ORALS COACHING

ORALS COACHING

John Parker Stewart has worked with proposals and proposal teams for over 30 years. He was an executive at the corporate offices of Lockheed in the 1970s. In 1981 he started his own consulting firm, Stewart Systems, Inc. where he has coached and trained Fortune 500 companies in capturing government contracts, and delivering successful performance- driven management practices on multi-million and billion dollar contracts. He specializes in providing orals coaching to proposal teams of all sizes and levels of experience.

John was selected as the ASTD “National Trainer of theYear” for two consecutive years. He has coached and trained thousands of CEOs, presidents, executives and professionals in persuasive communications, customer savvy, and team leadership skills. His clients work with DOD, DOE, NASA, all military branches, other government agencies and commercial firms. His undergraduate and graduate work and degrees were performed at University of Colorado, Brigham Young University, Michigan State University, and Claremont Graduate School of Management under Peter Drucker. His thesis was written in London on communications and team effectiveness. His publications include “Orals Coaching:The Secret Weapon for Winning Contracts” (published in APMP’s “Proposal Management” Journal— Spring 2004). He is a three time speaker on Orals Coaching at the National Conference of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals. His primary clients include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, U.S. Air Force, Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center and many others. In 2011 he published his book, “Orals Coaching Handbook: The Guide to Winning Must Win Contracts.”

ORALS MATTER

The bottom line for business development is that the orals part of the evaluation process matters, and will probably determine the outcome of the entire contract. In response to the importance of the orals proposal, organizations have begun to invest in orals coaching to effectively prepare the orals team.

Organizations realize that the orals team represents the company and can project a positive or negative image based on the perceived cohesiveness and competency of the team. Thus, contractors who want to win contracts engage an orals coach. As a general rule, teams who have an orals coach win more contracts than teams without such guidance. Some contractors choose an internal orals coach to direct their proposal team.Though this may reduce costs in the short term, an internal coach normally lacks experience, objectivity, and full expertise in the proposal process.

Today more organizations hire external orals coaches. These external coaches have extensive experience, understand what it takes to win contracts, and have a proven track record of teaching effective presentation skills. They know how to direct the intense orals coaching process of selecting team members, developing individual presentation skills, creating a cohesive team, highlighting discriminators, complete compliance with every RFP and SOW requirement, and continually practicing until the presentation is flawless.

WINNING ORALS: THE FOUR FACTORS OF A SUCCESSFUL CAPTURE

The fight to win and keep government contracts is an intense and unforgiving business. A General Services Administration executive recently estimated that over 70 percent of solicitations for programs valued at $10 million or more will have orals requirements, with the orals counting an average of 40 percent of the evaluation. As competition for government contracts intensifies, effectively preparing orals teams is a pivotal component for capturing contracts. John believes that four critical factors are essential for a successful orals team: knowledge, teamwork, persuasion, and passion.

These factors include such important concepts as highlighting discriminators, emphasizing past successes, enhancing personal credibility, creating a cohesive team, conveying responsiveness to the customer with total compliance to every RFP topic, understanding effective chartsmanship, and communicating commitment.

USING THE POWER OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL ORALS TEAM
Are you responsible for the success of an orals team? Are you concerned about effectively developing the talent of each member? Using the power of emotional intelligence is key in creating and achieving a successful orals team. Officially, we know that contracts are awarded because of past experience, technical approach and cost, and management experience.

However, we also know that contracts are unofficially awarded because of the communication between source selection evaluators and the orals teams during the presentation, the cohesiveness and competence of the orals team, the customer’s ability to understand the proposal, a professional and concise presentation, clearly designed and presented charts, properly highlighted discriminators, the ability to speak persuasively, and establishing
perceived credibility.

These unofficial reasons for winning contracts revolve around effectively using the individual and collective emotional intelligence of the orals team.