Working on Workers Day

Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. I blinked and 6 months flew by on my broomstick. Christmas came and New Year went. The Easter bunny hopped, the tooth fairy did her stuff and April fooled none of us. And yet, the more things change the more they stay the same. Here I am, working on workers day - if you can call writing work.

Yet, life in the proposal world still rocks. nFold's clients won some big bids lately. One of the deals in the banking industry involved the transfer of 738 people with zero jobs lost. nFold helped our client to turn around a likely loss into a winning bid.

“You went the extra mile. Big bidding is a specialized field and without expertise in this area you setting yourself up for failure - in any battle you need a strong team. I would prefer to have you on my team than my competitors.”

So the mood of celebration is in the air. Bring on more big bids and we'll be ready to sparkle!

Talking about sparkling, nFold recently hosted an event to announce the results of a sales execution survey and launch the latest release of Qvidian proposal automation. As autumn blossoms in SA, the spring release from Qvidian in the US promises even more time saved with a brand new interface that's even easier to use. Come along to our online demos and live lab session in the coming weeks to learn more. Be there or be square. Click on one of these links to register...

Online Demos:

Thursday 15 May 07h30 – http://nfold.celebrations.com/QvidianOnlineDemo1

Tuesday 20 May 12h00 – http://nfold.celebrations.com/QvidianOnlineDemo2

Wednesday 28 May 16h00 - http://nfold.celebrations.com/QvidianOnlineDemo3

 

Live Lab at nFold Office:

Wednesday 4 June 13h30 - http://nfold.celebrations.com/QvidianLiveLab

Sandy got her beach fix last week but she left me behind. How rude! I do hope she lets me out to play again sometime soon. The local APMP chapter is hosting an all Africa round table event on 13 May at Aurecon's offices in Pretoria. Maybe if she takes me along I'll be adopted into a bid team again. Who knows, I might even get to go on an African safari. Watch this space while I brew my magic.

SPACE

Okay you can stop watching the space and come back again later. Still working on getting out of this pesky box. I seriously need a new wand or some more newts for the potion. Bye for now.

On top of the world

I recently flew to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro with one of nFold's best proposal champions, KK Diaz of Rekopane.biz. What a lovely young man! And so clever too.

KK decided to treat his climb as a business venture and create a documentary about the experience to inspire other entrepreneurs to succeed. Now that's the kind of project that nFold is proud to support. Sandy spent some time on candid camera to explain proposal basics. And nFold made our first ever cash donation to the project. In the past, we've donated our time to worthy projects like this, but at last we can afford to put some money towards growing the future. Keep on walking KK.

Meanwhile, back at the proverbial ranch, Team nFold continues to sparkle. Dheshnee, Graham and Janet all passed their APMP Foundation exam this week, bringing the total number of bid network members to achieve this global badge of honour to 14 of the 30 consultants in our network and almost one fifth of the total in SA. Plus, Sandy Pullinger has now trained 37% of all local members certified at foundation level and ALL of them passed. WOW!!! I stand on my broomstick amazed. Onward and upward. Sandy tells me she's decided that nFold people sparkle. And if they don't sparkle then they're probably not nFold people.

 

As we gallop towards the end of the year, nFold has planned so spend a day at the pool in early December to celebrate a big year. We're growing fast and have the scars to prove it. Rather than buying tacky gifts for our top customers, our plan for year-end is to pack a Santa's shoebox for each of them, take a photo and make a beautiful card for each one. Shhhhhhhhh! Don't spoil the surprise.

 

Maybe you want to put a smile on a poor child's face too this year. If you want to join the fun, be sure to pledge a shoebox here: http://site.santashoebox.co.za/. There are 100,000 kids in the mix and almost 7,000 still without a shoebox. Show you care. I know we do.  

Last chance saloon

Next week I will be making a guest appearance at the third annual APMP conference in SA. All proposal and sales and new business development people eager for my autograph - oh and to "Raise your Game" - must register this week. You snooze you lose! You're in the last chance saloon...click here to book now: events@apmp.org.za. Spread the word like wild-fire by bush telegraph before it's too late.

Neil Philipson, with one 'l', is the current chair person of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals in sunny South Africa. He's SO excited about the line-up. Here I am looking over his shoulder while he shares the programme with me on his zooty ipad. Doesn't he look excited?

Other than my distinguished and humble self, there will be no less than TWO international guest speakers. Rick Harris, executive director of APMP international, will be making the keynote address. He has oodles of global business development experience. Chris Kaelin from Switzerland will be yodelling too - all about putting the sizzle back into proposals. But wait, there's more. For a copy of the programme, visit www.apmp.org.za. The conference is cheaper for members - at only slightly more than the cost of a meal for 2 with wine at a local restaurant, it's a positive steal. To check out the calibre of previous international guest speakers, click here to find out some more great reasons to become a member of the APMP: Colleen Jolly and Jon Williams promote APMP Membership at 1st APMP SA Conference.

Neil says Theresa Monoyoudis has been the key driver behind the conference. I overheard her make no less than 90 phonecalls last week to check up on members and to promote the conference. In the last few weeks she only flew off the broom handle once while knocking off all the items on the lengthy 'to do' list to make such a great conference happen. But luckily I wasn't to blame for the mishap. Close shave! And within minutes Theresa the cheer leader was her usual enthusiastic self. Go T Go!


Neil has no reason to climb the walls about the conference. But he has a day job at PDNA that makes him responsible for winning engineering projects worth billions. So there are never enough hours in a day. Since he handles it all without breaking a sweat, I decide to climb the walls for him. Or does it look as though he's encouraging me to fly off the handle? What do you think?

Room on the Broom

"Down!" cried this witch, when I flew into the underground parking at Standard Bank. I was reminded, as I entered the proposal centre, about that brilliant book Julia Donaldson wrote about me, called "Room on the Broom". It features my cat, a frog, a dog and a bird. My friends overcome a dragon by disguising themselves as a swamp creature, and "Whoosh!" we are gone.

You may be wondering what this has to do with proposals?

Sally Jacques' Favourite Book

For 2 years or more, Christian Figenschou from Standard Bank has been on the APMP committee in charge of Accreditation. Go Christian! Sally Jacques hopped onto the broom in 2012. She's been arranging the study group towards passing the Foundation exam in July. Here she is, reading the Shipley Proposal Guide, no doubt her favourite book at the moment...about a person writing a proposal about a person reading a book about a witch watching Sally.

Study Tips from Wendy
If you are one of the 25...you heard me...25 people taking the exam with Sally, then you'll be needing some tips from me.

Tip #1: Visit www.apmp.org to see why to bother.
Tip #2: Drink a lot of coffee.
Tip #3: Read the Shipley Proposal Guide at least once.
Tip #4: Drink more coffee.
Tip #5: Phone in for the last 2 of 4 study group sessions.
Tip #6: Attend the cramming session.
Tip #7: Breathe.
Tip #8: Write the exam, and whoosh! you'll be accredited.

No less than half...you heard me...4 people in the Standard Bank proposal team will be writing the exam. "Yes!" cried the witch, and "Good luck!". Here's the whole team pretending to join the study group session using Christian's phone. "Ha, Ha" said the witch.

Whoosh the Proposal was Done (with apologies to Julia Donaldson)

"I am a proposal, as green as can be. Is there room on the broom for a proposal like me?"
"Yes!" cried the witch and the proposal climbed on. The witch tapped her broomstick and whoosh! they were gone.

Over reviews and processes they flew, minding the dragons and the date it was due. "Smile!" cried the witch, and the writers all did, the cubicles waved but the other folks hid. Away from requests that make your head itch. As I flew out the door they said, "There goes our witch."  

Blink and it's gone

It's November and 2010 is galloping to a close. For South Africa, this was the year of the soccer world cup. For me, it's been a whirlwind of fun in the sun since April. I had so many things to do and places to see that my poor blog took a back seat. So this bumper edition is my attempt to atone for my sins as I wave goodbye to Africa to embark on my world tour. Happy reading, and why not subscribe? I have good intentions to be a regular writer next year...

Proposal Review at Hiside

In May, I helped nFold train their bid network how to do proposal reviews. I also did one for Hiside. Their proposal had great images of their fun team-building events, but I helped them to become a bit more persuasive. By now, they're using all the tricks in the book such as quantifying payback, client focus and differentiation. What a great bunch of motivated people. I guess they must practice what they preach. I'm the shadow 2nd from left in front of the boss.

In June, my friend Sandy Pullinger made a guest appearance as a cardboard cutout at the annual APMP conference in the US. She was part of the panel discussion arranged by Graham Ablett from Strategic Proposals on virtual bid teams. The panel acted out some typical voice conference scenarios. You know, those telecons that go horribly wrong and lose you the bid? The boss walks in late, rushes out early for a phonecall, misses his deadline and then wonders why no one else meets their promises to win the bid. Sandy enjoyed doing a video recording and writing one of the scenarios based on her experience working on a virtual bid in Africa. I guess you can't get much more virtual than a cardboard cutout. Sandy wishes she could have been at the conference in person because it was at Disneyland. Oh well, better luck next time Sands.

Jon Williams and Proposal Panda

In July, the APMP committee reviewed its strategy for the year. I started to get excited about the first ever conference planned for October. I was hoping to see the proposal panda again, with his friend Jon Williams, the keynote speaker. When I looked into my crystal ball, I could see that the reunion would be pleasant. I predicted that the future would hold a bottle of red wine (or two) at an African restaurant called Moyo. I could see that there would be a philosophical discussion about serif and san serif fonts. The writing was on the wall in times new roman, bold, italics, 10 points.







Tea break before 2nd SA Sant User Group Meeting

   In August, I had a tea break in preparation for the 2nd local Sant user group meeting in South Africa, planned for September. I watched Sandy get excited about telling everyone what snazzy new features were launched with Sant 9. She's such a software junky that I couldn't restrain her from enthusing that the user interface is even easier to use, search is improved, content management is unified, and architecting is now a piece of cake. Talking about which, some cake would have been REALLY nice with my tea.

In September I signed up on Facebook. If you want to be my friend, my profile is here: http://www.facebook.com/wendywordproposal#!/profile.php?id=100001635338520. I also did some Persuasive Proposal training with Sandy and Errol at DHL. Their proposal team came up with some catchy proposal titles. I can't wait to see what the boss thinks. I mean the customer of course.

Persuasive Proposal Training at DHL

First APMP Conference in SA

In October, the big day finally arrived. The first ever local APMP conference was sold out with more than 75 people attending. Our international guest speakers, Colleen Jolly and Jon Williams were both brilliant. Apart from sharing some brilliant graphics and proposal tips, they also managed to drum up the local APMP membership to the target of 50. Chris Rademeyer told us all about how to avoid bid burnout, and a brave panel of procurement specialists shared some insights from the buyer perspective. But Panda and I were the stars of the show. Just look how rapt my audience was.

And now, at last in November, I'm ready for a little break. Or maybe that's a breakdown after all the bid deadlines I've met? 2011 promises to be a fun-filled year too. nFold turns 10. What a great excuse for a party. Bring on the streamers and balloons and I'll be there like a shot. But first, I think I'll hide in Colleen's suitcase. So long for now.