APMP Foundational Exam Questions and Answers
When should the first draft of the executive summary be written? - Answer -During the opportunity planning phase before kick off meeting
Who is typically responsible for writing the executive summary? - Answer -
Opportunity/Capture Manager or salesperson who has an established relationship with the customer
Who should the executive summary be aimed towards? - Answer -The customer's nontechnical, senior-level decisionmakers
Who typically reviews/approves the executive summary draft? - Answer -The highest level person possible
Price-to-Win - Answer -Process for analyzing competitor and customer data to identify how to package and price a winning offer to a customer
When should the price to win process begin? - Answer -Early in the opportunity stage
What is price to win based on? - Answer -Independent, comprehensive competitive analysis research
Price to win cost - Answer -Total range of expenses the offeror expects to spend to deliver the requirements
Price to win price - Answer -Monetary payment for the offeror to deliver the requirements
What are the most useful tools for price to win analyses? - Answer -Custom built spreadsheets
Top-down analysis - Answer -Uses customer's historical award and budget information to predict where they will likely make awards and where competitors tend to receive them
Bottom-up analysis - Answer -Develops pricing based on detailed evaluations of the competitor solution's cost and identified strategies When should top-down analyses be conducted? - Answer -Early in the opportunity process before the RFP is released
When should bottom-up analyses be conducted? - Answer -As soon as final customer requirements and evaluation processes are known; refined further once final RFP is released
What are the best intelligence sources for obtaining customer intelligence in the PTW process? - Answer -People, especially those in your own organization
Why is competitive analysis vital to determining a PTW range? - Answer -It helps establish what your competitors' bid and actual award prices would be based on prior similar contracts
What information should be researched for consideration in the PTW? - Answer -- Your historical cost data
- Your competitive position
- Your pricing differentiators
- Your internal risk (top 2 or 3 areas)
What should pricing be focused on? - Answer -Value to the customer--the benefits customers will gain for the price they pay
How should pricing be written in the PTW for budget-limited customers? - Answer -
Remove nonessential features that add to the cost without adding equal value
Compliance vs Responsiveness - Answer -Compliance = meeting requirements stated in the solicitation
Responsiveness = addressing customer goals/concerns/issues/values not addressed in the solicitation
When should you begin collecting customer intelligence to cultivate responsiveness? - Answer -Prior to RFP release, early in the business development process and continually through
Why are response matrices important to submit with a proposal? - Answer -They identify where in a proposal you have addressed the solicitation requirements
Does an effective proposal present customer benefits before solution features or solution features before customer benefits? - Answer -Customer benefits before solution
features; features are only effective if they offer a true benefit to the customer
What part of the proposal process does customer and competitive intelligence gathering
take place? - Answer -Sales/opportunity planning Who is responsible for gathering customer and competitive intelligence? - Answer -The sales/opportunity planning team
Where should the executive summary go if customer instructions do not allow for one? -
Answer -In the cover letter or first-page introduction
Strategy statement - Answer -Tool to verbalize your win strategies in a way that helps your team understand how the bid will succeed
How do you know whether your opportunity strategy is "killer"? - Answer -If it were revealed to the competition, it would damage your chances of winning
Value proposition - Answer -a statement that specifically addresses how aspects of an offer positively affect a customer's business
What should form the foundation of your executive summary to give evaluators a reason
to select you? - Answer -Your value proposition
3 parts of a value proposition - Answer -- state the value (both tangible and intangible) that customer will get from your solution
- identify the differentiator that will deliver that value
- provide proof that the claim is credible
Theme statement - Answer -Links customer benefits to your offer's features, calling out the key points you want the customer to remember
How are proposal themes developed? - Answer -By creating a top-level outline of your proposal, then flowing related themes to the indented sections while maintaining a consistent message and linkage of benefits throughout each major section of your response
How do you lead evaluators to believe your proposal themes? - Answer -Use sufficient, quantifiable, and verifiable proof
Litmus test of a good proposal theme - Answer -- Competitors cannot believably make the same claim
- Evaluators could cut and paste it into an evaluation form to justify giving you a high score
When should proposal theme and theme statements be developed? - Answer -During content plan development
What should you try to emulate/reflect while creating and scoring a bidder comparison matrix? - Answer -Reflect the customer's perception of your own team and your competition
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