The role of bid lead and how to meet customer needs while being competitive.
“Very efficient and creative are the first words that come to mind when I think of Kristian. He knew exactly how to put the essence of our message on paper.” – previous client.
Kristian is programme and proposal manager at Unified International. He has over 10 years of experience as programme manager in aerospace and defence for the government, knowledge institutes and industry, and more than 5 years of experience in High Tech proposal management. For both national and international clients of Unified International he manages proposals from head to tail.
In his career, he has met dozens of entrepreneurs and heard many of their innovative ideas. Although all of their stories radiate the same enthusiasm, their proposals often do not. That is a missed opportunity as a proposal can make or break a deal. This applies in particular for (European) tenders where contracts are awarded purely based on the quality and compliancy of a proposal.
Kristian starts every project with one or more interviews to get to know the client, the company, their ideas and to experience their enthusiasm. In parallel, his colleague Rick van Dijk [ Rick’s Top 4 Tips ] sets up a compliance matrix. The compliance matrix helps both the client and Kristian to keep track of the compliance of all requirements including associated actions, risks, planning, progress and status during the whole project. The compliance matrix also serves as a backbone for the proposal. However, this is – literally – just one side of the story. The other side of the story is to write a winning proposal. Kristian will make sure that the proposal fully complies to all requirements, has a clear storyline and radiates the DNA in combination with the USP’s of the client. The finishing touch is his attention to details; content and lay-out wise. Thus matching his style of writing and the identity of the proposal with that of his client. It is this way of working that earned him his nickname.
“After having scored the highest ranked proposal ever for a client, I got nicknamed ‘Professor Proposal”.
