How To Get A Proposal Software Purchase Approved

In a past life, I wrote proposal software. We had tons of leads, performed dozens of demonstrations, and even had some potential customers salivating. But ultimately I had to find another way to make a living. I concluded that "proposal people have no money."

With the passage of time and more experience, I've decided that the more accurate conclusion is that those who work on proposals do not typically control their own budgets. Even small purchases by proposal staff receive much scrutiny, let alone major purchases that cost thousands of dollars.

If you work on proposals and seek to implement proposal software you need to understand this reality. No matter how much it could help, no matter how big the potential efficiencies or cost savings, if you hope to get your proposal software purchase approved you must carefully evaluate and present the costs and benefits to those who control the purse strings.

A good place to start is by understanding how your company would perceive the cost of proposal software. For example, while proposals are part of the sales cycle, the cost of producing proposals (including your salary!) is perceived as an overhead cost to the company. The cost of your proposal software will come out of the company's profits.

You may be thinking long term, about how an investment that lowers profit today will deliver greater profits in the long term. However, long term savings is perceived differently from cash out of pocket. In addition, unless you itemize those long term savings, people may question whether they'll actually come true.

Recommending proposal software for indirect, unquantifiable, or future benefits may not be enough to get approval. Arguing that the software will help people do a better job, improve proposals, reduce level of effort, or somehow magically improve future win rates may just not be persuasive enough.

If you work for a government contractor or professional services firm, these cultures often highly scrutinize overhead purchases. Your cost of doing business is the hourly cost of the labor performing the service, plus everything else your company has purchased. When the proposal department purchases proposal software, it ultimately raises the prices that your company has to charge. Higher prices may mean fewer wins, less revenue, and less profit. Anything that adds to the company's overhead can have a major negative impact. It is good that your company wants to avoid it.

One way to get approval for your proposal software purchase is to show that it will lower overhead by more than it costs. Position it as a way of reducing overhead staff. For example, proposal software will enable the central proposal department to support field offices without having to hire local proposal specialists. Or perhaps it will enable the central proposal department to make better use of staff already located at field offices instead of having to hire new staff. The only way this can work is if the company already perceives the need to hire more staff. Then you are giving them an alternative that has a neutral affect on your overhead. Since this is a quantifiable comparison that has a very real impact on the company's bottom line, it is a stronger message.

Take a look at how much your company spends each year on travel related to proposal development. You may be able to get some data from your Finance Department. I have seen situations where you could cover the cost of the software with the reduction in travel costs alone. Note, you don't want to say that the software will eliminate the need for travel, since meeting face-to-face still has value. However, a 50% reduction might be realistic.

If you are having difficulty quantifying the potential cost reductions, try asking your vendor. When we asked Synchris about it, they cited a Tier 1 Systems Integrator who reduced their proposal center costs by more than $300,000 annually by using Privia®. And several of their clients have reduced their Bid and Proposal costs by 7-10%. Another significant time and cost reduction cited by Synchris relates to the simple fact that having all your historical proposal data in a centralized, searchable repository keeps you focused on writing the best proposal response without endless searching for valuable re-usable content.

Items that are purchased for use on a project are perceived and accounted for differently than overhead purchases. If your proposal software can also be used as a project management platform, then you may be able to purchase it for use on the project and have much less (or even no) increase in proposal overhead costs. Privia is a good package to consider for this, since it is built on a strong workflow platform and can be used as a customer/ company/ project portal. Saying that "we need this software in order to win this project" and oh-by-the-way, "we'll get double the return on investment because we can also use it as our proposal platform" is another strong message. Note: lead with the use on the project and not on the proposal.

If you don't understand the difference between accounting terms like "General and Administrative," "Overhead," "Direct," and "Indirect" you should consult with someone in your Finance Department. You may be able to account for the software cost as an operating expense by purchasing an on-demand subscription, instead of purchasing a perpetual license as a capital expense. This may seem like a small difference "on paper" but differences in accounting have a huge impact on how a company may perceive a software purchase and on your chances for getting it approved. You owe it to yourself to research the possibilities.

Ultimately, it is best if you can get C-level executives (CEO, CFO, CTO, COO, etc.) to perceive your software purchase as a strategic platform for the company --- analogous in both investment and return to implementing ISO or some other quality methodology. The right proposal software purchase may be useful not only to the Proposal Department, but also to Human Resources, Contracts, and even Operations. You want the C-level managers to agree that they need this software to complete their strategic vision for the company. I recommend starting the whole process by talking to them about their strategic vision and seeing how technology fits in.

If you see their eyes glaze over and they focus only on budget concerns, give up --- at least you know what you're dealing with and how things are going to end up if you don't quantify and dramatically strengthen your pitch. But if they start using words like "streamlining," "efficiency," "workflow," and "value," you should ask them if you can set up a demo and from there go into some kind of proof of concept.