This episode dives into the art and science of successful collaboration in the proposal, business development, and capture processes. Our host, Tan Wilson, talks to Stephanie Zink from Taurus Group and Jennifer Adeli from Edgesource.
This episode dives into the art and science of successful collaboration in the proposal, business development, and capture processes. Our host, Tan Wilson, talks to Stephanie Zink from Taurus Group and Jennifer Adeli from Edgesource.
You can watch the full episode here
Welcome to the Optimize Podcast brought to you by VisibleThread. We bring you the best and latest insights for everything from government contracting on topics such as BD, capture, proposal management, and business writing.
Every series of Optimize is hosted by an expert in their field who brings their expertise and real-life experience to each episode. This podcast series is hosted by Tan Wilson, President of Entellect. In each episode, Tan will be joined by thought leaders and industry experts as they dive into proposal development, government contracting, entrepreneurship, and bid strategies.
Please subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:04
Tan Wilson
I feel like air is like the new four letter word or something. Like everybody wants that. Love it, either love it or hate it. There's really kind of no in-between.
00:00:26:06 - 00:00:47:02
Tan Wilson
Welcome to our Optimized podcast. And in this issue we're going to dive into a crucial aspect government contracting. How do we transition seamlessly from the captured to the role seat while still ensuring that we don't drop the baton for success in the final stretches? So we've all heard the saying that you win and capture, you lose the proposals.
00:00:47:05 - 00:01:11:25
Tan Wilson
But how do we strike that balance between these two stages? Today, join us for a candid discussion as we unravel the challenges and triumphs that Dell professionals face every day in this relay race to victory. So picture this. You've invested weeks, months, years, blood, sweat, tears into capturing a new opportunity. And now comes the pivotal moment, the responding to the proposal.
00:01:11:27 - 00:01:48:15
Tan Wilson
But how do you ensure that the baton isn't dropped? This game that we play is not a game for individuals, but it's an entire team running in the same direction. So we are joined today by two wickedly smart women who have been in the trenches and are ready to share their insights, Stephanie Zink and Jennifer Adélie. Their contact information is going to be provided to you so you can reach out to them directly afterwards to kind of pick their brain and to understand how it is that they're able to obtain such great success in this business.
00:01:48:18 - 00:02:16:29
Tan Wilson
So early this year, the three of us were on a panel at Optimize 23, and we had such a great time that we thought, why not bring the team back together again and have additional discussions on a topic that apparently we live, breathe and dream about all the time? So Stephanie, Jennifer, want you to say hello to our our audience here and say a few words about yourself.
00:02:17:01 - 00:02:39:28
Jennifer Adeli
Hi, everyone. I'm Jennifer Adelie. And yes, it's sad but true that having a good time for us is doing a podcast about puzzles. So, yes, we decided to do this again. I am the chief growth officer at Sauce Corporation, and in that role, you know, responsible for BD marketing, scaling growth, all the things that go along with that and that includes proposals.
00:02:40:01 - 00:02:58:20
Jennifer Adeli
And I came into that role after more than a decade of having my own little management consulting firm and doing exactly that every day with small businesses, picking up that baton from their in-house capture team, taking it over the finish line in the form of a winning proposal. So thanks for having me. Looking forward.
00:02:58:23 - 00:03:32:09
Stephanie Zink
Hi, I'm Stephanie Zinc, president and owner of Taurus Group, Inc.. I've been on my own doing kind of the proposal shop for about ten years now and primarily focused within the federal government contracting space. But all things proposals, primarily living in the production management and just sort of a full suite of resources or proposal production as well. Although we do dabble in capture, as I think we'll get into in this call here today, as we are required to do so necessarily because of that interrelated working with the organization.
00:03:32:11 - 00:03:37:05
Stephanie Zink
So happy to be here as well and look forward to the conversation.
00:03:37:07 - 00:04:03:07
Tan Wilson
So a little bit of fun, right? You know, if I had a drink, we'd sit around and, you know, have a bourbon and kind of chit chat for a little bit here. But I like to play a game of would you rather. And so I'm going to pose the question here. So would you rather do an oral proposal presentation to a roomful of Nobel laureates or a group of toddlers?
00:04:03:09 - 00:04:11:29
Stephanie Zink
Well, I'm going to pick the toddlers every time. I will take precocious over pretentious any day.
00:04:12:01 - 00:04:40:01
Jennifer Adeli
So. So I think I would also choose toddlers, but I actually would argue that it doesn't matter who the audience is because you probably need to speak at the same level anyways. Ray, when we're dealing with, you know, if you're doing a proposal and it's on a complex data analytics computer engineering proposal that my readers are probably not data scientists, they're probably contracting officers.
00:04:40:03 - 00:04:57:13
Jennifer Adeli
And so you don't want to necessarily speak at that level. You want to speak in sort of the everyday language to explain the problem and the solution. So maybe a toddler and a Nobel laureate like you couldn't necessarily bridge the gap. But I think if you strive to, maybe that's the right place to be anyways.
00:04:57:16 - 00:05:19:16
Tan Wilson
You know, I tend to agree. So like that whole kismet that. Right. And and the funny thing is, is that I always say that I'm technical enough to kind of understand what you're saying, but not enough to kind of get myself into trouble. Right. So if you can explain it to me, who's not a super technical person and you know, like in some fields, then you've got my attention.
00:05:19:16 - 00:05:38:13
Tan Wilson
And I totally understand that. So the KISS method really is good. So I choose the toddlers any day too, because I think they're just a lot more fun. But, you know, I know I don't think I've ever met a Nobel laureate, so But you know, seriously, though, so let's just let's just cut to the chase because we've got a lot of things we kind of want to talk about.
00:05:38:16 - 00:06:05:29
Tan Wilson
And let's start off with the starting line, right? We're at the starting line. We're going to kick off the capture. We've laid the ground work that we've done, do recapture, and now it's time to like really kind of sprint, right? And some industries and business development to capture a kind of put together. But they really had a need to work and I hate to use the term seamlessly, but in sync with each other.
00:06:05:29 - 00:06:16:24
Tan Wilson
You know, like that whole relay race, you kind of have to continue to kind of start running next to the person that you're passing the baton to. So is there really a clear delineation between.
00:06:16:25 - 00:06:17:07
Jennifer Adeli
These.
00:06:17:07 - 00:06:42:06
Tan Wilson
Two distinctive groups with the fact that they have two very critical roles? Sometimes they kind of get a little messy and some industries and some companies just because their size, you're just not large enough like your you know, not everybody can be as large as gritty and have, you know, one person for every capture effort and, you know, this functional area and stuff like that.
00:06:42:06 - 00:06:55:11
Tan Wilson
Some small businesses, you have to be the the many hats kind of person. So where is that fine line that separates those two different activities? And is there really a line that we need to draw?
00:06:55:14 - 00:07:19:21
Jennifer Adeli
I'd be happy to pick that one up and we might beat this passing the baton metaphor, but I'll pick that one up from you and Ron. Was it? so I would say there is a line, but none of the lines are solid. They're they're always going to be porous or like if you look at like a gradient line maybe versus like a thick, solid, you know, Sharpie kind of line.
00:07:19:24 - 00:07:47:10
Jennifer Adeli
So in my mind, in the way that we tackle the dead versus capture discussion, is that the word business development? The word development is doing a lot of work there and you are kind of doing in the commercial sector, you might call it demand generation. You are developing those opportunities. You're looking at pipelines, you're looking at government forecasts, for example, Department of Homeland Security posts on their acquisition forecast portal.
00:07:47:13 - 00:08:07:22
Jennifer Adeli
All the opportunities that are coming up are they re competes, are they small business? What's the scope? What's the time frame? You can use public resources like sand dot gov, you can use all the different portals for different agencies. You can use tools like Gov Wade or Gov tribe to look at forecasts and then you can talk to your customer.
00:08:07:23 - 00:08:27:24
Jennifer Adeli
See, you're developing that, but at the time of capture, you're crossing that line again, whether it's a sharpie type line or like a porous one. And now I think of it a little bit visualize capture like you're hugging it, like capture the flag or something, and you're literally going, okay, I'm taking this opportunities that that I've seen coming for a long time.
00:08:27:24 - 00:08:46:01
Jennifer Adeli
It's running towards me and now I need to grab it. Now how do I grab it? I grab that through the right team. I grab that through the right personnel. I have the right team that I'm going to bid on this I tab shirt through the right pricing. And then at the end I'm jumping ahead. I'm going to hand it over to the proposal.
00:08:46:08 - 00:09:03:01
Jennifer Adeli
They're going to finish that capture for me and they're going to deliver. They're going to make sure that everything I've developed through the BD and capture process makes it into the finished product. But that capture for me, you can see I keep doing this and because that's the only way I pitch, I picture someone sort of like tackling it like, I got you.
00:09:03:01 - 00:09:09:29
Jennifer Adeli
I won you. And that to me is the difference between BD when you're seeing it come towards you and capture your grabbing it.
00:09:10:02 - 00:09:27:00
Stephanie Zink
Yeah, that's neat. I mean, I kind of like that too. You know, when you think about the delineation, I would also concur that it is not a hard line. Right? And if you want to consider it much like, I don't know, a funnel, you know, I mean, we often look at the business development continuum overarching as a bit of a funnel.
00:09:27:06 - 00:10:01:14
Stephanie Zink
You can kind of think of it as an iterative process. I like to think of the kind of BD continuum, almost like I would write a proposal, right? You start with your outline and then you kind of iterate to the final solution. So in the capture phase, I think where we start to kind of delineate and pass that baton to proposals is capture is focusing on the the high level strategy, the solutions overview, identifying maybe some of the initial clear discriminator is any of the initial gap analysis, the initial risk assessment and what proposals is then doing, like you said, is kind of taking it and refining it.
00:10:01:16 - 00:10:26:10
Stephanie Zink
So we are now turning those discriminator into wind beams. We are pulling them into call outs, we are taking a gap analysis and we're trying to plug gaps with teammates like you said, or pricing strategies or solutions development in tandem with subject matter experts. So to me it's sort of an iteration towards a more refined product. And if you want to look at it as sort of a narrowing down of a funnel, I sort of think of it like that.
00:10:26:10 - 00:10:49:05
Stephanie Zink
So there's definitely a lot of overlap kind of in those lines. I know I've heard other people say much like in the capturing proposal phase, it's often proposals needs to be involved in captures and captures need to be involved in proposals. So in the capture phase, it's sort of a big C little piece. And in proposal phase it's a big P, little C, right, Because you need to reach back to those capture strategies.
00:10:49:08 - 00:11:18:00
Tan Wilson
Love this discussion because it really kind of sets up the rest of our in-depth discussion about how do we edit. We really go like how do we strategize this relay race? And I think what Jennifer was saying is how she really does involve several people. So in the capture phase itself, you may run and you may be running your own relay races with several different people.
00:11:18:00 - 00:11:48:27
Tan Wilson
So, you know, people are always kind of coming in and coming out of the race and things like that. It may be the same person. It may be a different person, it may be different group and organization. So I think that's the really difficult thing sometimes for people to understand. And I Jennifer, thank you for letting that out because you've you've made it's like really easier to kind of digest because it is blurred a lot of the times and it it it makes me kind of cringe for those of us who are kind of purist and understand what's the importance.
00:11:49:00 - 00:12:14:15
Tan Wilson
And you know, my my, my mantra is, you know, value over importance. Everything is important, but what is the value that you're contributing to each phase? What is the value that you're bringing out? What is the value of what we're doing, you know, towards ultimately a victorious end product. So, you know, we're passing out the baton batons. It gets messy, right?
00:12:14:15 - 00:12:49:27
Tan Wilson
Things like things get dropped. Nothing ever goes perfectly. We understand that. So, you know, now that be kind of set the stage and it really understand the whole like capture process a little bit better. Now we got to hand it off to proposals, right? That's all different. Beasts proposals operate very differently and they do that by design. And so what you can be maybe a little fluid and maybe be a little gray about things, proposals, it's a little bit more black and white, and it takes a very different personality.
00:12:49:27 - 00:13:18:15
Tan Wilson
It takes a different team member to be part of this team. You know, that we move towards the proposal process. So it always goes smoothly, right? Like I kind of see sometimes passing the baton. It's almost kind of like throwing a grenade, you know, like some tips for managers, like, I'm going to throw this over to you. I hope you're going to catch it, but I'm going to like piece out I'm moving on and they're on to like their next squirrel that they're you know, that they're chasing.
00:13:18:18 - 00:13:29:05
Tan Wilson
So, you know, who's going to jump on this grenade first here? Like we've just passed the proposals and now proposals. You go do your magic.
00:13:29:07 - 00:13:49:05
Stephanie Zink
Interesting. You know, a grenade is often what it feels like. I think I've also considered it a hot potato at times. Right. Here's yours. I'm back at you. And maybe the back at you thing gives us a little bit more of an understanding of this baton pass that actually does have to happen at times. For me, I mean, as you said, it doesn't always go smoothly.
00:13:49:05 - 00:14:16:17
Stephanie Zink
Right. And so I've always understood and wanted and sought after good capture strategies because good capture strategies lead to good proposal strategies. What I sort of intimated at the beginning is while I focus on proposals in my organization, we do some limited capture and we do some limited capture, mostly out of necessity. When you find that the capture hasn't been developed properly, what happens is you constantly seek the answers.
00:14:16:17 - 00:14:47:05
Stephanie Zink
The information, the strategy, the solutions, the discriminator, the gaps, etc. that you're missing for the elements of telling the true compelling story. And so I think for for me, I see things like that not necessarily always going well when you haven't developed and documented, frankly, a really well developed capture strategy becomes one of those things where you then sort of have to peel back the onion from proposals and get to the core, the center of, I guess, the goodness of an onion in order to get to the actual story there.
00:14:47:05 - 00:15:01:17
Stephanie Zink
So so yes, we see that that doesn't always happen, I think as as beautifully as we would like it to. But I definitely like to see good capture strategies documented in proposals.
00:15:01:20 - 00:15:28:23
Jennifer Adeli
Absolutely. You read my mind completely because I was thinking about the handoff. And one of them other munchers is that we can't read minds, the proposal team cannot read minds. And so, you know, we sometimes will see even during like a team or a red team or even further along the process, you'll see comments of like, why is it this, you know, in the proposal, why are we talking about x, Y, Why wasn't Y highlighted?
00:15:28:25 - 00:15:56:05
Jennifer Adeli
And that's because it's living in the head of a captured team member or an executive or PM, but it was never transitioned, transitioned over either through a solution ing session or a documentation. IT documentation, you know, maybe a kickoff briefing or notes in a capture record. So I'm not a fan of busy work or, you know, documentation for document escape like, you know, big, big slide decks of like capture like 100 slides like no, I'm not a fan of that.
00:15:56:07 - 00:16:23:18
Jennifer Adeli
But there are key points that you need to make sure that what's in your head is making it into the person who's putting fingers keyboard in order to write that proposal. Now, if you can data dump yourself, pick, you know, participate, especially when it comes time for outlining or doing those first drafts. And if you as a capture person can even go in and like add chunks and annotated outline kind of things that need to be called out, if it's not in a captured deck, at least it's in that first.
00:16:23:18 - 00:16:32:17
Jennifer Adeli
Rob, you know, instance of the proposal and then it's out of your head, it's out there light. Then we have some accountability to make sure that it gets fully fleshed out.
00:16:32:19 - 00:16:58:00
Tan Wilson
Yeah, you know, that's the frustrating part. And I also get frustrated. I, I come from a strong culture background. And so to me, Kasher is the center of like every universe and it can make or break, you know, opportunities. And it frustrates me because there are some really good capture managers out there who make sure like you said, that they communicate, that we're we're not clairvoyant.
00:16:58:00 - 00:17:17:21
Tan Wilson
Right. But a lot of times what you hear is, we'll get it in there. You know, we got all this, like, I'll get that in there. And then they get to read and we're at gold and they're like, It still doesn't you know, it's still not singing the themes that we want to sing and I was like, Well, you had all this time to kind of get that in there.
00:17:17:21 - 00:17:24:29
Tan Wilson
And so, you know, moving forward, it's it's been my process is to get capture.
00:17:25:00 - 00:17:26:07
Stephanie Zink
Engaged in.
00:17:26:07 - 00:17:50:25
Tan Wilson
The outlining a solution early because the writers are looking for that they need to know that and I'm really I've been really impressed with the sophistication of some writers recently and some technical people where they're pushing back podcaster and say, hey, I can write a million pages, but tell me how many pages do you need? What should I be focusing on?
00:17:50:25 - 00:18:13:00
Tan Wilson
What are the customer Hot buttons, right? Like, what are my, what are my themes? And it doesn't have to be anything sophisticated, like you said, right? Like, I don't I don't need like 300, you know, PowerPoint slides. They explain one easy concept, but it does need to kind of be done in the initial annotated outline process because it helps everybody.
00:18:13:02 - 00:18:29:07
Tan Wilson
And in this day and age where we're all collaborating online, we're not checking yet and checking out anymore like we used to have to do. You know, it's it's very easy to be transparent right from the onset. So, yeah, that's that's a really, really great point. So, you know.
00:18:29:07 - 00:18:30:20
Jennifer Adeli
Now we're.
00:18:30:25 - 00:19:11:14
Tan Wilson
Okay so we're we're drafting our response. We're, we're sprinting towards the end here. All the proposal miracle workers are working on this document. And so it's funny that's the writing now has been so improved. I've seen such easy ways of not only collaborating with Office 365 with other, you know, ways to kind of collaborate online. And now we've introduced like I and, you know, I feel like is like the new four letter word or something like everybody wants that love.
00:19:11:14 - 00:19:39:24
Tan Wilson
They either love it or hate it. There's really kind of no in between when you say air chat or other types of software, So can't I just like I can't use that, right? Like I can use like I to just write it. Yeah. It's like it's that whole phrase. Can't you just. It's one of my most hated phrases besides, you know, cutting edge because, like, those.
00:19:39:24 - 00:19:43:12
Jennifer Adeli
New things don't. We're ready on day one, right?
00:19:43:12 - 00:19:58:12
Tan Wilson
They want, like, what other phrases do I hate? Legos, Like cutting edge, leading edge tech like, Well, you can say leading us technology, but, you know, like, we do it like, better than everybody else. And there's a whole bunch of those like.
00:19:58:19 - 00:20:02:23
Jennifer Adeli
Really do applied just on Tuesdays and I really.
00:20:02:25 - 00:20:04:28
Stephanie Zink
Condition and yeah.
00:20:05:01 - 00:20:06:12
Jennifer Adeli
That's just transition.
00:20:06:14 - 00:20:14:27
Tan Wilson
Like their proposal like and miracle workers is AI the solution to like all of our like you know writing problems.
00:20:14:29 - 00:20:17:10
Jennifer Adeli
Wow I mean.
00:20:17:13 - 00:20:18:02
Tan Wilson
I like.
00:20:18:02 - 00:20:21:14
Jennifer Adeli
Yeah I mean yeah Hey, go ahead.
00:20:21:17 - 00:20:23:15
Tan Wilson
Rene throw.
00:20:23:17 - 00:20:47:09
Jennifer Adeli
Everybody wants to jump on that grenade right now. So I have I already have a controversial take in the proposal industry. Right. Because I actually think that there is a very valuable place for it. And it's that first, like there's nothing worse than a blank piece of paper. And so and we tackle that with outlines and writing prompts and all of that.
00:20:47:09 - 00:21:09:01
Jennifer Adeli
So ideally you don't get a blank piece of paper and so that that could be enough to suspend the flywheel and get the writers going, especially if they're technical people. You know, they're not used to writing in proposal jargon, but I think that there are some some places that you can save time and efficiency, especially in things that we might dub like boilerplate.
00:21:09:04 - 00:21:40:06
Jennifer Adeli
So let's say like a recruiting plan, right? You should have a recruiting plan already developed that reflects your your company's processes. But if you if you need to like update that or if you need to customize it, I don't know that I would put my valuable subject matter experts time and energy into that. With the tools that we have today, I would rather take the requirement is give it to a chat GPT and say a write a recruiting plan for me that meets this process or these requirements.
00:21:40:06 - 00:22:11:27
Jennifer Adeli
Right? But never, ever ever stop with what chat GB two or another eight will do because just like ten years ago or yesterday we had to take a writer and they had to do lots of iterations to get it to where it needs to be. You should never ever stop with which had gives you and take it as a way to get that flywheel started so that your intellectual capital, the stuff that is your secret source, like you have somewhere to put it right.
00:22:11:29 - 00:22:35:07
Jennifer Adeli
So that's my controversial take. Another place that we use it actually is to help with writing like job ads and recruiting and position descriptions. So like when they just when they say, like key personnel must have this, this, this like I pop it into Chad, Djibouti, because I don't want my recruiter spending 2 hours developing a PDF. There's a little bit of a sidebar, but I don't want them spending all that time writing job descriptions when they're really formulaic, right?
00:22:35:07 - 00:22:45:10
Jennifer Adeli
Like they kind of all look the same. I let a tool like judging beauty do the stuff that can be boilerplate and have them really focus their time there. And I think you can use the same approach when it comes to purpose.
00:22:45:13 - 00:23:11:24
Tan Wilson
Stephanie, Before you jump on this grenade or before I pass us, before we pass that person to you on this one, I'm going to throw out another trigger word, write a storyboard. So I kind of hit play setup a little bit to storyboarding, right? Like, I feel that chat or other A.I. software helps you kind of better storyboard like.
00:23:11:25 - 00:23:23:29
Tan Wilson
So those who are really reluctant to storyboarding are now. They just now have automation that like automatically does it for me. So yeah, I as a pro I interesting.
00:23:23:29 - 00:23:42:25
Stephanie Zink
My initial impression is, I mean we've all seen the Terminator, right? Like, you know, my brain just goes, no, no, no, Skynet. But generally I, I can understand that there is a time and there is a place, right? So I would concur that in the land of, you know, I really like the term, you know, kind of getting the flywheel started.
00:23:42:25 - 00:24:06:29
Stephanie Zink
Right. What you sometimes need is something at which to throw darts, something which to put in front of your subject matter experts to add the flavor, the secret sauce, you know, the specialty items and things like that. I would also suggest that I think in a lot of instances where we just are seeing these ridiculously compressed timelines, it also just assists the process in getting started that much faster where you have the time.
00:24:06:29 - 00:24:23:25
Stephanie Zink
I would always argue that it is best to try to reintegrate things that I think a lot of folks are skipping in our proposal space like black cats and blue teams. You know, we sort of forget and we launch straight into pink or we combine a pink and red because we don't have time to do a full color suite.
00:24:23:28 - 00:24:46:06
Stephanie Zink
I think as a really well run black hat, you know, where you're using your capture management teams resources properly to identify some of those key themes, having your technical writers present, to ask the questions, develop some of the content that you know, like like you said, time. Like you need that information to kind of pull together to build the outlines, to kind of develop the concepts.
00:24:46:09 - 00:25:03:22
Stephanie Zink
I would always lean towards. Please insert the human element. Please identify, you know, where we can show we have a unique and compelling story, I mean, even in an empty space. So that's sort of my, you know, like let's reintegrate the human element, but I can absolutely understand the kind of laying the platform.
00:25:03:25 - 00:25:28:14
Tan Wilson
So it is there's a fine line, right? It's it's a little gray, right now. I think it's one of those things with new technology you're not quite sure about. Like remember when BP, the BPC or the 365, they all came out with a new way to kind of collaborate and do color team reviews virtually. There were people were like, no, I want you in my war room.
00:25:28:14 - 00:25:54:10
Tan Wilson
I want to see you touch you. I want to be able to, like, hit you, you know, like I want you to print like I actually did one my God. It must have been it felt like yesterday, because I'm still suffering from PTSD from that one. But they were like, I want you to print out 20 copies because I'm going to, like, give you a red pens and Post-its and flags, and that's how you're going to do the color team reviews.
00:25:54:10 - 00:26:01:06
Tan Wilson
I would spend hours and I was like, there's such a better way to do this. Let me introduce you to.
00:26:01:08 - 00:26:02:16
Jennifer Adeli
You know.
00:26:02:19 - 00:26:27:25
Tan Wilson
365 and the online collaboration. You know, possibilities. So I think we're going through like a similar growing, growing pain and, you know, resettling of how is this all going to work in this whole grand scheme of, you know, proposals. So, yeah, stay tuned for it. There's an episode on I dive into that a little bit further. So the good, the bad, the ugly of it, right?
00:26:27:27 - 00:26:56:23
Tan Wilson
So great. Let's go into a little bit more of an in-depth discussion on some of these things that we've kind of talked about. It's a great overview of like our relay race, but, you know, being successful, it's like, I don't want to say it's like a hamster wheel, but it's kind of a perpetual 24 hour relay race. Like I'm doing this for, you know, to cure cancer type of relay race.
00:26:56:23 - 00:27:19:23
Tan Wilson
I'm like, I'm always going to be running this race. But the beauty of it is when the handoff goes smoothly, all of a sudden everyone's super excited, they're more confident. But there's really no shame when you drop the baton, right? Like I always tell my junior, like junior staff and people who I mentor that.
00:27:19:26 - 00:27:21:05
Jennifer Adeli
The kids.
00:27:21:08 - 00:27:52:29
Tan Wilson
Strive to be a perfectionist are perfect in this business because you're going to crash and burn. You're going to hate yourself, you're going to blame yourself for a lot of things. And so there are a lot of things that are kind of out of your control in life and in this industry and in general. And so, you know, really learning from when things get dropped and when problems arise, I think is is really critical to kind of help learn and develop and like better strategies for how to solve that.
00:27:52:29 - 00:28:26:13
Tan Wilson
So, you know, what are some of your like in the trenches or you fraud like 8000 miles and this relay race that we call gloved horn. What are some advice that you can kind of give our listeners on this? And you know, our listeners really kind of come from different walks of life. And I think it's really good not only to kind of explain to those who are new to the industry kind of level setting that expectation, that kind to yourself and be kind to others, you know, who are kind of coming up here.
00:28:26:13 - 00:28:55:25
Tan Wilson
There's there's no formal class on this. There's yes, there's training. And, you know, there's companies out there that do that. But, you know, you can go to a million training courses, but until you get into the trenches and really kind of unpack some of these opportunities, just last week, I experienced something that I have never seen before. And I was like and I thought, I've seen it all, you know, like, I still have that attitude like, yeah, yeah, no, this is, you know, I've seen this before.
00:28:55:26 - 00:29:07:24
Tan Wilson
This is how we solve that. But what are some of the things that you've kind of come across that are that would be life changing for some of our listeners?
00:29:07:27 - 00:29:29:25
Stephanie Zink
I mean, we could probably ping pong this one. I mean, I can I listed a couple of things in my notes here, so I'll grab one and then we can kind of run. But I think one thing just to kind of take the kind of lessons learned approach here, right. You know, is really take an opportunity to kind of catalog, you know, perhaps those missteps, the baton drops and things like that, as well as a learning opportunity.
00:29:29:25 - 00:29:57:04
Stephanie Zink
Like you said, Don, it's not necessarily anything that you can control as these things happen. So identify, you know, what went wrong there. I think one of those things that often goes wrong is just like a resourcing discussion and having a conversation upfront. Are we really working through an overarching can a capture management strategy of a legitimate identification of the resourcing needs, internal and external that you need to support?
00:29:57:07 - 00:30:22:29
Stephanie Zink
A particular bid will save so much time, energy, effort, you know, tears as you're kind of working through these baton passes, employee consultant burnout is a very, very real thing, especially in our environment and recognizing that up front, identifying people by name, ensuring everybody's got a backup, or that somebody is being communicated with about what is happening within this resourcing discussion, I think will keep the conversation flowing.
00:30:22:29 - 00:30:46:24
Stephanie Zink
I think it will reduce baton drops because somebody is always there to kind of pick it up and run, even if we've lost time, even if we have to restart something. I think some of that resourcing discussion is something that is a really key takeaway from this as soon and as early as you can identify that so that you kind of reduce the well, the problems that you would necessarily have with some of those burnout issues.
00:30:46:27 - 00:31:14:15
Jennifer Adeli
Excellent. And thinking about resourcing, one of the ways that we have tried to make that baton pass work, especially when you're working with an external resource, you're working with a muslim management firm or independent outside consultant. Exactly like, like yourselves or like the company that I used to have. And we still use external resources ourselves, is trying to standardize as many of those handoff points as possible.
00:31:14:17 - 00:31:36:21
Jennifer Adeli
And I want to I'm cautious about using the word standardized because that sounds like really big and heavy, an onerous and I don't I really try to stay away from that when I standardize. I mean, just like do the same thing, reduce your decision fatigue. Right. So, for example, have your this dissertation so easy. Right? And I'm a big fan.
00:31:36:21 - 00:31:57:04
Jennifer Adeli
I have it over here on my desk. I should grab it. But Checklist Manifesto is a great book. It's very small. It's essentially the methodology that pilots use, which is called the Check Checklist Manifesto, the book, and it's written by pilot. It's probably 20 plus years old and it talks about using checklists. Now, you don't have to have, again, formal checklist, but I'm talking about mental checklist.
00:31:57:11 - 00:32:18:07
Jennifer Adeli
So, for example, if you know that every time you make a bid decision, what are the next things that happen? We turn all this. We sit at the SharePoint portal, we have all that make the folders the exact same. Every time we have a folder that says, Copy me a library, this is copy me, and all the subfolders are exactly the same.
00:32:18:07 - 00:32:37:22
Jennifer Adeli
Yeah, and it's links to our master proposal template in there so that if we change the master, you always are grabbing the latest so you don't have any decision fatigue. And all you need is one person to know that when a big decision is made, they turn on that that SharePoint Library and that SharePoint Library copies the other one.
00:32:37:24 - 00:33:02:25
Jennifer Adeli
So it's like a two. So thing nobody has to ask who's signed, Nobody has to ask, how should I organize it? It's always organized, same way. So it helps with that decision fatigue up front and passing the baton. But it also helps that when you're doing the proposal, everybody is coming in wrecking organizes that folder library hierarchy. They know exactly where to go to find the cert type of documents or instructions, and they don't have decision fatigue either.
00:33:02:25 - 00:33:22:07
Jennifer Adeli
They're not having to text you say, Where can I find the RFP? Where can I find the pink team draft? It's always in the same place on every proposal and it sounds so obvious, but those little things will again clear your brain, clear your time passes, and just that way your brain could focus on the stuff that is added value.
00:33:22:07 - 00:33:24:25
Jennifer Adeli
Intellectual capital, secret sauce and so on.
00:33:24:28 - 00:33:50:05
Stephanie Zink
Yeah. Can I, can I grab that thread a little bit? The beauty of doing things like that for yourself is that you create kind of a culture where everybody accepts that that is what they do. Everybody accesses and utilizes the system, the collaboration platform. Those folders get populated and they are there for posterity sake, which is great. What I think we often find is we just don't have the files, we don't know where to find things.
00:33:50:05 - 00:34:10:24
Stephanie Zink
They're launched in somebody's head. Why are we doing this again? I think I've written this past performance response. Where is that? So if you can get into a habit of whether you want to call it standardized or whatever you want to call it, people start using the process. People start respecting the process, and then you start having all of those artifacts available in order to expedite and create efficiencies in the future.
00:34:10:29 - 00:34:34:07
Jennifer Adeli
Yeah, I'll give you a perfect demo. We're going to ping pong a little bit here, if you don't mind. Ten. So thinking about is stuff being in people's heads. When I came on board and my, you know, at Source, they had all their past performance. I'm sure they had all their prior proposals organized by year. So instead of by because it was in their head because they knew inherently.
00:34:34:09 - 00:35:02:13
Jennifer Adeli
yeah, we paid on that. It was 2019. It was 2021. They knew to go to that folder. So so seems again self-evident. But one of the first things we did was like, No, no, no. That's, is you organize by agency because then I don't have to ask someone, where would I find that last State Department proposal or where would I find so little things like that, even how you label it, Think about can somebody find it if without asking me.
00:35:02:13 - 00:35:12:01
Jennifer Adeli
I'm a huge fan of self service. Huge. If you have a self service mantra, then that will go a long way with the baton passing and the efficiency and so on.
00:35:12:07 - 00:35:18:12
Tan Wilson
I have not heard that whole self-service then that's a really great raise.
00:35:18:14 - 00:35:24:08
Jennifer Adeli
I look, it applies to I use it for raising my children the service like that's a service.
00:35:24:08 - 00:35:48:28
Tan Wilson
Yes. And so, you know, and I think that that really suits the up and coming generation of professionals. Right. You know, I'm a I'm a Gen Xer, right? And so we operate very differently than the millennials, than the up and coming professionals. And so we have to understand and really be sensitive to the organization. And so we're really process focused.
00:35:48:28 - 00:36:05:13
Tan Wilson
So a lot of you know what you're saying. Jennifer, We, we operated and that's the reason why a lot of people like working with us is that you're always going to know what to expect and I'm always amazed when I go back to a customer that I hadn't worked with in a while and I'm like, Hey, that's my artifact.
00:36:05:13 - 00:36:26:21
Tan Wilson
I'm like, Wait a second, Those are my folders. You know, I have a copy. Me It's like a standard folder file like that just gets copied over regardless if it's got artifacts in there, you know, and everything like that. But it's those little things that are a tiny suck that people, you know, like don't realize that you could really benefit from that.
00:36:26:21 - 00:36:43:26
Tan Wilson
With that, too, though, is I run into this of people who are really inflexible about process and so they'll do that despite, you know, really not being able to kind of pivot and not being able to really kind of assess the situation. And I think that's where.
00:36:43:28 - 00:36:44:13
Jennifer Adeli
You.
00:36:44:17 - 00:37:04:26
Tan Wilson
Encounter people who are more experience. Those of us who have been in the trenches for a while. Will will kind of know, I'm going to skip this color team review despite, you know, the fact that, yes, our process as this and we should be doing this but it doesn't beg for it. Right. So ask what are proposals different that scorecard proposals different.
00:37:04:26 - 00:37:26:28
Tan Wilson
The longer a bigger, you know, type of multi-year or multi, you know, team partner type of tough efforts. And so you really do kind of need to learn how to tailor those, you know, those processes for the right situation. And I think the you know, the other thing, too, is there's a time and a place to kind of bring in outside resources.
00:37:27:05 - 00:37:45:13
Tan Wilson
Sometimes you are drinking your old kool aid to you. It makes sense. And so I've always coming into a situation where I have no idea how or where you store things, but I'm going to ask those in delicate questions sometimes, or the questions that make me sound a little stupid, like, How do we do this? Why are we doing it this way?
00:37:45:13 - 00:38:04:21
Tan Wilson
Or where can I find this? And so if it's obvious to me, then it should be obvious to anyone. And so, you know, I always kind of say that the process and the work should continue regardless of who's there. So if you had that one person who is like the linchpin to everything, the contract, you we all know these people, right?
00:38:04:23 - 00:38:28:09
Tan Wilson
They're like the gatekeepers of everything. And no one knows what magically happens between, you know, like behind that door. Like this is not the Wizard of Oz. This is, you know, like you are a corporation. You need to be like like everybody is dispensable, right? We are not indispensable and we shouldn't act like or treat, you know, the content and the data in that manner.
00:38:28:09 - 00:38:41:11
Tan Wilson
So I'm with you on that one. So what what other like what other takeaways are in the trenches items should we kind of talk about here?
00:38:41:14 - 00:39:04:02
Stephanie Zink
I mean, I can think too. I mean, you know, actual actual air is lessons learned are few and far between. And some of that is based on me just living in sort of an external consultancy world. And I'm not necessarily always pulled into those I love when I am. It is about learning, it is about providing feedback, it is about documenting it much like a corrective action plan might be.
00:39:04:06 - 00:39:29:13
Stephanie Zink
If you've identified that you had a resourcing issue, you know, is it that you need to identify, you know, a better schedule, better introduction of internal resources? Do you need some external resources, Do you need some training for your internal team? Can you identify what those things are, identify a specific person to own that as an actual corrective action and then develop and respond to that so that you can feed the proposal process.
00:39:29:21 - 00:39:49:24
Stephanie Zink
I think a lot of folks see proposals as the end of the line, and for me it is still a loopback system. So take the information that you've learned from the actual proposal process itself, a win or a loss and feed that back to even your marketing team. Are we identifying the right agencies? Are we marketing to the right folks?
00:39:49:24 - 00:40:06:29
Stephanie Zink
Do we actually have a true mission understanding? I mean, are we losing the same types of bids for the same types of reasons? Right? So to me, it's not stopping at the very end of that proposal process. I know it's very easy. I want to do it too. I want to put it in I think you said Tonya, the mental shred been and go to sleep for 8 hours.
00:40:07:04 - 00:40:12:03
Stephanie Zink
But it doesn't always work that way. I mean, I think pausing and doing a real is berry valuable?
00:40:12:05 - 00:40:30:24
Jennifer Adeli
It is very valuable. You know, one of the things that we strive to do and we don't always do it well and or consistently but one of the things that I'm a big fan of is is when when we call it a after action review or lessons learned, it feels that has a connotation. People think they got in trouble.
00:40:30:24 - 00:40:31:18
Jennifer Adeli
They're at the front.
00:40:31:21 - 00:40:50:14
Tan Wilson
Because they're like, Ooh, I'm going to get in trouble for something, or I'm going to like, I don't want to narc on someone. And that's kind of looking at it to the people too. And yeah, like I get that. And sometimes, you know, when things go wrong, I think a lot of times it comes from the top down like, I need an after action of like, why did it go wrong?
00:40:50:16 - 00:41:12:20
Tan Wilson
But at the same time, just like how, you know, just with proposal debriefs, for example, right? Everybody wants a proposal debrief when you lose and no one ever was asked when you win. And it's like you really that that's very critical is to understand yes you want but why did you win? What did you win on? Because that helps.
00:41:12:20 - 00:41:32:02
Tan Wilson
Then for you in the next relay race so that you're going to go like, I want to do more of that. I need to bring that team member back on board or I need to do less of this and, push more of this. And so being able to really kind of get into the mindset of the customer, so like why you when sometimes it's just not always obvious.
00:41:32:02 - 00:41:48:12
Tan Wilson
And so again, customers, you know, they're they're not flamboyant and so you should always like assume, you know, that the reason why you want is because of this. You know, like you may have one because they like something else. It wasn't because you had a wonderful management plan or the staffing approach.
00:41:48:12 - 00:42:09:27
Jennifer Adeli
Was they were just this U.P.S. like lesbian. And they're like, take it or leave it now. But, you know, picking up on that after action, you know, I'm a big fan of proposal closeout. So we do kick offs. We are all very familiar with kick offs. But look, you know, and if we want to talk if we want to look back on the day, like if you were to look at Shipley process, right.
00:42:09:27 - 00:42:47:24
Jennifer Adeli
Which nobody really uses the big Shipley process anymore but there was never really like a close out. There was like lessons learned and stuff like that. But I love a close out and here's what we do. If it's done by the book, is you built everything up and then you deconstruct it. So you say, that the updated org charts take all of those, get them in the graphics library, make sure that their lot the new version of the recruiting plan that we did dust off and revise because we have a new tool now, put that in our boilerplate library, make sure that it is appropriately stamped as like this is the 2023 version or
00:42:47:24 - 00:43:14:13
Jennifer Adeli
whatever, right? So build it up and deconstruct it. And in my experience, one of the best ways, the best person to have if you have that resource in for me was always the writer, because the writer or the editor was sort of like that person. You really need the content, so they would know what was different about this management plan versus that one, and they would know that it was the first paragraph is exactly the same.
00:43:14:13 - 00:43:32:19
Jennifer Adeli
The last paragraph was exactly the same, but in the middle we tweaked this process. It's no longer five steps, now it's three steps and and it's no longer circular, it's linear. And so they would be able to kind of call attention and keep that content library up to date and keep those versions up to date. So if you have the ability, it's quick.
00:43:32:19 - 00:43:52:12
Jennifer Adeli
Actually, if you do it right, you can just be like the next day, submit, celebrate next morning. Okay, what do I need to do to close it out? Change the status in gov when or in my, you know, tool for for tracking my opportunities. Close out. That was a library deconstruct it and that and then gather lessons learned as well.
00:43:52:12 - 00:43:59:05
Jennifer Adeli
And if you combine it with close out it doesn't feel like it's only being done when you're in trouble. It's just part of the normal process.
00:43:59:07 - 00:44:20:23
Stephanie Zink
That's I think it's wonderful. And it also kind of speaks to your kind of overarching ease of checklist process. You know, it's a very easy thing to checklist. You know, someone just needs to do these 27 things and it might actually be 27 things, but they're all really easy. You know, like you said, I mean, it might be collecting artifacts from external resources and making sure that got everything that's been actually provided.
00:44:20:23 - 00:44:28:24
Stephanie Zink
You know, that you reorganize a folder that somebody might have, I don't know, misallocated information. You know, it's making sure that everything's prepared for the next bid.
00:44:28:26 - 00:44:43:07
Jennifer Adeli
How many times have we said where is the source graphic or that process flow that we drew in 2021? And Sarah's got it, but she doesn't work for us anymore. An outside consultant drew for us, and we never asked for the source file.
00:44:43:10 - 00:45:01:12
Tan Wilson
Yeah, yeah. It's it's just I kind of call it like my house key, like my housekeeping was. Yes, Right. And it's good. And I would even take that a step further. I think everyone's i.t would probably appreciate this too, right? Cleaning out like.
00:45:01:12 - 00:45:02:09
Jennifer Adeli
Old.
00:45:02:11 - 00:45:24:26
Tan Wilson
Versions of things. There's no reasons to keep a lot of different things. And so having someone be the the gatekeeper of Yes, let's get this like 50 million may file off of, you know, like our server or like let's make sure that we don't accidentally grab this graphic and different things like that. So that is.
00:45:24:26 - 00:45:28:25
Jennifer Adeli
Now like outdated and we don't need that.
00:45:28:25 - 00:45:50:12
Tan Wilson
Yeah, exactly. Right. So let's, let's clean house. And I think it's kind of for me, it's kind of therapeutic really. And and the biggest thing to is I notice this sometimes because I get invited to a million different workspaces is that no one kills my access. And so that's the worst is is data security and the security of everyone.
00:45:50:12 - 00:46:11:12
Tan Wilson
Right. You know, tick everyone off the team site or out of SharePoint that should no longer be there. If you've that sub, you know, there's no need for them to be in there anymore. Right. You know, that's that's where a lot of data gets lost. And so I'm always very hypersensitive about people, the right people having access to the right content, like I'm all for collaborating.
00:46:11:15 - 00:46:45:10
Tan Wilson
I'm huge on transparency, but like when it's over, I'm locking that puppy down. Like, I don't want anybody else to, you know, mess with it or get lost or save it and walk off to, you know, their next employer with, you know, my material. So no business. This is all been great. So I think there's so many key takeaways here, but I think, you know, like win, lose or draw though, like this, this whole government contracting, you know success relay race is just we need to practice.
00:46:45:13 - 00:47:14:10
Tan Wilson
We need to fall in order to how to do better and to be better and to be successful. So but at the end of the day, though, win, lose or draw, we will lose, you know, like as a team. So I think that's something that I think we all kind of need to try to remember as we are moving along here and really busy times is just to kind of, you know, be good to each other, be kind and be understanding that, you know, we're all in it together here.
00:47:14:10 - 00:47:30:11
Tan Wilson
We all want the same result. So Rapid click fire here, right? Like, let's let's close it out with some some, some fun questions. So if you had a superpower for what a contract, what would it be?
00:47:30:14 - 00:47:33:18
Jennifer Adeli
It's with a little bit of.
00:47:33:18 - 00:47:34:29
Stephanie Zink
Time travel to.
00:47:34:29 - 00:47:37:15
Jennifer Adeli
The evaluation board would help.
00:47:37:17 - 00:47:49:06
Tan Wilson
So you want to be flash like I'm a big you know, I'm a big superhero fan. I've got a son. So I know all my DC Marvel characters. So you at least you would want to be able to like time travel.
00:47:49:09 - 00:48:00:27
Stephanie Zink
Yeah, maybe it would be a little more about the clairvoyance, you know, element of what are we really, really after here on the evaluation committee board or, you know, those folks really do in that that source selection.
00:48:00:27 - 00:48:03:20
Tan Wilson
But yeah yet.
00:48:03:23 - 00:48:26:00
Jennifer Adeli
If I had a superpower would be to convince all the contracting authorities across the whole federal government to use a standard format and maybe just make it like just like a checklist or so they reading a checklist again. But you know how many times are we seen I like to see errors, you know, in the same hour, like, come on.
00:48:26:03 - 00:48:29:23
Tan Wilson
Like the same agency as like Libya changing.
00:48:29:25 - 00:48:33:26
Stephanie Zink
If we all have the same superpower, can we super superpower it.
00:48:33:28 - 00:48:34:26
Jennifer Adeli
And one day we.
00:48:34:26 - 00:48:40:08
Tan Wilson
Want like let's very pulpy model. We all want to give you all right.
00:48:40:11 - 00:48:44:16
Jennifer Adeli
Well since or like the transfer we're like we each.
00:48:44:18 - 00:48:46:07
Stephanie Zink
We don yeah yeah.
00:48:46:10 - 00:49:18:22
Jennifer Adeli
Yeah I, I will say that the the fact that I'm a controversial take as well I think the fact that companies that are also proposal consultants and that that whole thing exists is just a sign that it's very inefficient like yes we need we need competition. Yes we need transparency but the hours, days and lifetime spent cannot be healthy for the federal government in general.
00:49:18:22 - 00:49:25:26
Jennifer Adeli
Right. So my superpower would be, I don't know, somehow to slice that in like half or something. I love.
00:49:25:26 - 00:49:52:05
Tan Wilson
It is so many, like so many different superheroes that it's kind of hard for me to think because what you're saying, Jennifer, I would love to have and this is why I like to participate in the reverse Industry Day, is that federal agencies have because those are really great opportunities for agencies to understand from the industry side how we interpret things, how we're receiving or perceiving things.
00:49:52:05 - 00:50:04:05
Tan Wilson
And so I also want to be the the character from Guardians of the Galaxy. She's I forget what her name is, but she's the one who's an MD. She's an impact.
00:50:04:05 - 00:50:04:26
Stephanie Zink
Magic.
00:50:05:01 - 00:50:27:27
Tan Wilson
Mail says, Yeah, I want to be like Mantis, right? Like, you're feeling, you know, and be able to kind of communicate and convey that. Because I think at the end of the day, if we all kind of understood or like put ourselves in the other person's shoes, I think it would be huge for everybody to understand where they're coming from, why, why we say what we do, why we do what we do.
00:50:27:29 - 00:50:46:03
Tan Wilson
And it would avoid a lot of this misunderstanding and, you know, controversy and stuff like that. So. All right. And then the last one here is describe proposals in one word.
00:50:46:05 - 00:50:46:27
Jennifer Adeli
So my words.
00:50:46:27 - 00:50:47:14
Tan Wilson
Are not a.
00:50:47:15 - 00:51:02:01
Jennifer Adeli
Phrase like persuasion. Okay. Consider me if I hyphenate necessary Evil is your word. Sure.
00:51:02:04 - 00:51:27:17
Tan Wilson
I think you are reading my mind because I was actually going to go for a hyphenated too. Like it is kind of a necessary evil. I was just going to go with evil intent in general that it's our eyes are lit right? We need we need proposals in order to drag lady contrives to keep the Yeah it's it's a never.
00:51:27:19 - 00:51:47:24
Jennifer Adeli
We do need that right back to the topic of like we do want competition you want companies to have an opportunity to get in front of the customer to introduce their solutions. You know may the best team when you know all that so they are a necessary evil I think we can keep. It's gotten so much better, let's be honest.
00:51:47:26 - 00:52:05:14
Jennifer Adeli
And the government has gotten much better on their side too, in a lot of ways. In some ways, it's those kind of stuck in the dark. But there are a lot of efficiencies, you know, coming through. So I think we're on the right trajectory. It's only taken, I don't know my whole career to make it how to care, you know?
00:52:05:16 - 00:52:21:23
Tan Wilson
I know. But they could do one more thing for me and that I'm just going to call it a day and be like, yeah, I'm not going to be able to influence them to do anything different, but can we stop with the Friday proposal submissions?
00:52:21:26 - 00:52:24:15
Stephanie Zink
Fridays are my Mondays.
00:52:24:18 - 00:52:34:01
Tan Wilson
Yeah. What are they going to do? Are you going to review my proposal after 5 p.m. on a Friday? Then just give me the weekend and make it do first thing Monday morning.
00:52:34:04 - 00:52:38:08
Stephanie Zink
Bring it or stop releasing all of the madness on Friday.
00:52:38:10 - 00:52:48:19
Jennifer Adeli
Yeah, with like a two week turn. Knowing that those first two days out of the two weeks is automatically like drop it on Monday. Yeah. Like Monday to Monday. Yeah.
00:52:48:21 - 00:52:55:09
Tan Wilson
You know, I don't really care. Will they drop it anymore Because I actually don't, don't mind a Friday because then I have all weekend to kind of.
00:52:55:13 - 00:52:56:19
Jennifer Adeli
Yeah.
00:52:56:21 - 00:52:59:26
Tan Wilson
But then you know I'm a sadist when it comes.
00:52:59:26 - 00:53:09:24
Jennifer Adeli
To what when it all dropped on the same day like what it was like on the first of every month, you know, And then like, everything was just.
00:53:09:26 - 00:53:17:20
Tan Wilson
How about the first and the 15th of each month? Those are the only two days. So you can drop animals off and then you can still do the two week turnaround time.
00:53:17:23 - 00:53:24:15
Stephanie Zink
Well, to be honest, you can completely resource then, because you would absolutely be prepared and understand what is happening and just drink it.
00:53:24:15 - 00:53:26:00
Tan Wilson
Totally plan around.
00:53:26:03 - 00:53:32:18
Jennifer Adeli
It. It was like refreshing, like slammed our gov every 10 minutes waiting for something to come out.
00:53:32:20 - 00:53:35:26
Tan Wilson
Government industry members who are listening to this podcast.
00:53:35:28 - 00:53:36:13
Jennifer Adeli
We saw.
00:53:36:15 - 00:53:38:12
Tan Wilson
Just to help you.
00:53:38:15 - 00:53:41:00
Jennifer Adeli
Your first and the 15th.
00:53:41:02 - 00:53:45:16
Stephanie Zink
And so all you professionals have heart attacks on the first and the 15th.
00:53:45:19 - 00:53:47:03
Jennifer Adeli
In the future. No, no.
00:53:47:03 - 00:53:48:28
Tan Wilson
But think of how a vacation.
00:53:48:28 - 00:53:49:20
Jennifer Adeli
Day are.
00:53:49:22 - 00:53:52:15
Tan Wilson
The first and the 15th of everyone.
00:53:52:17 - 00:53:53:27
Stephanie Zink
And we can work around this.
00:53:53:27 - 00:53:57:06
Jennifer Adeli
You can just do it up. So to post at that time.
00:53:57:12 - 00:54:04:17
Tan Wilson
Exactly. Delayed submission to the first and the 13th and no more Friday proposal submission. I have declared it a holiday.
00:54:04:22 - 00:54:06:28
Jennifer Adeli
All right, solider.
00:54:07:01 - 00:54:30:25
Tan Wilson
There you go. I'm giddy. my gosh. This has been, like, way too much fun. Thank you so much, Stephanie and Jennifer, for your time today. I really like we have enjoy preparing for this topic so much. And I know we could literally do this for the rest of the day. But unfortunately, we often find demands and proposals that we must go and address.
00:54:30:27 - 00:55:00:11
Tan Wilson
So I want to thank Mr. Assad joining us today. I hope that you have now that not only entertaining but informative. And so stay tuned for our next podcast. We have several in the series here where I will be talking to both industry and government guests. So that's a wrap, folks. Keep sharing, sipping and strategizing. And remember, the secret ingredient is genuine confections and a glass of bourbon infused with wit.
00:55:00:13 - 00:55:01:18
Jennifer Adeli
By.
00:55:01:21 - 00:55:03:25
Stephanie Zink
Thanks to.