Transcript: Going from Individual Contributor to People Manager

Lindsay: Well, hey there, Marketers, Lindsay Diven here, the host of the Marketers Take Flight Podcast. And welcome to another episode. Today we are talking about making that transition from an individual contributor, somebody who is managing proposals or managing marketing strategies and making that transition to a people manager. From going from an individual contributor to a people manager. And I have this very special guest on today. Her name is Nicole Robinson, and she is one quarter or one fourth of the hosting team from The No Really Everything’s Fine podcast. She also is serving as a sales operations manager of the bid department for a very large global organization.

And so, she was promoted to this management position for, managing this team of proposal managers or bid managers for this, global organization earlier this year. And so I went on their podcast and her and I were talking a little bit about that and I thought it would make for very great episode to talk about that transition from individual contributor to people manager, because if you’re anything like my experience, I was, you know, just a single marketing coordinator. And then we hired a marketing assistant and then all of a sudden, I’m responsible for that person and I had no training. I had, you know, maybe some leadership training or some other types of training, but not how to manage people, and how to hire people.

And so, Nicole and I have this really great discussion today about some of the first steps she took in terms of how to go about finding the right people for her team. Some of the benchmarks and KPIs she uses to help, not only onboard and train the team, but to kind of judge how they’re doing and how they can, you know, improve.

We go into our rapid-fire questions, but you’re gonna wanna stay till the end because she introduces something brand new just for proposal managers. And so, this is a little bit longer of an episode, but definitely stay till the end because you’re going to love what she introduces.

So, without further ado here is my conversation with Nicole Robinson.

Lindsay: Okay, well, welcome to the show, Nicole. Thanks for being here on the Marketers Take Flight show today.

Nicole: Thank you so much for having me, Lindsay, it’s such an honor.

Lindsay: Yeah. So, like I said, in the intro, you and I met, because I was a guest on your show, No Really Everything’s Fine. Which I recommend everybody go out and subscribe to it. Cause it’s such a great show but before we get into today’s topic, why don’t you tell, the Marketers Take Flight audience a little bit about who you are, your career path and what you’re doing today.

Nicole: Absolutely. so, I started in proposals completely by accident and I just tripped and fell in. and I think most of us have that story or have that experience. but we want to get to the point where we start hearing people say, no, I totally chose to do this. I was interested. I had, I had heard, or I saw, and I wanted to but for the large majority of us, we trip and fall in. And that’s the same story that I have as well. And for me, when I started my career, I was running the gamut. So, I learned how to do everything from, the proposal piece and working with a sales rep to influence the RFP process with the existing customer or new customer whoever it happened to be. Right through to award where I would then become the subject matter expert for the particular project. I would hire the crew. I would invoice them. I would update them. I would be the single point of contact for the crew as well as for the customer while the project was being run. And then I would shut the project down at the end. So that’s how I started my career. So, it was literally all aspects of the full sales cycle through to delivery,

Lindsay: Yeah. The entire life cycles.

Nicole: The entire life cycle. Yeah. From the, the buyer’s journey and the seller’s journey.

Lindsay: Wow.

Nicole: Which was exactly the way you like, if I could recommend that you start your career that way I would do it, and then you would, you can easily segment. And then that’s essentially what ended up happening for me. Because it provided me with a business acumen and a level of understanding of how the buyer and seller journey works. That was literally invaluable. Invaluable there’s no book that could teach you what I was, taught, in that first, job when I started. so that was about 15 years ago. I jumped between 15 and 17 and honestly, I just don’t remember which but it’s, at the low, at the low end it’s 15 at the high its 17.

Lindsay: Right, right.

Nicole: And then from there, I was just able to kind of like funnel in and home in on the proposal management piece of the journey, along with some of like coordination activities. So, in every role I’ve had, I’ve always supported a sales team. I started out with one and now I’m global. So, it’s like a Woohoo big difference. but always supported a sales team. Culture is really important to me, so I love to influence company culture and, um, ensure that my teammates are having fun while doing their jobs. That’s always been important to me. So, I always fold it into how I do what I do every day. And that’s largely because of relationship. So, relationship is the number one thing for me, it was, one of my three goals that I had set when I started with my current organization was building relationships. So, I tie relationship and culture together. If I can influence culture, people will get to know me on a level that’s not just what she does every day. It’s not just me reaching out and asking.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm

Nicole: And it’s kind of, it suits my personality as well. I have an honors degree in business with a focus in marketing. I also have a diploma in marketing as well, so that influenced everything actually. How I go to market, how I communicate with my customer, it influenced everything, and really lend, lent itself very well to being a proposal manager. And now I am currently a sales operations manager, specifically for bid management. And my team, so, I literally went from being an individual contributor to a people manager this year. And we are doing so well. Like I’m very, very proud of my team. So, my team supports the global sales organization specifically, the bid management process.

Lindsay: Yes. Yes. Congratulations on that. And that’s what we were talking a little bit when I was on your podcast. A little bit about this transition that you’ve made this year. And I thought that was really key. And that’s why I wanted to bring you on the show because, I train a lot of, proposal coordinators, marketing coordinators that are new to the industry or new to proposals. And with the goal is eventually they’re gonna move up.

Nicole: right.

Lindsay: They’re either gonna move on to bigger pursuits and leading bigger pursuits. Or they’re gonna go the people manager route or a combination of both. And so, nobody really teaches you how to become a manager.

Nicole: Right.

Lindsay: Usually what happens? I know for a lot of my audience is they’re smaller firms. You live, you work live, you work in a big organization.

Nicole: Fairly big. It’s getting too big.

It’s a, we would consider it medium.

Lindsay: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And a lot of my listeners, are either employees in a big organization, a mid-size organization, or very small, like less than a hundred people, maybe 50 people. They’re the only marketer. And that the way that they’re gonna become a manager is they’re gonna hire their marketing assistant or their marketing coordinator or their proposal coordinator. And then they’re gonna get bumped up to people manager.

Nicole: right.

Lindsay: But when that happens because that’s exactly what happened to me. I was a marketing coordinator and then I got promoted to senior marketing coordinator and I was able to hire a marketing assistant. Nobody taught me any type of people management skills. Now, again, that was like 17 years ago too. So, there might be some programs, but I wanted to bring you on to talk. So, you can share some of your experience through this and give my listeners some ideas of what you’ve gone through because you’ve done some really great stuff.

Nicole: Thanks. so, this is not my first-time managing people. So that was, I think the easiest part of it. And then I had a real sense of how I like to be managed. And so, I really wanted to take that philosophy of how I enjoy management and reapply it.

Lindsay: mm-hmm

Nicole: I also wanted to maintain my team’s culture. I had been very blessed, like in terms of the organization I work for and my team within it, blessed. I’ve been with one team the entire time for five years. It was just three of us, primarily my current director, another sales operations manager, who recently left the organization about a year ago and myself and we were just, close knit, supportive. We enjoyed each other, and all with incredible work ethics.

Lindsay: Mm, mm-hmm

Nicole: We understood each other’s needs as they arose, and we would do whatever it took to help the other out. And wanted to maintain that. So, bringing people in, I was really concerned about fit.

Lindsay: yeah.

Nicole: I thought to myself, okay, I can teach anyone how to do this. As long as they’re interested and willing. To learn. I can teach this, but what I cannot teach is a fit. Like I can’t make a square peg fit into a round hole. Like it’s just that won’t work and not disrupting the culture that we had created for our team was going to be a really big thing for me. So that was one of the things I looked at.

I thought about it first. I also was thinking, and I used to say this often, but I will say I have changed my philosophy. My initial thought. I’d like to duplicate myself. I feel like if in order for the organization to be able to scale and do the things that I know we can do, I need to duplicate myself and I’ve since changed that philosophy because I thought that’s not a way for anyone to be specifically successful. Like if I’m going to bring in somebody and they fit culturally, they’re willing to learn. They don’t have to be like me.

Lindsay: right. Yeah. That’s so true. I think I went through that too.

Nicole: yeah.

Lindsay: Remembering that back. Yeah. You just jogged that memory for me.

Nicole: Yeah. Right. Cause it’s like, you have this moment where you’re like, I’m good at this. I probably need someone who’s like me to be good at this too. And that’s not true. So, for all of you, people who are listening, who, who are going from ICS to people managers, they don’t have to be like you.

I would say the, one of the things that I really adopted, and I have to thank KB who Katherine Bennett, who’s one quarter of our hosting family for No Really Everything’s Fine. She presented an idea, because they’re my sounding board. When things come up every day at work, I go to them and say, what do you guys think this is kind of how I positioned it. Would you do it that way? It’s a great thing for me. It’s one of the biggest blessings that has come out of the pandemic actually, is this group of people who have become friends and not just my co-hosts, and a part of my network.

So, she presented an idea to me. And it was that, you know, you create space for all kinds of people to be successful. And I don’t even know if she said it to me, but it was something I received from her. And I was like, that’s really good. And so that married with the idea, like of not needing to recreate myself, but to in fact, create a good space for people who fit, but are not like me necessarily.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nicole: So, that was kind of the second aspect of it. The third thing that came up was what the hell makes me good at this job and what makes a good proposal manager, a good proposal manager? And yes. to a certain extent I could use myself as a barometer, but at the same time, there are things about me that made me uniquely well suited for the role. What if someone else doesn’t have those experiences that could make them uniquely suited for the role? So, then I thought, okay, well, there has to be some things that are universal. Like universally across the board if you have these characteristics or you think in this way, then you’ll be good at it. And I never, at any point in time in all the years that I had been doing it, even considered it. Until I had to hire.

Lindsay: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You do a lot of like reflecting. Lot of like, self-reflecting of like, what do I, okay. So, what do I do when I managing a proposal? What, you know, what, how am I thinking it? Like you said, how am I thinking, how am I approaching this?

Nicole: Yep. Yep. and it literally was like, it changed a lot for me. Like, I would spend just at least a couple of hours a day in the first quarter of this year, just thinking. Like I’ve said this multiple times where people are like, what?

Lindsay: Yeah, no.

Nicole: but I would highly encourage you to do this.

Lindsay: Yeah, well, I think that’s a bigger change, a change that doesn’t get talked about enough from growing from individual contributor to a manager, a people manager. Is you do a lot more thinking, and you have to make that space because you’re coming up with the strategy or the next move, or, you know, whatever that is like. You’ve gotta have time in space to think about that and, and noodle on it. is

Nicole: Exactly. Exactly. And not writing anything down. You’re just living very intentionally in your head

Lindsay: yep.

Nicole: and. I find for me when I’m trying not trying to solve a problem, either all I’m doing is ruminating. Like all I’m doing is thinking, all I’m doing is pondering. I’m asking myself questions, but I’m absolutely no problem solving. Let me make that clear. Because then that’s a whole other thought process. That’s actually how, I started to frame who I was looking for and what would happen once I had them on the team.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm

Nicole: It really kind of set me up for the problem-solving piece. It really kind of set me up for, you know, the kinds of conversations that I would have with my team, um, how I would engage them. Yeah. So those three things. So, you know, really being intentional about the type of person and what are the, the non-negotiables of a proposal manager, what makes them good. Looking at and understanding that I needed to create space for any type of person, not necessarily someone who was like me, to be successful on the team. And then also just realizing that I wanted to maintain culture and, make sure that I chose the appropriate person who was a good fit. Those are the three things that kind of framed how I went ahead.

Lindsay: Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay. So, thank you for walking us through that because I, think… again, this doesn’t get talked about enough and you know, somebody, you know, there’s, listeners out there that I know we’re going into performance review season. And goals, and some people might be up for promotion. And so, this is, good knowledge to have if you, you know, get that authorization to hire somebody. And now all of a sudden, you’re managing somebody, or you are getting promoted to now oversee a new team. And it’s whether your team or another team or you’re changing jobs and you’re managing a new team, these are all what you just walked through fits, I think for all those scenarios.

So, you got this position, this new position earlier this year, what were some of the first steps, that you did to set up the team in terms of the benchmarks and the KPIs for the sales team?

Nicole: A couple of things I thought about what’s important to the organization. So, I looked at it from an organizational level, so that I could drive data in that direction. As we all know, it’s the numbers that change the game when you can actually show impact through numbers and, through your team’s effect on the overall goals of the organization, then you can really fight for your seat at the table.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm

Nicole: And it’s the way you get your seat at the table. So, tie everything back to your organizational goals, first thing. So, one of my things, and one of the matrices that we look at very closely is our ROI for shortlist. How much are we doing? How, what, what’s the percentage? How are we getting there? Are we doing well? And then from there, once we’re shortlisted, are we converting to close that? Are we converting to an award or a landed deal? I looked at that first, um, and thought, okay, let me, those would be two things that I’m going to take. Because a lot of it, we don’t have control over.

We don’t have control over how many deals come in yet anyway. We don’t have control over customer relationship. There’s a lot, we don’t have control over, but we can ensure that when we receive a well-qualified bid, with a great existing relationship, or maybe not an existing relationship, but at least it’s well qualified. I can make sure that we present a story to that customer that is going to make them want to know more. I have complete control over. And so, then I started to look and dig into the creation of the documents and the actual process itself. So, I’ll look at speed to first draft. I will look at comprehension actually, before I even look at speed to first draft, I look at comprehension. Does this proposal person consistently show that they understand two things, the needs of our existing business and what our existing business is. The needs of the customer, the customer’s business and what their needs are, what are they asking for in the RFP? And so, if they can consistently show that they have comprehension of those two things, everything else actually is easier.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Nicole: I will also look at; how concise they are. Just how well something is written.

Lindsay: Mm.

Nicole: And so, I will go in when I’m doing my reviews, I will say, all right, this is great. I had a whole philosophy around how to respond to customer questions. But I didn’t have this writing to win language and that’s what we call it. And I I’ve a hundred percent borrowed that because I didn’t know, I didn’t have language to explain it. So, but I used to always say we, we’re not just telling a customer that we can do something. Obviously, we can do it, or we wouldn’t respond to the RFP. And so, I would say that, and I would say, then I would follow that up by saying, we have to tell them how because that’s all that matters to them. How do they do it? And how does that benefit me?

An RFP response is not about the proponent who is writing the response. It’s not about you. Which seems super counterintuitive, especially to people who are on the outside of this industry. It seems very counterintuitive because you’re asking me questions about myself, but you’re telling me it’s not about me? Absolutely.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Nicole: Right. A hundred percent. It’s not about you. And if we understand the inception of the RFP, where it came about how it came about and why then that actually makes more sense. So as the world grew. Buyers and sellers became less intimate with each other. They didn’t know each other anymore. Before it was the guy who sells buttons down the street on Main go, you know, go left, make two rights. He’s been doing it. His grandfather’s been doing it. You know, we know like we need buttons. We go to Jim, the button guy. But introduce the railroad and all of a sudden, your world expands. And now you can source from all over a specific region. But hold on, hold on, hold on. I don’t know that guy So send me some documentation that tells me a little bit about yourself. Once we understand that, then it’s like, oh, okay I get it. it’s not about me. Bingo. So, I look at how concise they are in terms of their writing. And I coach them. This is, that’s a coachable thing though. It’s not necessarily something that I’m like, well, you can’t write, so you gotta go. Like it’s,

it’s absolutely not even that. Right. It’s, it’s a reframing because we’re so used to when talking about ourselves, just talking about ourselves. We laud ourselves. We we’re the, you know, best in class world, this, this, like all of these superlatives that really don’t mean anything to the buyer. So, training a proposal manager to think in a way that allows them to tell a story, but not focus on themselves. So, I look at that. I also look at detail. A specific of that detail would be like, would be cross contamination.

Lindsay: Mm,

Nicole: When you’re ensuring that you are, if you’re gonna use language, because you thought it was really good content from a previous submission, I have no problem doing that, but make sure that when you’re removing it from one place to another, that you’ve completely sanitized it and you’ve made it specific to the customer that you’re now speaking to.

Lindsay: Make it hidden. Hide the boiler plate. That’s make the boiler plate disappear. That’s what I used to say.

Nicole: Yes, exactly. Exactly that. Um, no one should feel like they’re reading something. And I always, like, when people say to me like, oh, you know, you’re just gonna use such and such and blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, that is not what we do here.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm

Nicole: Okay. Like, I know this is just marketing material. No, this is not marketing material. Marketing material does not sound anything like what I put into my documents, and I’ll let them know like out the gate don’t even let the sentence fall to the ground before I correct them in that area. because it’s a common misconception that that’s what’s happening and it’s not at all what’s happening.

Lindsay: right.

Nicole: What else do we look at? being concise, cross contamination, comprehension, execution. How well do they execute? How well do you execute? How well do you follow process? Do you understand the process?

Can you modify the process when you see fit to modify it or you, or are you rigid?

Lindsay: Mm

Nicole: Because there is a level of flexibility that needs to happen, within and of a process. Like I’m not trying to beat anyone over the head with a thing. When you’re learning, you have to follow in order to gain expertise, then you can do what you want, right. To a certain extent within the guardrails that I’ve provided. what else do I look at? Um, quite a few things

Lindsay: yeah, these, these are all really great. These are great.

Nicole: Thank you. Those were the things that I kind of was like, okay. Like to where to start. Right. But like I said, I, started with, what are the goals of the organization and what does the organization deem as important? I rolled it back.

Lindsay: Mm-hmm mm-hmm. And then, so you use these same metrics or these same areas, I guess, that you observe to know if your team is doing well.

Nicole: Absolutely. So, one of the things, for myself personally, that I was looking at, I was like, okay, how quickly can I get them to individual work?

Lindsay: Mmm. Mmm

Nicole: oftentimes, and I know this happens, there is a trial by fire. Like here’s the thing, throw you into the furnace. I absolutely refused. I refused. I’m like, my management was like, Nicole, this is gonna be a lot. I’m like, it’ll be a lot for a little. So, it’ll be a lot for a little period of time, just as long as I can get through that phase where, because I actually was also transitioning someone off my team while I was in the process of hiring and training two new people.

Lindsay: Wow. Yeah, that is a lot.

Nicole: it is a lot, it, it was a lot I just said to them, it’s fine. It’s not gonna be that way forever. And as long as I know that I’m in a tunnel and I’m not in a wall, like I’m not literally in the wall, trying to get out. I’m in a tunnel. There is another end. I just gotta keep moving forward. And so, they said, okay, as long as you understand, I’m like, Nope, I got it. I totally get it. But there is no fire. They will not be subject to that type of treatment or environment on me.

Lindsay: Yeah, that kind of onboarding. Onboarding by fire. Yeah.

Nicole: Right. Absolutely not. so, what that led to was I had to develop my own onboarding and I had to develop my own training program. And so, I thought to myself, okay. I thought, realistically, it would be a three-to-four-week process. And it was because around that point in time, to add 10 on 20, we were also just out of a merger. And hadn’t even really fully announced it yet. Of course, there was industry buzz and chat, but we knew that coming into the second half of the, like into the second quarter, that things would ramp up because specifically there was no team like mine in the organization

Lindsay: mmm. Mm-hmm

Nicole: And so, I knew that when they found out about.

On mass, cuz it, it kind of trickled down. There was like a couple of people here and there who were like, wait a minute, there’s a big team?

Lindsay: Yeah,

Nicole: And it was like, yeah, you’ve gotta meet Nicole, da, da. And I was just like, Guys, I really want to work with you. I really do, but there’s a lot, it’s a lot going on.

Lindsay: Yeah. I need to

Nicole: Like and so I just said to myself, okay, I’ve got about four weeks before stuff’s gonna hit the fan. And we get inundated. and that’s exactly what happened. I got them up to individual work at four weeks and, before their eighth week, both my new team members hit a hundred percent shortlist.

Lindsay: Wow. That’s awesome.

Nicole: and I’ve never even done that. I’ve not hit a percent shortlist. I literally was like, how in the hell, but yes, girl, you did that. Like I had to celebrate myself for a little bit, while I was literally jumping up and down and hollering and screaming for them because I was just so proud of them and so excited and happy for them because I knew how much they wanted to succeed, and they wanted to do well. So it was, it was really important for me to celebrate them. And I celebrate them every chance I get. I, I constantly tell them how well they’re doing. And I constantly tell them because I have said to them, and we say to everyone, who’s new joining our team. We are workaholics. We do not expect you to be a workaholic. We do not expect you to become a workaholic. We expect you to be you. We know that we have at times bad habits because we will start working on something on a Sunday or bleed into our Friday night. Or into our evenings. We do not expect that of you. So, I made that very clear to my team that that is not at all what I expect.

I let them know that they are task driven and not workday driven, just be available, you know, meet your commitments if you have meetings and stuff, make sure that happens. But when you’re doing your job, I. I don’t care and where I, I don’t care either. Like, you know, that none of that is a concern to me. And then the third thing I would always say to them is progress over perfection. I’m not expecting you to be perfect at all at all. Like what I want to see and what I’m measuring is your progress and how quickly You’re taking things in and making it your own and going forward with it with confidence. and it’s so funny because I was like, at one point I was like, I hired two perfectionists. How did this happen to me? I was like, how did

Lindsay: I think it comes. It, it’s hard to find, I think proposal managers that don’t have a little bit of perfectionism in them. yeah. Cuz I’m looking back, I’m thinking back about all of the proposal coordinators or proposal managers I’ve worked with, and they all have they’re, you know, tend to be a little bit more type a

Nicole: Yep. Yep. And, and so I would actually talk to them in the beginning because they would get, find themselves frustrated over simple things. I would say, but why do you expect to know how to do this?

Lindsay: mm-hmm

Nicole: Do you have experience? No. Sometimes through tears? No. And I’m like, okay. So, because you don’t, then I don’t understand. You gotta be kind. and that would be, be the other thing, like, and a lot of our one-on-ones I would say, be kind, be kind to yourself. I really don’t like the way that you’re talking about you. I’m taking offense, cuz I really like you and I really don’t appreciate how you’re talking to you about you

Lindsay: I

love it. Yeah. Yeah. We’re our, sometimes our worst critics. and we come down and I know I’m guilty of this too. I come down harder on myself than I think other people see it and where see, and, and my husband does this too. And I’ll tell him, I’m like, you’re doing great. Like, why are you? Like, you know, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night. He won’t be able to sleep. And I’m like, you’re, you’re coming down way too hard on yourself.

Nicole: Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I would always say, be kind so, and because fundamentally I have fun when someone comes to me and says, Nicole, I’ve got this opportunity and they start talking to me about it. I get literally excited.

Lindsay: Nice.

Nicole: Literally I get ramped up. I’m ready to go. so, because I have that, but I, again, it’s not about being like me, but are you at least having fun? Are you enjoying this experience? Because it can be highly enjoyable.

Lindsay: Oh, winning is always getting shortlisted and winning.

Nicole: who baby, who? Baby?

Lindsay: yeah,

Nicole: such a good feeling,

Lindsay: yeah, yeah.

And sometimes just the comp like just the competition

Nicole: Uh, I love competing. Oh God, I it’s one of the, it’s one of the best things like, and let me know that it’s like a big-time competitor. I’m like, who’s the incumbent all and I’m, I’m about to snatch your business. Okay. Say bye. Bye.

Lindsay: Yeah. Well, I think that we could talk all day, but I wanna go ahead. I wanna be mindful of your time. before we close out today, I have some rapid-fire questions. Are you ready for them? Okay. Question number one is what is your number one piece of advice for people who are new to proposals or proposal management?

Nicole: be intentional, build a network.

Lindsay: I love it.

Nicole: Be intentional. you’ve gotta have a plan. You’ve gotta have a plan for how you’re, how you yourself are going to go to market in your new company. and you need a network of proposal people in your life do not do this as a man on an island.

Lindsay: yeah,

Nicole: You’re just gonna make yourself your, your life harder than it needs to be. You need someone, you need sounding boards. You need people who understand the language, because I promise you the moment someone asks you, what you do for a living, and you try to explain their eyes are gonna glaze over. And they you’re about to kill the vibe. Very few people know and understand what we do, but us. So, find yourself more people doing what you’re doing.

Lindsay: Yeah. And there’s lots of ways to do that. There’s lots of organizations. Between SMPS and APMP. And, um, and the new pie. Yep. And I’ll link all those up to in the show notes. So, there’s lot, especially with online now. I mean, that’s how we met it was online.

Nicole: Exactly. that’s how I met my entire cohost team.

Lindsay: Yeah. Online. Yeah. That’s amazing.

Okay. So rapid fire, number two. What has been your favorite or most memorable win?

Nicole: so, at the end of my first year in the organization, I’m with, we had an RFP come through a consultant that nobody wanted to bid on. And then finally an executive said, okay, let’s go ahead and do it. The documents came over. It was a zip file. There were 45 documents in the file. I was like, I have never seen anything like this before in my life. My manager was like, Nicole, there’s 45 documents in the file. I started going through them. I said, okay, we had to put together a plan of action, but every single time I started going through, there was two big pieces of the response I had to be delivered. One was a steady state doc, and one was a transition doc. I was okay. And felt comfortable with the transition because we had a director of service delivery at the time who I trusted implicitly, and I knew she knew her stuff. And so, when I got that to her in, from the very beginning after I kicked it off and all of that, I was like, I’m gonna obviously need your help, but I’m gonna rely on you here too. And so, she was amazing. And so, I was comfortable there, but the steady, safe document had words, questions, language, requirements that I had never, ever heard of. And I didn’t know what they wanted. And so that was, it created a very strong sense of like stress for me, because it really meant that I was gonna have to lean, um, reach out and lean out and learn new things. And a time when I didn’t have, I had a month to pull this all together. and I didn’t have buy-in and so, because I didn’t have buy-in it made all of my getting deliverables back way harder. And it came down to the wire. And when it came down to the wire, I walked into the SVP of sales. and I said, this company, they know what they’re doing. this RFP is so incredibly well written it doesn’t actually even make sense to me., that’s how well written it is. And they deserve a response that would be he’s a car guy. that’s equivalent to a Maybach that’s what they deserve. He’s like, okay. But and I said, what I have right now is a Honda accord. he literally looked, he pulled his glasses off his face, and he looked at me like, what? And I said, if I can get this, this, this, and this, I can get it up to a high-end Lexus. He sat back. He, he relaxed a little bit. He said, okay, okay. How much time do you need? I said, well, we’ve got three days left. He said, all right, you let me know if there’s anyone not doing anything, Nicole, you let me know. I said, okay, you already know I’m not gonna escalate. I’m gonna, you know, I don’t like to escalate. He’s like, I know, but we need to get this done. Now at that point, 3 days out, I had finally acquired buy-in, and I had acquired buy-in because one day late at night, I was at the office, and I ran all of the numbers.

Lindsay: Mm.

Nicole: I got the final number; I called my subject matter expert. He was, he’s basically my solutions person for managed services. I called him. I said, have you, have you done this? He’s like, no, I’m like, I just ran the numbers. He goes, okay. And, and I’m like, I, and I started, he’s like, are you kidding? I’m like, I, I couldn’t get the words out. Cause I’m like, I’ve never. This is the biggest deal I’ve ever seen

Lindsay: Yeah, like you better pay attention to this.

Nicole: Right. And so, I send him the files. I send him the spreadsheet and all the calculations. He’s like, how many times did you run this? And I said about three. And he’s like, so you’re sure I go, I’m sure. I’m sure. He’s like, all right. Okay. So, three days out, finally get, buy in, have the conversation with my sales leader, say alright, I can get it to Alexis. The day comes submission is due it’s after hours. Everybody’s kind of like feeling a little soccer, like, you know, punch drunk. And I walk back into his office. He says, what do you say? I said, Lexus. He’s like, all right, cool. It’ll get us to the next round. I said, it’ll get us to the next round. Within a week. The consultant reached back out to us and said, you guys have made it to the next round. I could have cried. I could cry. At this point, because I had been through, through so much with this document and I wasn’t even telling anyone really how stressed I was.

Lindsay: Oh no.

Nicole: At all, like, I, I was not talking about it. And then they said, okay, so we’re gonna work together to draft these, to get them to the point that they need to be. I said, all right. So, my VP, of biz devs, says to me, okay, Nicole, I’m just gonna step out of the process. I’m gonna have you step in and you’re gonna work directly with the consulting team. I said, all right, great. Who was representing the customer? So, this was basically me in a customer client facing position.

Lindsay: wow. Okay.

Nicole: And then he, and he goes, what’s your plan? I said, I’m gonna start all over again. And he looked at me like what? I said, I’m starting for scratch. He’s like, are you sure? I said, yeah, because now I know what they want. I said initially, I wasn’t sure. And that’s what caused all of this angst for me. And I’m like, one day, I’m gonna tell you exactly what was going on with me while I was writing this in draft one, but I’m gonna start all over. He goes, okay. And we ended up closing that deal. largest MSS deal acquired through RFP at the time in the company’s history

Lindsay: Wow. That’s

Nicole: led to us being invited to another, another, uh, I guess competition through RFP, we won. That became the second largest MSS deal in the company’s history through RFP. And then those two led to us actually getting work, not through RFP, but just through the development process. Me working through working with the consultant, they had such a great experience. someone at the, on that team had a friend at a company. that friend was looking for a proponent for someone to come in and help them with their MSS. And they had a conversation, and he was like, who are you? Have you considered this company? And which is my company. And they said, no, we’ve never even heard of them. He’s like, absolutely. You’ve gotta talk to them. We went through, A buying cycle with them through RFP process and the, the documentation that came out of that process is some of the best stuff I’ve ever seen in my career.

Lindsay: Wow. That’s

Nicole: And so, it led to that business. So that’s, that’s literally my most memorable, it’s the project I talk about all the time. It’s the one I learned what I was really made of.

Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. well, that’s fantastic. Congratulations all around for that. Okay. And I wanna get to question number three, cuz we were talking a little bit about this before we hit record. So, if you’ve made it this far, you are definitely in for a treat. So, what are you excited about now?

Nicole: So, since February of this year, I’ve been working on a project and it’s a product and it’s specifically for proposal managers and what it is it’s an organizer. So, it’s, it’s called the proposal manager’s planner. I literally just had an aha moment one day and I am a tactical organizer user. every single day of my life, I use an organizer. A paper, one I write down, I have a whole gel pen set. It’s an aesthetic. It’s a thing. And I’m very big on organization. It’s how I’m actually literally teaching a webinar today about organization. and so, I am big on how I organize my day, blocking out my calendar, all of that stuff. And my organizer allows me to do all of those things, but it does not speak specifically to me as a proposal manager. And so, I thought to myself, well, I know if I would like to have an organizer that uses my language, that other people must want that too. And so, I developed it with proposal managers in mind. My planner has, all of the normal things that you would find your calendar views, high level for the month, but it also has an RFP tracker. And so, you could literally for your month, each month, track out by date your, when your questions are due, when your submission is due, your intent to respond product or service that’s being sold or proposed who your seller is.

and you can put them all in one place. I also was mindful of the fact that I wanted to take care of not just the person, the proposal manager, as in their role every day, but as a whole person, because we are whole people and burnout is a really massive problem in our industry. And so not only do I have a place for you to track your day and organize your day, but I have a place for you to think about what you’re eating. Are you getting enough water? Are you, what is your exercise? And it’s called self-care. And it’s mirrored. So, one page is self-care, and you literally go in and you track your meals and you track how much water and what exercise are you getting and every single day, and then at the beginning of your week, I want people to be reflective and intentional. So, I have a section where you’re listing out your goals and what is keeping you motivated and what steps will you take in order to hit your goals? And then come back at the end of the week and take a look. What did you, what Difficulties did you encounter this week? How did you overcome those challenges?

I also have a place for all of your RFP metrics capture everything. What did you win? What did you lo lose? How many did you shortlist? If you did lose, why did you lose, what are the, like, what I, what is the feedback coming in from your sellers and your customers, about the status of your bid? And then I have a section for checklists. So, you can literally, depending on whatever it happens to be, cuz some people can get it all done in their head. They know exactly what they gotta do, but this is for these checklists, for the people who really wanna write it down and check it off. But it’s already done for you, and I’ve considered as much of a as possible as the things that you would need to consider.

So, for example, on your submission checklist, you have, you can state the who the customer is when your RFP is due, who your seller is. And then all of the things that you might need to include in your submission. Title page, table of contents, executive summary, response complete, references compiled, pricing completed, signatures added. That type of thing.

So, it’s, it’s available for pre-order now. If you reach out to me on LinkedIn or, shoot me an email over at PM planners, RFP queen.ca I’m a.ca cuz I’m a Canuk if you didn’t know. Then yeah, I can absolutely get you some information or you can actually. send out an order, but by the time I think by the time these airs, they’ll fully be, uh, I think we’ll be out of pre-order by that point and we’ll be fully just able to purchase and yeah. So that’s what I’m really excited about. I’m like, like excited to the point of nervous, like nausea

Lindsay: no, I love it. When you were telling me about this, I was like, this is so awesome. I’m a, I’m a paper. Planner person too. I mean, I use my outlook and my calendar, but like, I track everything in my, the listeners know my full focus planner, but it’s for all industries and it’s for, you know, all types of, entrepreneurs, corporate workers, you know, all that. I love that yours is specific. And I, I know when we were talking before, we hit record. It’s a way for you as the proposal manager to track your own metrics to. And so, and you can, and because it’s paper or it’s digital, like you own it, it’s

Nicole: own it.

Lindsay: CRM. It’s not your firm’s like proposal Excel document. And so, when you are looking back, especially again, we’re coming up with performance review time, like you can look at your own statistics and make that case to ask for that raise or ask for that promotion. That’s usually the first, you know, piece of advice is saying, okay, well, what did you do like to deserve it? And we, we forget. And so now if you’re using this planner to track it, as you go, you can look back and do the calculations. So

Nicole: Literally, it literally allows you as a proposal manager to tell your own story. It’s the story of your career. and as you, you know, as you reorder because they will be available for a year, you’ll have a year’s worth of data in it. Um, whether you have the digital copy or the physical copy, but you can literally take it and you can tell your story as you see fit to tell it, but it’s all data driven. But also keeps you organized, keeps you on top of your game because without being organized, it’s impossible to do this job. You cannot be chaotic, not have a streamline, not have efficiencies and do this well. it’s just not possible.

Lindsay: Love it. So, I’m gonna put all the links to everything in the show notes. So, Nicole’s email any links for the planner that she’ll have available. Again, we’re recording this a couple week before it airs, so I’ll have all those links in the show notes page. So, thank you so much, Nicole, for coming on the show. Giving us so much information and developing the proposal manager’s planner. So, everybody go out and buy it and buy it for your team.

Nicole: Yes, please. Yes. Buy for yourselves, buy for your teams. yeah, please. And Lindsay, thank you so much for having me. This was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Lindsay: Okay, well, what a great episode. Thank you again to Nicole for coming on the show, to talk a little bit about her experience and her transitioning to transitioning to managing people and specifically a group of bid or proposal managers, because I think it’s a little bit different, than if you’re managing a team of, other types of folks. So, I love what she had to say. I took a whole page of notes. I hope you guys did too. I’m gonna link up all of the ways to contact her, her website, where you can get your proposal. Manager’s planner. I’m gonna definitely buy at least a digital copy, even though I don’t even do proposals anymore.

Just so I can support her and. see what it’s all about and then that way I can recommend it to you guys as well. So, you can head over to the show notes page MarketersTakeFlight.com/81 for episode 81. and then if you liked this episode or, you know, somebody that is new to managing people feel free to share this episode with them, cuz I think they’re gonna really find it valuable.

Okay. That’s it for me this week until next time. Bye for now.