Sunday, March 1, 2015
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Do this before you die… It will make all the difference to loved ones…
Do this before you die… It will make
all the difference to your loved ones…
Failing to plan for
your death can screw things up big time…
The New York Times reports the family of a deceased veteran almost had to put his corpse in cold storage for six months. They couldn’t bury him in Arlington National Cemetery until they produced his DD 214 form (a certificate proving his honorable service with the military). The family had never even heard of a DD 214 before… By sheer chance, they found it as a bookmark in one of his books.
1. If you’ve made your own burial details, ensure you have
shared these written plans with your family.
2. Establish a will or a “living trust.” If you own out of
state real estate or a family business, a trust may be superior. Otherwise a
will may be fine. Talk to a lawyer to decide what is best for your situation.
5. Grant financial power of attorney to someone you trust. In general, this person should be different from the person who has power of attorney in health-related issues.
7. List your passwords/logins for everything of import.
9. Include a medical history for your posterity to know what genetic predispositions they may have.
10. List what companies (if any) auto-debit from your bank or credit card.
11. Explain all the ins and outs of your house: the alarm system, the sprinklers, etc.
12. This one is special: Think about writing letters to your loved ones to be read after your death. It can help ease their grief at your passing.
Operating out of the Newark and Trenton, New Jersey, offices of the government and business consulting services company Duane Morris Government Strategies, Martin Milita serves as a senior director handling government affairs in New Jersey. Admitted to the bar in New Jersey, Martin Milita received a juris doctor from the James E. Beasley School of Law at Temple University. Martin works closely with the Duane Morris International Law firm on many issues. Martin Milita is a Life Member of the 24 th Infantry Association "First to Fight" and the New Jersey Naval Militia Foundation.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
7 Challenges to writing an effective RFP proposal.
7 Challenges to writing an effective RFP proposal.
To write a proposal, you must meet seven demonstrable
challenges. You cannot avoid them. You cannot skip any of them. You just have
to face them.
1. Complying with the RFP. First you have to read it and
understand it. Then you have to cross-reference all the requirements across the
various sections. Even if your assignment is for a single section, there may be
requirements in other sections that are relevant, especially the evaluation
criteria. Achieving RFP compliance is part using the customer’s terminology and
keywords, part cross-referencing, and part understanding their evaluation
process. Cross-referencing can be tricky and often requires interpretation.
2. Writing is easy. Figuring out what to write about is
harder. If you want to win, it’s important to avoid the temptation of starting
from another proposal. Once you know what should go into the proposal, writing
it is pretty straightforward. What we do is follow a process that quickly
guides people through considering everything that should go into a proposal and
sets them up with a plan for writing it.
3. Articulation. Some
people get stuck in the mechanics of putting the words together. They are not
sure how it’s supposed to sound. We pay attention to style. But we pay more
attention to whether it is simply descriptive or whether it says something that
matters from the customer’s point of view. The most important thing to
accomplish in proposal writing is to make it reflect the customer’s point of
view. What the customer sees on the paper should provide answers to their
questions, complete their evaluation process, and practically impel the
conclusion that you are the best alternative. You have goals to accomplish,
terminology from the RFP to use, and have to put it in the reader’s perspective
instead of your own. That can be difficult, especially for people new to
proposal writing. But when we review proposals, we often see problems in
proposals written by people with many years of experience as well. We provide
lots of guidance on every aspect of proposal writing to help people find their
voice.
4. Figuring out what to offer. Whatever you do, don’t figure
out what to offer by writing about it. This is a recipe for proposal disaster.
Figuring out what to offer and figuring out what to write about should be done
in parallel. Only after they have both been figured out and reviewed to ensure
they aren’t likely to change should you start writing. Figuring out what to
offer by writing about it does incredible damage to proposals. We have seen it
cost companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
5. Articulating your bid strategies. The truth is the bid
strategies for the proposal should be figured out before the writers ever get
their assignments. Bid strategies should be just one of the ingredients that go
into what you need to write. You must figure out the bid strategies before you
start writing or designing your offering. The proposal should prove the bid
strategies.
6. Passing the review. Most companies review their proposals
before they finish them. Most companies do a poor job of conducting these
reviews. The instructions to writers should reflect the same quality criteria
that the reviewers will use. If you use a process to figure out what to write,
then the plan it produces can also be used to increase the effectiveness of the
review process. If writers are at the mercy of a completely unpredictable and
subjective review process, the only way good can come from it is by luck.
7. Winning. If you start focusing on winning your proposals
when the writing starts, you are too late. The pre-RFP stage is critical and
driven by relationships with key decision makers, influencers, stake-holders
and allies. You need to know them. We manage the pre-RFP stage like election
campaigns. Know the answers to important questions and know your competition
you’re your competitions strengths and weakness. The pre-RFP stage is when you
really should be focused on winning. When you focus pre-RFP , you will realize
that in order to incorporate what it will take to win into your plans for the
proposal, you’ll need answers to questions that should have been asked before
the RFP even came out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)