Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 88: BD Book...Top 3 Tactics from Todd Baylor's book "Agile Business Development"

Transcript

Episode 88: BD Book...Top 3 Tactics from Todd Baylor's book "Agile Business Development" · What is Business Development?

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development podcast brought to you by
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hello BD Pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Associations podcast called What is Business Development? Hey, you have
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: to write proposals a lot as a business developer. How
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: many times have you been in the proposal phases and
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: you've arrived at your first or second draft, sometimes your
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: third draft, and you realize, oh boy, this is just
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: a bunch of chunk. And you followed a waterfall process
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: where you doled out a bunch of writing assignments to
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: subject matter experts that are probably engineers, maybe working full
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: time on direct build bulwork for their clients. They don't
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: have time, they don't have the interest in writing. And
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: you assemble all of the pieces, all of the drafts,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and you get to your first complete draft and you realize, Wow,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: this is a bunch of junk. We have to put
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: humpty dumpty back together. What do we do? Well, folks,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: there's a better way to do that, and we're going
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: to jump into it in this podcast with a fantastic
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: interview with a really interesting book author and his new book,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: and we're going to jump right into that, but before
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: we do, hey, let's talk about the book that we
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: all love as business developers called the Business Development Body
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: of Knowledge. If you want to become a Certified Business
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Development Professional with the GBDA certifications, then get a copy
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: of the bd BOC, the Business Development Body of Knowledge,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and that teaches you the entire customer journey and the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: key tactics and processes, the operations and the strategies a
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: business development to be a success and our profession. And
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: if you're listening watching, give us a like, drop a comment.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: It gives me the dopamine rush to continue doing these
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: things for you and bringing wonderful authors and books to
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  Speaker 2: your attention. Today, we're going to be talking about the
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: book called Agile Business Development. Now, this is a great book.
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  Speaker 2: I've been reading it. I really like it. It's an
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  Speaker 2: easy read, it's a quick read, and it's broken down
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  Speaker 2: in very concise terms to forty three agile business development practices.
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  Speaker 2: And these are simple techniques with profound impacts for BD capture,
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  Speaker 2: proposal and sales practitioners at all levels. You'll identify with
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  Speaker 2: the stories and find empowerment in the approach that you
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  Speaker 2: find in the book and the book author. Well, let's
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  Speaker 2: welcome him to the show. And he is Todd Baylor.
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  Speaker 2: And Todd helps companies grow in developing concise, visual, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: compelling value propositions from marketing through formal proposals. He dives
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  Speaker 2: into bids and drives or supplement strategy capture, customer engagement,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and proposal development. And he's used his agile BD tactics
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  Speaker 2: and techniques, the very same techniques you'll find in his book,
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  Speaker 2: to win twelve billion dollars in contract awards. Wow. So
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  Speaker 2: let's welcome to the show our friend Todd Baylor. Todd.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome, Hi, Tony, great to be here.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Todd, it's great to have you here, and I'd
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: love to hear from you. How did you get into
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: BD and why did you write the book?
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  Speaker 3: Okay, I came into BD by coming up the software
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  Speaker 3: development ladder. I came out of school with computer science degrees,
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  Speaker 3: and I grad. I was a programmer, and I graduate
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: managed teams of programmers and large programs of application developers.
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  Speaker 3: And then I had to recompete these contracts and win them.
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  Speaker 3: So I slid over towards what I can now consider
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  Speaker 3: to be the hardest part of the business, growing the business.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: And so I worked with many growth professionals, you know, salespeople,
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  Speaker 3: capture people, proposal managers, and I started to see an
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: opportunity to apply some of the agile concepts that came
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: out of the software development world to the business development,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: the proposal development world. And that's when I sort of
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: decided to start gathering my ideas and put them into
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: a book.
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  Speaker 4: And that's the book that you described.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a fantastic book. Again, folks, I'm putting
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: it up on the screen for those just listening. It's
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  Speaker 2: called Agile Business Development, A Practitioner's Guide to Compelling Value
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  Speaker 2: Proposition and you can get it on Amazon. It's available
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: in kindle as well. You can get it also in paperback,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: currently listed at about sixteen dollars for you there or
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: free with your kindle unlimited. I've been reading it in
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  Speaker 2: kindle and I'm really enjoying it. So Todd, let's jump
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  Speaker 2: into your top three tactics or takeaways from your book.
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  Speaker 2: What's number one?
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I'll start with sort of a turning the
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  Speaker 3: business development paradigm on its side from one that is
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  Speaker 3: often presented as phases that you go through identify, qualify,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, and instead of that's very similar
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  Speaker 3: to the software phases of get your requirements right, get
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  Speaker 3: your architecture right, get your design right, get your coding right,
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  Speaker 3: testing to data. And what we changed in the software
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  Speaker 3: world was to say, instead of focusing on marching through
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  Speaker 3: these phases and checklists of activities associated with each phase,
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  Speaker 3: how about we instead focus on working software and getting
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: your working software in front of your customers and letting
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  Speaker 3: them tell you what they like and what they don't like,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: and giving them another version in a week, and a.
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  Speaker 4: Week after that and a week after that.
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  Speaker 3: I came to realize that in the business development world,
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  Speaker 3: the analog of working software is your value proposition, and
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: you can deliver your value proposition to customers from the
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  Speaker 3: very beginning of the business development life cycle all the
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  Speaker 3: way through your detailed proposals and orals or however else
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  Speaker 3: you're presenting.
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  Speaker 4: At the top.
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  Speaker 3: In order to do that, you need to realize that
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  Speaker 3: your value proposition occurs at many levels of abstraction, many
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  Speaker 3: levels of decomposition, and I'll just talk about the top
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  Speaker 3: levels that the top levels of the pyramid. So I
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  Speaker 3: start with a tagline and people don't realize it, but
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  Speaker 3: you can actually present the complete value of a solution
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  Speaker 3: in a phrase if you distill to the highest levels
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  Speaker 3: of that value proposition. And this phrase may be something
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: that you hear, you know. On a six billion dollar
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: bid recently for the largest contact center in the federal government,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: we distilled our value proposition down to the agency's citizen
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  Speaker 3: satisfaction scores would go up every year. And that may
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: not sound earth shattering, but these were the numbers that
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: the secretary would take in front of Congress. These are
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: the numbers that they used to justify their budgets, and
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  Speaker 3: most importantly, these were the numbers that the agency would
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  Speaker 3: use to get promotions and would use to you know,
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  Speaker 3: further their own careers. So this got their interest in
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  Speaker 3: a single phrase, you know. I at the next level
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  Speaker 3: of the value proposition, I decompose it into maybe three phrases,
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  Speaker 3: and the way I position them is would you like
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  Speaker 3: these achievements? You know, so if you can think of
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  Speaker 3: things that they would like to achieve. This has nothing
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  Speaker 3: to do with my company. This has to do with
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: the readers of the proposal or the value proposition, would
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  Speaker 3: you like to achieve these three things and those and
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  Speaker 3: those I call win themes. And I know that that's
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: a term that's overloaded in our industry and comes with
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: many preconceived notions, but they really are just phrases that
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  Speaker 3: you want to introduce early in the business development process.
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  Speaker 3: Then maybe early in your presentations. Then maybe on the
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: front page of your proposal or on the front page
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  Speaker 3: of your orals deck. And that's and I treat that
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  Speaker 3: as a second level of decomposition. I drop down into
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  Speaker 3: developing your executive summary, you know, early on in the
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  Speaker 3: business development process, and have a process, have a a
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: considerate way of presenting your value proposition at the level
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  Speaker 3: of an executive summary. You know, that starts with we
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  Speaker 3: hear you. It doesn't start with we're a great company.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't start with you love our company. It starts
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  Speaker 3: with we hear you, and it's really we've done our
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: best to hear you. And then we have a solution
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  Speaker 3: for what we think you're trying to achieve. And that
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  Speaker 3: solution has benefits and you should trust us because we've
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  Speaker 3: done that solution in other places. So it's just a
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  Speaker 3: sort of turning the the paradigm of business development on
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  Speaker 3: its side, and focusing your efforts around value proposition as
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  Speaker 3: opposed to phase and activity completion.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, great, so tactic number one is nailed. That tagline
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  Speaker 2: and make sure you're rolling in your value proposition not
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  Speaker 2: only into the tagline, but into your win themes. And
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: you know, so let's let's let's pick that apart a
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  Speaker 2: little bit. The tagline. Where do you put the tagline?
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  Speaker 2: Is it just on the cover page of your proposal?
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  Speaker 2: Is it on the first sentence on page one? Where
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: do you put it?
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  Speaker 4: So?
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  Speaker 3: I put it on every page of the proposal. I
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  Speaker 3: put it up in the header because if it's something
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  Speaker 3: that you believe in and something that you know, you
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  Speaker 3: ideally tested maybe through conversations with the customer, it's a
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  Speaker 3: it is something that they can get behind. You know,
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  Speaker 3: this is really their tagline, not my tagline. This whole
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  Speaker 3: solution is their solution, not my solution. So ideally I'm
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  Speaker 3: continuously reminding them of something that they would be proud of,
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  Speaker 3: you know, a future that they would be proud of.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like what you said to your pulling
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  Speaker 2: and doing research on what the leadership of your prospect
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  Speaker 2: is saying, and whether they're saying that in public records.
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  Speaker 2: It could be in testimony, it could be on LinkedIn,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: could be in press releases, it could be in their
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  Speaker 2: annual reports. Right, I mean, these are these are the
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  Speaker 2: these are their success criteria. And so when they see
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: those success criteria in your tagline, it says, hey, we
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  Speaker 2: understand you, guys, I mean, we know what your mission is.
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  Speaker 2: So right, then it establishes the primary foundation for trust.
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  Speaker 2: You are aligned in purpose. Right. Trust is it's neuroscience.
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  Speaker 2: We write about it in the bd BOCH and every
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  Speaker 2: business developer who's read it knows it. Trust is simple neuroscience.
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  Speaker 2: It's purpose plus empathy plus truth. You are starting off
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  Speaker 2: right in the beginning, going hey, look we get you.
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  Speaker 2: You're trying to get from point A to point B.
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  Speaker 2: We will get you to point B. Okay, right.
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  Speaker 3: And what's nice about that is as soon as you
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  Speaker 3: start that way, you differentiate yourself from most companies that
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  Speaker 3: are that feel obligated to say we are wonderful you
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  Speaker 3: want X, we are great at delivering X. We're the
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: market leader at delivering X. And it and nobody cares.
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  Speaker 4: Nobody cares.
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  Speaker 3: Nobody cares that you're a market leader or an industry leader. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: thank you for their own fish to fry.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you for submitting your very narcissistic bid.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Is there anything in here about me, the customer of
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the prospect? I mean, what's going on here?
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Well, and the other thing too, is that it submits
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  Speaker 2: a what I call sniffing salts. You know, I've been
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: on the receiving end of reviewing bids and a number
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: of bids, and you know, as a reviewer, by the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: time you get to like the third one, your eyes
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  Speaker 2: are starting the roll in the back of your head
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: every time you see them start off with we are
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  Speaker 2: proud to submit this bid with blah blah blah. Come,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: you're killing me. I'm trying to stay awake here.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: You are.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Give me something to work with. And I would always say,
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  Speaker 2: administer those sniffing salts right up front. Hit them with
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  Speaker 2: the tagline that says, look, I get your purpose, and
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: then those win themes that nail their pain points right, Like,
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  Speaker 2: I know you want to get from point A to
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: point B. I'll tell you what, here are three land
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  Speaker 2: mines along the way, and we know these are big
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: risks for you. And tell you what, we're the only
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: guys that can take care of it. Wow, okay, I'm
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: in tell me more, right.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it really shows also that you've done your homework,
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: that you're not just coming with your standard boiler plate
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: solution to them, that you recognize that what is most
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: important is is their need and their situation. And then
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: we'll get to whether our solution or how our solution
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: might address your situation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, great, so let's jump into number two. Then
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: what's number two? Todd?
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: All right?
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: So I mentioned that you can treat executives some worries
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: as in the way that software teams, you know, can
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: can produce a prototype or an early version of the
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: delivered product and actually give it to customers. You can
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: produce an executive summary before an RFP even drops, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: use that as an MVP, a minimally viable proposal that
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: you can get incredibly good feedback from your executives, from
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: your consultants. You know, you can't run it by your customers,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: but you can treat this as a minimally viable proposal
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: and get all the benefits of running it through a
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: review cycle again before an RFP even drops.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Wow, I like that. You know, not every bid requires
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: an executive summary. Sometimes the procurement official will say, yes,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: you can provide an executive summary, but it won't be reviewed.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: It may not be reviewed. That's fine, But I like
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: what you're saying here about using the executive summary, even
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: pre proposal, to get everybody on the same sheet of music.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: I think because in that executive summary you should have
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: your win themes, your ghosting themes, your tagline, or at
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: least your draft tagline, and you're getting everybody strategically on
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  Speaker 2: the same sheet of music. And maybe in that executive
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  Speaker 2: summary you're also identifying some of the gaps where you know,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: maybe it's just an invitation of whatnot, where you're letting
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: leadership know, look, to win this, we need to do X,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Y and Z. We can do X really well, we
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: could do Z really well. Here are win themes. Here
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: are ghosting themes. And by ghosting themes, folks, if you
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: haven't heard that term before, this is these are the
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: themes where you're specifically addressing the weaknesses of your competitors,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: and so you're exploiting those weaknesses by revealing those weaknesses
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: to the prospect in your proposal. To then be viewed
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: in a more positive light. And there are ways to
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: subtly present ghosting themes without being obnoxious about it. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: but I like this idea Todd of the executive summary
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: really getting everybody on the same sheet of music, especially
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: even the writing team, you know, anybody that may be
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: involved in reviewing. And I think it's probably great feedback
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: too for leadership to say, oh, well, no, we don't
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: want to do that. You know, we don't want to.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: I like A B and C, but D I don't
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: think we want to. We want to bid that right.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And two notes, Executive summaries are such a preferred
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: format for an executive to actually do a review of
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: your proposal, as opposed to some raggedy pink team you
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: know version of your document that it's really more wasting
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: their time, where I guarantee you will get their engagement
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: if you say, here's our concise value proposition presented in
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: three pages that you, by the way, don't have to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: waste a couple hours reviewing because you can see how
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: we distilled this down to the most important three pages.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: And I'll also say I use the term executive summary,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: but often, like you said, the executive summary is not
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: scored in a proposal, but so I can you know
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: this may be the introduction to your technical approach, or
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: slide into your management approach, or even into your pricing
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: or your cover letter or other places that will get scored.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I like what you said too about giving it
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: to the executive so that they can understand where you're
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: going with your bid process, your solutioning, and doing that preproposal,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: probably even during the proposal to kind of show hey, preproposal,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: we said X, Y and Z. In the proposal phase,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: we fine tuned a couple of things. This is what's changed,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and we've summarized that for you. And quite honestly, I
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: also like it because then that it dissuades them from
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: wanting to participate in your draft review sessions, where typically
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I found that executives are not really good about providing
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: great feedback on your bid simply because they probably don't
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: have direct experience with the customer or the prospect, they
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: don't have a lot of deep technical knowledge, and by
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: the time they get the page three, they're just nitpicking,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: spell check and grammar checking. Yeah, okay, great, thanks boss.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: That you can be sure of they have opinions, and
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: often their opinions are at the strategic level, and when
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: you can get their their opinions early enough, you can
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: make strategic course corrections, where often if you're further down
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: the road, you know, in a red team or similar,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: you can't make the strategic structural course corrections to your
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: value proposition the way you can if you get their
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: feedback early.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, great, so let's talk about tactic number three.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I think we used up my three that I had ready,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: so I will just say.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. Let's do this, Todd, Let's walk
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: through the agile b D process. Can we can walk through?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: That is kind of a It's not necessarily a tactic,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: but it's a framework that I think everybody really needs
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: to understand.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll say, you know that the high level
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: points of agile bd is start to start from the
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: beginning of focusing on your value proposition. Your initial interactions
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: with your customers should be testing these taglines, maybe testing
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: your win themes. When you finally get meetings with your customer,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: you want to present them not with your corporate capabilities,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: but your first attempts at solutioning their their issue. I
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: like to say that that should be done on a
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: single page you know, on a single page visual. You know,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: as you you meet and discuss those sorts of things,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: if you're not presenting your capabilities to them, which is
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: going to get them to zone out, because again, they
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: don't care what your company capabilities are. They do care
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: about your attempt to solve their problem, and that will
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: get them engaged. And now all of a sudden, you
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: are using the agile methods, the agile paradigm to your benefit,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: you know, continuous delivery and feedback from your customers about
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: their solution. So it's it's more along the lines of
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: don't focus on analysis and planning and planning to plan
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: and gate reviews and things like that. You can still
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: do all those things, but put your primary emphasis on
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: your value delivery to your customer and curate that and
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: you know, blow that out into further levels of detail,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: and that's a better paradigm to interact with customers doing
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: during the BD process.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, as you talk through that, I thought, boy,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: you could probably use that executive summary and shop that
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: with your prospect, show them a draft.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: And there you absolutely can.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Right because you're already starting to pitch the solution and whatnot,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: and if they give you feedback on well, you know,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: we didn't like this or you miss something that's great,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: you could probably do that during the request for information phase,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the R five phase, even.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: It absolutely works that way.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, so let's let's dig a little bit deeper
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: than in the agile process. And as I started the show, folks,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: we talked about the more linear waterfall methodology where you
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: have multiple draft reviews. Say after after week one of writing,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: it's pens down. Everybody submits their draft inputs. Everybody sits
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: around a table and admires it. Maybe you have folks
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: that are reviewing it, and what you're doing as the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: capture manager of the business developer, whatever role you're in,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: you're looking at it and saying, okay, where are my
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: gaps still? Do we have our win themes included? Do
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: we have our ghosting themes included? Then you get to
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: draft review number two, after you tell all those writers, hey,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: you missed this win theme, you missed that ghosting theme.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: You get to draft number two, and this is what
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I call the humpty dumpty phase where you realize it's
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: still not coming together. We have different voices. We have
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: so many win themes that are missing, ghosting themes that
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: are missing. We're missing complete sections of the solution. It's
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: falling apart. And now we're in crisis mode. We've already
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: wasted two weeks just admiring something that's not coming together.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: It's coming on glued by week number two, and now
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: we're in crisis mode. Versus the agile methodology, which uses
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the software development agile software development methodologies, which is, let's
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: start with the content we've already written, like the executive summary,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Let's use that. Let's use content we've used in previous
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: proposals because it's directly speaking to the solutions that we
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: want to present. Great, now we've completed probably forty five
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: fifty percent of the proposal effort, and now with artificial
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: intelligence tools, you could do that very quickly. And now
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: what you're focused on is where are the gaps? Where
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: do we have technical solution gaps. In the wind themes,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: we said we were going to do XYZ, where's our
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: answer to that? In the ghosting themes, we identified weaknesses
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: of the competition of ABC. Where are we showing that
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: we beat them in those regards? And now you're looking
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: at gaps, and so I always like to use kind
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: of a green stoplight chart, green, yellow, red. All right,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: the customers that they wanted this section, they want us
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: to talk about this, Oh, green, yellow, red, green means
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: we've got the win theme, we've got the ghosting theme,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: we've got a great solution. Good done. Now we don't
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: need to go back to that section again. Let's keep
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: focusing right. So this, I know in your book you
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: talk through this in detail. I just want to give
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: folks an overall summary. But did I kind of express one.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Of the important points that you brought up is often
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: the standard process produces a document that goes through Pink Review,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: red review, et cetera. When parts of that document are
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: often could be lifted from a previously you know, well
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: done proposal that and the section is relatively in good shape.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: You don't need to waste everyone's time reviewing a document
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: component that's in good shape. Likewise, if there's a critical
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: new you know, solution aspect of this proposal that is
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: in a certain section, that section may need to get
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: multiple Pink Team reviews, where other sections may not need
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: to have any reviews, And you want to be flexible
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: that way, not just run the whole document through. Oh
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: time for pens down, time to get everything in front
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: of of you know, the reviewers, time to get their feedback,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: time to just get through red team because red team
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: is scheduled for Thursday, you know kind of thing. And
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: it's better to be more flexible with that whole review,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: feedback editing process.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and I'm a big fan of the agile
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: b D methodology. I've used it myself and I found
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: that typically I would cut about twenty five percent in
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: time versus waterfall methodology. And so that also translated into
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: big savings for my clients. And you know, it obviously
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: helped you out quite a bit, winning about twelve billion
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: dollars in big wins. So, folks, if you want to
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: have big wins, then consider the Agile b D methodology
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: in Todd's book. And again the name of the book
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: is Agile Business Developer, a Practitioner's Guide to Compelling Value Proposition.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And when you read that book, key in on some
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: of the key takeaways that we talked about today. Number One, tagline.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Get your tagline nailed down early and focus it on
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the customer. It's about them. It's about their purpose. Get
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: them from point A to B. Align with them. That
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: starts building trust. The second takeaway is get your executive
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: summary done, not at proposal phase. Get it done early.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Get it in front of your leadership, make sure they
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: agree with where you're going. Get it in front of
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: your customer, your prospect, get their feedback. Understand what's missing,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: what needs to be added, what needs to be fine tuned.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: You're rolling right into the proposal phase well armed with
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: all of the information you need to succeed. And then
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: when you're in the proposal phase, use the agile methodology.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Software developers have been doing it for decades now and
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: it works great. You can save a lot and odds
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: are your pe win may go up as well. All right,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: so use those methodologies that will increase efficiency. Increase your effectiveness.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: And if you're interested and you want to learn more,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: get a copy of Todd's book again, it's available on
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Amazon and Todd, how can folks follow your work? Get
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: in touch with you?
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: I'm on LinkedIn that seems to be the social media
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: for business at just my name Todd Baylor. My website
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: is agilebd dot com. Either of those will get you
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: to me and I would love to interact with other
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: people who share the same passion for this stuff.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, no matter where you are in the world,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: and you can notice if you're watching this, Todd Baylor
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: has his hand painted world map behind him. That took
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I think six months. He told me to paint your
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: years two years, two years, and of course we have
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: the map behind us in the GB No matter where
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: in the world you are, reach out to Todd. He's
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: a fantastic person. He's brilliant when it comes to this
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: relatively new concept of agile business development and grab a
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: copy of his book. Todd Baylor, thank you so much
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: for everything you do to advance the art, science, and
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: ethics of business development, and thank you for sharing your
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: ideas with us today.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: It has been my absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: me and all the stuff you do to bring the
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: community together.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Business Development Podcast. Join
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: our free community of corporate partners and business development professionals
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: advancing the art, science, and ethics of the business development
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: profession at Gbdassociation dot org.