Page 146 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Green Team Reviews 137

◉ A strength is . . . well-defined deliverables.
◉ A strength is . . . good project work we’ve done in another division of the poten-
tial client’s organization.

Step 4: Strategize

Using the lists of strengths and red flags that are now taped to the wall and
were created as a starting point for green-hat thinking, the proposal team
and the Green Team call out, in a 10-minute brainstorming session, as many
potential improvement actions as possible. Beginning their suggestions with
an active verb, participants randomly suggest widely varying ideas such as the
following:

◉ Call Neil Nakadate in our Tokyo office to learn about his experience with [this
client] last year.
◉ Talk to Bjorn Ryns about the benefits we actually achieved for Company X on
a similar study.
◉ Add Brian Brown to the proposed project team to utilize his experience with
[the potential client’s industry].
◉ Propose an initial scoping phase to better quantify the measurable benefits
from [some action].
◉ Drop the lead if we are unable to meet the economic buyer.
◉ Check to see if we have any relationships with members of the Board of
Directors who could influence buying committee members.
◉ Invite the VP of marketing to our international seminar on [whatever] next
week.
◉ Ask our research department to find out the background of [a member of the
buying committee we know little about].
◉ Apply Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques to mirror the behavior of [a
difficult user buyer].
◉ Change our project leader because of potential personality differences [with client
personnel].
◉ Structure a pay-as-you-go fee arrangement based on the potential client’s
actual accrual of benefits.
◉ Invite the VP of manufacturing to visit [a past satisfied client] to discuss how
we worked in a challenging union environment.
◉ Emphasize the theme of urgency to reflect our ability to generate measurable
results quickly.

My consultant friend, the one I was talking to at the beginning of this chapter,
told me that some of her Green Team Reviews have generated as many as 40–50