Training
“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Training presents a prime opportunity to either build or expand the knowledge base of your own Business Development workforce. Smart BD’s designed our training program to transform our knowledge and experience, collected during hundreds of engagements with small and large businesses, into shareable lessons, best practices, and resources. We engage your employees through interactive exercises and gaming scenarios and ultimately motivate and inspire them to innovate and think out of the box.
Unlike most proposal training shops that offer public courses using “off-the-shelf” training materials, presented by hired instructors, our training is custom-tailored to each customer situation and need. We travel to your site and develop coursework that specifically benefits your workforce. Our instructors are senior practitioners who share their real-life examples and stories and are exceedingly adept at answering impromptu questions or adapting their teaching style on the spot to your workforce needs. We customize our training aids and materials to your audience’s experience levels and needs.
Our typical courses range from 1 to 5 days in duration. Our most requested training topics include:
- Capture Training
- Proposal Management
- Proposal Writing
- Themes & Discriminators Formulation
Training Case Study
Smart BD was hired by a small business client to help them recompete a highly technical $165M NASA bid. Due to the extremely specialized and technical nature of this contract, we knew that we had to rely on the technical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to write the technical approach portion of the proposal. While they were very comfortable with writing technical white papers, proposal writing was not second nature to them. When the Draft Request for Proposal (RFP) was released, we developed a custom-tailored, just-in-time proposal writing training class, using the specific Draft RFP requirements as interactive exercise examples. While all the participants received an opportunity to improve their skills and learn something new, the largest benefit gained was evident in the very first draft of the proposal.
End Result: not only did the client win the $165M recompete, they now have a new in-house surge workforce of proposal writers.