs all day long, but for me the next step and where that empathetic proposal really begins is by talking about why they need it. That shows an additional level of understanding, comfort, and relatability with our clients that allows us to make a stronger connection.
(05:53):
Because the whole goal throughout the proposal is to get the client to feel that we know really at their heart who they are, what they need, and why they need it. The more we're able to resonate that throughout the proposal from the executive summary, to section introductions, to the benefit statements throughout, the more that the customer and the client and the evaluator is going to feel comfortable with who we are and is going to let their guard down a little bit more and be open, especially when we're coming in as a not unknown bidder, but as not the incumbent, the more they'll be open to saying, "Hey, I can take a risk here because they really do understand me."
Lisa Rehurek (06:34):
Wouldn't you say too, that you're going to be talking about the client's needs for sure, but kind of taking it to this next level, gives you industry credibility, it gives you a lot of credibility with the client, so not only, "They get me, but they really know their stuff. They're pointing some things out that we hadn't really thought about or nobody else has said to us."
Kevin Switaj (06:56):
Yeah, it's about making that bridge. It's about taking the awesomeness of who we are and marrying it with the true understanding and in-depth understanding of who the client is. The more we can do that, like I said, there's always a concern and a risk on the evaluator and buyer's part of bringing somebody new in. Right? We may not be a hundred percent happy with our current service provider, but there's always a risk, that maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side. The more we can mitigate that risk and say, "Listen, we really do understand what's going on. We really do have solutions that will not just work in general and not just has worked for other clients, but that specifically is targeted and can work for you." The more we can do that, again, those barriers start coming down and you start becoming more and more receptive to the message.
Lisa Rehurek (07:49):
Yeah, It's funny, I was having this conversation not too long ago, and it's like changing banks. Whenever you go to change a bank, even if you hate the bank you're with and they're giving you all sorts of problems, man, it's a pain in the butt to move. You risk all sorts of things not working Out. a lot of times we as human beings, talking about that emotional piece, we'd rather sit and discomfort than risk a change, and so everything you're talking about is helping to build that trust and that confidence that it's going to be okay if they make that change.
Kevin Switaj (08:28):
Yeah, and part of it, there's been studies that show that the fear of loss is stronger than the desire for gain. Right? Yeah, there's always that concern. I was thinking of when you change your cable provider or you go streaming or something, how many of us have gone through that and kind of been really afraid? I know when we switched ours, we were like, "I don't know if it's going to work." It's the same idea. Right? The more comfortable you can get with it, the more that you feel that entity is really speaking to you and can really understand you, the more you're going to be open to embracing that change.
Lisa Rehurek (09:03):
It's so logical when we talk about it. It's not always easy to implement that piece of it, for sure. One of the things that I really loved about this book is that you weaved in a lot of examples about Walt Disney Company. I mean the creative beast that is. Right? They're the gold standard when it comes to creativity. What inspired you really to pick them as your inspiration for those examples throughout the book?
Kevin Switaj (09:30):
Yeah. The first kind of thought that I had was going back, and this is going back many years, was when I first read the book Creativity, Inc., which is the history and study of Pixar. It's written by Ed Catmull, who is the now retired president of both Pixar animation and after their acquisition, Walt Disney animation. The process that he talks about in terms of what's called the brain trust within the Pixar universe, it's called the Story Trust inside the Disney Animation Studio, it mirrors the proposal review process to a T.
(10:00):
In fact, I stopped taking notes because I was writing down almost every sentence as I was going through it the first time. That sort of made me think, okay, there's a lot that we can kind of borrow and look at creative organizations, and when we think about empathetic connections and empathetic companies that touch our hearts, and it comes to creativity. I started with a broader look at creative industry and then I realized, wait, there's one company that touches people from two to 102 that has varied, and widely different avenues of distribution and connection, whether it's books, stuffed animals, theme parks, movies, TV shows, streaming services, however you look at it, Disney is about making that connection and using high-quality branded content to speak to its audiences to create that empathetic connection with their audiences, and to make sure that they speak clearly to the needs of their audiences, and the shifting needs of their audiences.
Lisa Rehurek (11:06):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I'd like your take on this. What would you say to people that are listening and they're thinking, well, Walt Disney's Walt Disney, of course everything that they're doing is to entertain and it's all creativity. We're just trying to answer these really boring questions, and they're very prescribed questions, how do you take that concept and translate it into answering, especially for the government proposals, these very robotic one-dimensional questions?
Kevin Switaj (11:35):
Yeah. I think the first thing to realize is, again, that it is a buying decision, that our evaluators are still people, like you've been talking about. Right? We need to make sure that we can make a connection with them. And even if it is in short prescribed answers, what we need to look at is saying, "How can we make clear, even within a sentence or two, that we really understand why they need the support and what's causing their problems?" We think about government proposals as being very prescriptive and structured. It's funny, we don't think about that when we look at films and TV shows. But several years ago, a person who had worked at Pixar put out the Pixar Storytelling Tips, and there's a list of 22 tips that kind of drove the storytelling machine at Pixar. One of them is, "Once upon a time, blank, "Every day, blank," "One day, blank," "Because of that, blank," "Because of that, blank," "Until finally, blank." Right?
(12:36):
We start thinking about the prescribed nature of that, if we want to call it that, we can break down most Disney films. For example, you think about Monsters Inc. Once upon a time, monsters used fear to gain power to their city. Every day. Two monsters went in and set new records. One day, a kid accidentally snuck back through the door, who everybody thought was toxic. Because of that, high jinx ensued. Because of that, everyone realized that laughter was a better source of energy than fear. Until finally, Sully was able to revisit the kid who made him realize all of this. Right? You think about most of the stories that we look at from the Disney universe, whether it is Disney, Pixar, Marvel, or Lucas Film, they follow some kind of format like that. It allows us to really see that just because our proposals have introductions, approaches, benefits, substantiation, or a reformer refilling things out, we still can make a connection with our evaluators.
Lisa Rehurek (13:42):
Yeah, I love that. You and I were talking before we hit the record button, and what I was telling you is that I had gone on a writer's retreat, and my coach, my writer's coach, he's a storytelling coach, really, and that's exactly the cadence that she had shared with us that you just shared. It's there for reason. Right? It's super powerful, and obviously very successful company. I would say too, of course that human element, and just because the RFP is prescribed and boring and robotic does not mean our response needs to be, but for some reason we get kind of sucked into that cadence because it feels like that's the way we should be responding. But I would argue that is not at all, and so all of this that you're talking about is so wonderful.
Kevin Switaj (14:31):
Yeah, I'd agree with that. You think about it, that we want to make sure that we're compliant and that we're following structure and that we're working within that environment, but there's nothing saying that we can't tell a story within that structure that resonates with the evaluator, that resonates with our clients, to make sure that they understand that we are a great partner for them. Right? Because at the end of the day, the proposal needs to be about the client, and when we get robotic, we tend to talk more and too much about ourselves.
Lisa Rehurek (15:02):
Yes. And too technical. And these poor humans are reading multiple proposals and they're boring. I mean, just as much the RFP is boring for us to read, we don't want our proposals in turn to be boring. I love that.
Kevin Switaj (15:18):
Definitely.
Lisa Rehurek (15:19):
We're going to take a quick commercial break and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about how do you start injecting this kind of empathetic content into your proposal. We will be right back.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Hey, you don't know what you don't know. If you are ready to win more RFPs, gain an outside perspective on your RFP responses with the RFP Success Company's Audit Service. Submit up to three of your past submitted proposals and receive a full feedback report and writing guide. For more details, email us at wecanhelp@rfpsuccess.com.
Lisa Rehurek (15:58):
All right, everybody, welcome back. We are having a great conversation with Kevin Switaj. He is president and CEO of BZ Opportunity Management, and he just wrote a book called Keys to the Castle. Make sure you get a copy. This is a great book all about empathy and creativity in your proposals. It is no more about the boring proposals people, we've got to spice them up. Kevin, what do you think teams need to do to develop that empathetic content?
Kevin Switaj (16:29):
Yeah, I think the key driver of that, and we've already kind of been hinting around the entire time, is that we need to include that client point of view and perspective at every step of the process and throughout our proposal sections. We think about both the executive summary and the section introductions, those need to be focused on the client. I talk to my teams all the time that I do not want to see our company name in the first paragraph of any section. I don't want to see them in the first half of the executive summary. Right?
Lisa Rehurek (16:59):
And don't replace it with we.
Kevin Switaj (17:01):
Yes, no, no, no. Just it should be all about the client. Right? That's our focal point. When we talk about the approach section, you can write books about most of the technical stuff that we do as an industry and as a consultant, what our clients do. Right? There have been tons of books. I work a lot with IT firms who are doing agile development. Right? You can write thousands of pages about agile development processes and everything. Right? Especially in the federal government, you've got two pages to write your entire agile approach. So what are we going to focus on them? What are the key points? Knowing what the client cares about, knowing what the client has had issues with, that's what we should be focusing on. We should be talking about if our client is really fearful about the agile development process not including documentation. We focus our narrative part around the fact that we clearly write documentation, that we provide all the reports and all the background information as soon as we can throughout our process, that it's a key component of our agile development process.
(18:07):
The final point is the benefits. The benefits always in our proposals need to be clearly linked to our clients' hot buttons and needs. When we've clearly in the introduction laid out what they need and why they need it, it makes that link to our benefit statement so much easier, because now we're bringing a full circle. It's kind of like that old model of tell them what you're going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said. Here it's tell them why we know that they need something, tell them what they're going to get, and then tell them again why it's going to help them. By making that link, that's when we're continually putting them at the focus of the bid and it's making our clients care more about what we're saying. Because I've used the example in trainings of, there's an episode of She Hulk, which is on Disney Plus as well, where she goes on all these dates and all the guys are talking just about themselves and how great they are, and the one date that resonates is the one where the guys says, "Tell me about your needs. Tell me about your issues and concerns and everything." It's a little flipping, but that's kind of how our proposals need to be. We need to make that connection with them by showing that we care about them and their needs and it's not just us selling ourselves.
Lisa Rehurek (19:21):
Well, it's a great analogy, because it's absolutely real life. I know I would tell you that a good number of the dates that I go on are very heavily weighted in that way. They just like to talk about themselves. It's fascinating to me. Yeah, it's fascinating. That's real life, people. That is real life.
Kevin Switaj (19:41):
And if you haven't seen the episode, go watch it. It's also just a very, very funny show. If you haven't. I don't know if you've seen it in or not, Lisa, but it's great.
Lisa Rehurek (19:48):
It's great.
Kevin Switaj (19:49):
Oh, if you have Disney Plus, you've got to. Start it tonight. Just watch. It's very, very funny.
Lisa Rehurek (19:54):
You got it. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. Talk to me a little bit about technical writers. Are you trying to get your technical writers to write in this way, or are you saying, "Let's get the technical writing over here and then our other writers that are going to spruce it up and make it better are going to come in and fix that?" Because it's hard sometimes to get the technical writers turn that corner.
Kevin Switaj (20:20):
Yeah, no. I think the driving force behind it, if you have the flexibility to be able to have somebody go back through technical content and layer in that client focused, empathetic ideas, that's great, right? But let's be honest, most of our clients, and I'm sure most of your clients, don't have the resources, time, and capability to do so. What I like to use is a very structured approach. I tend to use, and I know I point this out in the book, an annotated mockup approach where we start with bullets, very guided bullets, about the introduction, about the approach, about the benefits, with some very clear questions to ask our teams to consider while they're putting that content together. By doing it in bullets, we're allowing our teams to focus on the ideas that they're saying and not the language that they're using. Right?
Lisa Rehurek (21:08):
Yeah.
Kevin Switaj (21:08):
Some of the smartest people I know in the world are IT engineers, and they are brilliant, but they didn't go to school for English. They're not going to be able to a lot of the time make that first draft be really elegant prose. They'll get there as they continue to work as they continue to get more feedback. But we need to work with people like that. We need to work with our subject-matter experts and our technical writers to give them the tools to succeed and to be able to take their technical writing to that next level.
(21:37):
So, I like to start with that bulleted approach. I like to build in those questions so that they start thinking about why is this important to the client? Here's the key themes that we've identified. How does that apply to your section? How does that apply to the type of development you're going to do? What does that mean that you're going to focus on when you're writing your approach? And then how do the benefits of how we're going to do it, why we chose this approach as opposed to that approach, how is that going to be a key part of what we do and how we do it?
Lisa Rehurek (22:07):
Beautiful, beautiful. We find with technical writers a lot of times it's just easier to have conversations with them and you kind of have to keep digging to get some of the answers out, so I like that approach a lot. I'm going to actually switch gears here a little bit, because one of the things that you talked about in chapter two, which I was really resonating with, was reconceptualizing the capture process. We talked about this kind of at the very beginning, but really aligning your capture process to a more empathetic approach. Can you give our listeners a couple of tips on what they can do to start shifting that and how they need to be thinking differently?
Kevin Switaj (22:46):
Traditionally, we all build off of the 96-step comprehensive Shiply process, and we all do some various whittling down of it and focus on what's going to bring the most value to our organization and to our bids. When I started thinking about how we can get the information and the ideas that we need for empathetic proposals, I began thinking how much of that process do we need? As you really dig into it, there are some really critical pieces of information, really critical ideas, that we need to make sure we're driving in our proposals. Right? But at the same time, there's been too much under this name in my mind of capture or a capture approach. A lot of times, we think about it as a very linear process as opposed to refocusing on things being a mutually beneficial activities that point us towards that singular goal of making connections and winning. Right?
(23:47):
For me, it's about reorganizing around three key concepts. The first is logistics, the basic nuts and bolts of making sure that you get what you need and that you're documenting it, you're getting through your gate reviews, all of that. The second is intelligence gathering, getting that key information that you need to make the content that you're going to be working on in that third step. But what client information or how are you getting client information, what research are you doing, who are you meeting with, and are you asking the right questions? Building all of that in your intelligence gathering phase. And then overlapping with that, and thinking of it as kind of an infinity loop, is idea development. Right? Thinking about the executive summary, thinking about how we can best articulate our approach in terms of what they need and why they need it.
(24:38):
And then using that feedback loop and going back to the client and saying, "Hey, this is the idea that we have for our concept of operations," or, "Here's the high-level solution that we're thinking of. How does that work with what you're thinking?" And then it might be, "You know, that really works well," or, "You know, you hadn't thought about this kind of problem that we're having." Or something new might come up, and then continually using that information gathering and idea creation to build the right response and the right framework for your response, so when you do get to the written proposal and you do get to the final solicitation, that you're able then to clearly articulate all those key good nuggets to get to a winning bid, an empathetic bid, one that connects with your client.
Lisa Rehurek (25:20):
Something that I really love about this is that when we are thinking about that information gathering and that relationship building, man, people get really stuck in their heads about, "I'm just going to call them up and introduce myself," or tell them, "Just don't forget we're here." But as you're pointing out here, it's about the conversation you're having and key questions that you're asking. Because I guarantee you, and you just pointed this out perfectly, is that you're going to uncover things that they haven't even really thought about or for sure that you hadn't thought about. There's this kind of back and forth, and in that moment, in all of those moments, you're building this goodwill with them and you're basically giving them free consulting. If anybody out there that's listening is like, "Well, we don't want to do that," you're probably barking up the wrong tree in your business in general. Right? Sometimes you just have to do that to show value. I really love what you're pointing out there about just looking at this kind of from a different perspective than just checking a box off of your list.
Kevin Switaj (26:25):
Yeah. When I work with capture teams, what I've told them for many years is, yes, I know, your boss is going to make you go in with a briefing deck or the BD team's going to make you go in with the 37 slides that are nicely bound and you're going to go in. I'll tell you what, your client has probably gotten 10 of those this week. I've even told my teams, if you've got a decent relationship with that client, make the joke that, "Hey, you know what? My boss is making me bring this. I know you're not going to read it. Just go put it on your desk. What I want to do is talk with you. I want to have a conversation. What's going on? What do you need? Why do you need it? What's really driving this procurement besides the, you know? I can read what's going to be in a solicitation, but what are you hoping to achieve on this contract?"
(27:08):
The more we can ask those questions and the more comfortable we make the client, people love to talk about their problems. Right?
Lisa Rehurek (27:15):
Oh my god, yes. Yeah.
Kevin Switaj (27:18):
Especially if they think there's going to be a solution at the end. The more that we can work with our teams to build that kind of relationship with the client, the more we're going to learn. Some clients just love to talk and they're going to give you that information. Sometimes you're going to have to ask some more questions and tease some things out. But the more that our capture, our BD, and our sales teams can get that information, the more successful our bids are going to be because we're going to make those better connections.
Lisa Rehurek (27:45):
I agree wholeheartedly. I agree. It's kind of like, again, that human element. Treat them like they're humans when you're having a discussion instead of like a prospect.
Kevin Switaj (27:55):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Lisa Rehurek (27:57):
Something else that really caught my attention when reading the book is that you called out some key questions to ask when determining if it's an appropriate opportunity. I really love this conversation because it drives me crazy when people are just like, "Well, just bid because we can. We can. We can." It's a horrible bidding strategy. That's when you're down in the 10 and 20% win rates. You're wasting time and money and resources. It's a lot of strain on your people and your finances and all of that. I love that you were talking about that. One in particular, you said does it align to who we are? I guarantee you that's a question that a whole lot of people are not asking. Tell us a little bit more about the importance of having an answer to that question.
Kevin Switaj (28:45):
Yeah, and to use an example that I talk about in the book and to go back to our Walt Disney Company, Disney Cruise lines were launched, I think it's 15, 20 years ago now. When Disney started building cruise ships, they had a key question that they had asked themselves, and that is do we put a casino on the cruise ship? If you've cruised without Disney, you know, casinos are all over cruise ships and they're a huge moneymaker for the cruise line. Right? But how does gambling relate to the Disney brand? Disney made the conscious decision that we're not going to have casinos on our cruise lines. While that left a lot of money on the table from a profitability point of view per boat, it really reinforced the family theme. Right? Instead of mom or dad sneaking off to the casino, now you're sneaking off the sea as a family Beauty and the Beast on stage or something like that. It's about building that brand and it's about being true to the brand.
(29:46):
For me, in bid strategy, and especially when I'm working with oral presentation teams, the number one thing I focus on is authenticity. Be who you are, do what you do, and say what you can do and what you are capable of. Focus on what makes you better than anybody else in the market. To kind of take it to that orals presentation level, I don't try to break my teams and have them read off a script and have every word prescribed, unless it's a Fed [inaudible 00:30:19] in the federal space, which is completely different. But most of the time what I tell my teams is, "There's a reason that you were put on this bid. You are an expert in what you do. You can write. You can do these slides off the cuff." Right? If I have you read a script, there are very few people who can read a script or read off a teleprompter and sound like themselves.
(30:43):
There are very few. Heck, even watching news, and not all of them sound comfortable all the time with their teleprompters. We want that to be the impression that we leave with our evaluators, that we are who we say we are, and that we're being true to ourselves. Whether that's our bid strategy, whether that's our proposal, whether that's our presentation, focusing on that aspect of this is who we are, this is what we do, and here's how we're going to help you solve your problems. Because again, at the end of the day, the client's at the center of the bid. But if we're not being true to who we are, then the client's going to see right through that, and we're not going to make those connections, and they're going to read our proposal with a little bit of a skeptical eye. They lose all of that good will that we've built during the sales process, during the capture time, and even during the bid, if we're not being true to who we are.
Lisa Rehurek (31:39):
I totally agree. And making sure that everybody on the team is on board and they understand that, here's who we are, and then you speak to who you are and you are that authenticity. But one of the things that can break trust immediately is inauthentic communication. You don't want to do that. I love it. I love it. The interesting thing about this book, I found, is, again, there's a bunch of books out there on proposals and all of that, but you really kind of looked at the entire process with the fresh eye. What really led you to taking such a drastic step really at the end of the day, kind of drastic?
Kevin Switaj (32:16):
Yeah, that's what we were talking about with the capture process, and kind of reimagining that. It's just people get overwhelmed. Even if it's not the 96 steps of Shiply, people get overwhelmed by, all right, we've got to do this. Okay, we've got to do that. Okay, there's a set structure, there's a set process. By breaking it down and kind of breaking down some of those barriers to entry of our contributors, those of us who live in the industry, we know that that process is flexible. We know that we bring steps in and out, and we bring approaches and change them based on each individual bid and what they need. But our teams don't necessarily see that. Right? They see the proposal process and the proposal team who's making me do things right. It comes off as too complex and too overwhelming, especially to those who are new to the industry are doing it as a side job.
(33:09):
So many of our clients are small companies where somebody's wearing three or four different hats, and in a day they're in delivery, at night they're working on proposals, on the weekends they're acting as a reviewer. By making it easier for them and by making the process easier on us, that we're bringing them in and making it clear of what we need from them and why they need to do it, as opposed to as is part of the process, it allows us to focus on results instead of focusing on the process. By doing that, by taking this fresh eye, what I was looking to do is, okay, we know that the client needs to be the center of the proposal. How do we make sure that from beginning to end of the process, the client is the center of everything we're trying to do and everything we're trying to create?
(34:00):
By breaking down some of the barriers, breaking down some of these, I don't like using the word stovepipe for it, but breaking down some of these perceived stovepipes, might be the best way, and by thinking about it as we need to put something together that the client is going to relate to, and that they're going to see value and they're going to see value to themselves in. That's how we really can stand apart. That's kind of where I was driving at when I started this book, and that's where I think I ended up.
Lisa Rehurek (34:30):
Yeah, I would agree with that wholeheartedly, so great job. Great job on the book.
(34:35):
Now, you've given us a ton of tips, a ton of great information, but if somebody's in the audience right now saying, "Okay, where do I start?" What is the kind of first thing that you think somebody needs to do to start making a shift to this way of thinking about writing and presenting their proposal?
Kevin Switaj (34:53):
Well, besides buying the book so that they can get all the information themselves, right? I think the number one thing is to ask the question of am I putting the client at the center of this bid? And not only am I putting the client at the center, but am I speaking with the client instead of to them? By doing that throughout the process, as we're writing, as we're reviewing, as we're gathering information, we can really begin that process. There's a lot in the book about structure, and about changing the focus of how we're doing things, and reorienting steps and everything like we were just talking about. But for the proposal manager within an organization, that might not be possible.
(35:34):
And so, I also built into the book some key questions that you can ask of your teams and some key ways that you can refocus how they're writing so that they're focused instead on that key question of why does the client need this? What is causing them these problems? How can we best address that? If we start there and we start seeing improvement in our proposals, our teams will be more receptive to change, and our organizations within the proposal team and within the larger BD organizations will be receptive to change as well.
Lisa Rehurek (36:06):
Yeah. They'll start seeing some more wins and then start seeing those wins, people can become more receptive and more open.
Kevin Switaj (36:14):
Yep. They'll start asking the question, "Hey, what are you doing differently? Why are your proposals being evaluated so much better than mine?" Well, this is what I'm looking to do. We're trying to drive to that point. The other hope is that as your contributors move from bid to bid, that they start seeing the value of how you're doing and start saying, "Hey, why are we not considering this?" and things like that. The more you can get organizational buy-in by results, instead of just ruling by fiat or by demanding change of people. The more that you can show, "Hey, this is being more successful, here's why," and the more wins you can show, the better reception you're going to get for those changes.
Lisa Rehurek (36:52):
What's funny about that, Kevin, is that aligns with everything that you're talking about and how we want to present our proposals. Right?
Kevin Switaj (36:57):
Yeah.
Lisa Rehurek (36:57):
We want to present things in a way that's going to be more persuasive and emotional versus trying to just talk at them. Same thing when you're trying to do something internally. If you're trying to talk at people, it's not going to be overly successful. Right?
Kevin Switaj (37:11):
Yeah, it's a great point.
Lisa Rehurek (37:13):
Yeah. All right, Kevin. Well, this has been fantastic. Do you have any last kind of words of wisdom for our audience, aside from buy the book?
Kevin Switaj (37:21):
Well, besides that, like I said, I think the number one question that you need to ask yourself throughout that bid process is, "Am I putting the client at the center here?" The more that we consider how the client is going to react to what we're saying, and the more we know about how the client's going to react, as we said, the more successful we'll be and the stronger our bids and our bid process will be. For me, that's the key takeaway is be creative, be empathetic, and be willing to take a risk here and there to make sure that your bids are resonating with your clients.
Lisa Rehurek (37:58):
Great, great. Well, I have appreciated everything that you've shared with us. If anybody wants to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that? Can they connect with you on LinkedIn? What's the best course?
Kevin Switaj (38:08):
Yeah, I think LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn regularly, both myself and our company, BZ Opportunity Management. You can follow us on there. You can check our website, which is bcopportunity.com. Those are probably the easiest ways. Like I said, I'm on LinkedIn a lot and we try and share a lot of cool content. I think we shared several of your podcasts as well. We're constantly trying to make sure that we provide some key information for people who have taken the time to engage with us.
Lisa Rehurek (38:38):
Wonderful. Well, we'll have all that information in the show notes in addition to a link to your book, so we'll make it easy on everybody. Thank you again, Kevin, for being here. We really appreciate it. If y'all like what you hear, come on. We want you to come and share our podcast with others who would benefit. That would be lovely for us. Thank you very much. And on behalf of Kevin and myself, I'd just like to thank you for being here. You have been listening to the RFP Success Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
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@podcastrfpsuccess.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 the rfpsuccesscompany.com.