Scribble Talk Podcast
Scribble Talk Ethos
Great achievements are usually born of great sacrifices and are never the result of selfishness. There is no grey area: You’re either with that ethos, willing to go out of your way to help people or you aren’t.
The Why?
We dedicate Scribble Talk to these selfless patriots. Listen in and get to know them personally…
Hosted by Ashley Kayes
and Baskar Sundaram
Listen While You Work
At Baachu Scribble, our goal is to produce the best free bid and proposal content in the known universe. One way we’re accomplishing this goal is through our Podcasts… They’re one of our greatest avenues for sharing bidding strategies that are WORKING RIGHT NOW with bidders from all over the world. From Opportunity Identification —> Capture Planning —> Proposal Planning, Development and Submission —> Post Submittal Activities, Baachu Scribble Talk podcasts are here to help you become the next great “full-stack“ bidder. Scroll down to learn all about the NEW Baachu Scribble Talk podcast.
Scribble Talk is a weekly show produced by Baachu Scribble and hosted by Ashley Kayes and Baskar Sundaram. The duo will take you on a journey with APMP veterans and the brightest bid & proposal minds, diving deep into the topics that bid & proposal professionals, like you, can use to help grow your skills and your business success.
Host Stories by Samantha Enslen
What You’ll Learn
We mean it when we say that everything we do at Baachu Scribble is to help you become a “full-stack“bidder. So, how are we doing it with our podcasts? By sitting down with the industry veterans and the brightest bid & proposal minds on the planet, inviting them to share how our industry has evolved and what’s working right now in all facets of bid & proposals. Listen today and discover the history of our industry and the new tactics that can be implemented to win more tenders, grow your business and increase your bidding skill set!
Available in
If you're ready to sacrifice who you are, for what you will become, then you will be invited to our show…
EPISODES
EPISODE 29
Jon Williams is the UK managing director of Strategic Proposals. He holds the unique status of being a Fellow of each of APMP, the Institute of Sales Management and the Royal Society of Arts. In over twenty years in proposals, he’s worked with sales organisations in more than thirty countries, helping them to radically improve their win rates. Jon’s published numerous research white papers, and is a regular keynote speaker at conferences around the world. He’s the co-author, with BJ Lownie, of bestselling book “Proposal Essentials”, and is recognised for his passionate for all things proposals!
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Chris Simmons has 30+ years business development consulting experience including Deloitte Consulting and CGI/AMS. Chris is Founder & Principal at Rainmakerz Consulting LLC (served 200 customers and has won tens of billions in new business for his clients). An APMP Fellow and Certified Practitioner, Chris is former APMP National Capital Area Chapter (NCA) Vice President and Membership Chair and was also APMP NCA Mentor of the Year. Chris won the first ever John Elder APMP Journal Award for the topic (How to Create Winning Proposal Themes). Chris has presented at numerous APMP International, NCA, other APMP chapters events. Chris was also voted as Consulting Magazine’s Top 25 Consultant.
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Steve Skeldon is APMP Certified at the Practitioner level and currently works as a Senior Proposal Manager for Vectrus. He has more than 8 years of proposal experience across the Federal services industry, managing and supporting bids for a variety of customers across civilian and defense sectors of Government, with heavy support to Navy and Army clients. He is heavily involved in APMP at the local and international levels, receiving the distinction of being named a 40 under 40 in 2018 at the APMP International Conference in San Diego. Steve currently serves as the Vice President for the APMP National Capital Area Chapter and previously served as the Conference Co-Chair for the APMP NCA MAC 2019 conference. He holds a Bachelor degree from Roanoke College and a Master of Professional Studies from The George Washington University.
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Ajay Patel leads SMA, Inc. as President and CEO. SMA, Inc. is the world’s largest advisory firm dedicated to improving its client’s competitiveness across their entire program lifecycle from market and competitive strategy to capture strategy and bid/proposal development to profitable program execution for public sector markets.
Mr. Patel has over 35 years of consulting, business development, operations, program management and systems engineering experience. Prior to coming to SMA, Ajay was a Director at Deloitte consulting in the Aerospace and Defense practice. He was a Senior Partner at the Monitor Group for twelve years, and created and led it’s global National Security practice. During the 1990s, Ajay served in various roles at SMA including Vice President of Business Development, Executive Vice President of SMA’s Proposal Management group and as the firm’s Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Ajay was at TRW serving in technology development, systems engineering, program management and business development roles.
Ajay enjoys travelling and is an avid reader. His has a particular fascination with typography—the latest fun addition to his library is Simon Garfield’s book “Just My Type: A Book About Fonts.” His favorite bookstore on the planet is Daunt Books in London, United Kingdom.
EPISODE 24
Robin Davis has more than 20 years of commercial and state and local proposal experience. In 2009, Robin established Metre, a successful proposal and sales operations consulting firm that helps healthcare clients win business. Working with start-ups to some of the largest health plans in the country, Robin and her team have helped secure billions of dollars for her clients. She’s proud that over 80% of her work comes from repeat business—a testament to the trusting relationships her and her team build with clients. Prior to founding Metre, Robin fell into proposals at Healthways and then built the company’s first knowledge management and proposal’s department over the next nine years. Robin is an APMP Fellow, former member of the International Board of Directors, and Chapter Chair of the Rhythm & Harmony chapter, which includes members from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Robin describes herself as a brave, passionate, life-long learner. She is driven by the desire to make a positive impact in the lives of the people around her, whether that is helping a client win business through proposals or creating a warm and inviting neighborhood bar and restaurant in her community.
EPISODE 23
Kevin Switaj is the President and Chief Executive Officer of BZ Opportunity Management. An experienced proposal professional, he has led bids of diverse sizes and requirements for a wide range of Government clients. He has developed, implemented, and refined life cycle processes at firms, resulting in a minimum of a 50% improvement in win rate year-over-year. He is a former member of the APMP National Capital Area Board of Directors and served as a mentor in the chapter’s mentor-protege program for multiple years. He is a well-recognized thought leader in the field who speaks regularly at regional and international conferences. Kevin has won multiple awards for his writing on opportunity management and regularly blogs on the BZ Opportunity Management site. He is also involved in his community, volunteering for his community swim association and his son’s Cub Scout pack.
EPISODE 22
Marina Goren is the President/CEO of Smart BD Consulting – a successful MD/DC/NVA area Capture and Proposal Development firm. Over the past 7 years she has successfully grown her company to over 150 consultants serving over 50 Federal Government contracting clients. She teaches numerous Proposal Development and Capture courses and was an APMP speaker since 2014. Ms. Goren continues to personally support her clients in pioneering new frontiers and winning large strategic bids, while running her company. Ms. Goren has been instrumental at Billions of Dollars in wins for her clients (including a recent single award $1.2B win). Prior to starting her own company, Ms. Goren was a Vice President of Business Development at ASRC Primus and helped grow the company from 2 to over 1,600 FTEs in just a little over 5 years. Ms. Goren had a progressive career in IT, Operations and Business Development for the past 23 years.
EPISODE 21
A former college professor, stand-up comic, and founder of two successful firms, one of the first-ever Fellows of the APMP, Dr. Tom Sant was named the world’s foremost authority on winning sales proposals by the American Management Association and one of the top ten sales trainers in the world by Selling Power Magazine.
Tom is the author of the best-selling Persuasive Business Proposals, and the highly acclaimed The Giants of Sales and The Language of Success.
As a consultant, Tom has written over $30 billion in winning proposals for clients in every industry sector. In addition, he invented the world’s first proposal automation tools, ProposalMaster, RFPMaster and PresentationBuilder, used by thousands of sales and proposal professionals worldwide as the Upland Qvidian system.
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Randy Richter is Chairman and Price to Win Director at Richter & Company, Competitive analysis and market research firm focused on the Federal market. Previously, Randy was a Senior Consultant at CAI/SISCo, served as Vice President, Strategic Business Development for Integrated Communication Solutions, responsible for the capture and operation of long-term programs within the Federal government.
EPISODE 18
Alan Howard , a 40+ years proposal industry veteran is a Certified Professional of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP®). Alan joined APMP in 2009 and was appointed to the APMP UK Board in 2016 as the Certification and Apprenticeship development director where he was heavily involved with the mentoring programme and the conference training days.
In his 40+ years’ working on proposals, Alan has worked on 100’s of proposals, has trained and mentored 150+ proposal professionals
EPISODE 17
As Sr. Vice President of Consulting at Shipley Associates, David Bol has over 30 years as a Senior Proposal Manager helping client’s win over $220 billion dollars of revenue. He has co-authored three books for APMP that still influence winning business development practices today. Mr. Bol is APMP certified at the Professional level, is an APMP Fellow and co-founded the Rocky Mountain APMP Chapter. He earned the Visionary award guiding the APMP group through the 90’s. He has held every international APMP Board position including being CEO of the Board of Directors in 2009.
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Nicholas Adams is an industry veteran with 30+ years IT and bid and proposal experience having recently worked for Teradata as Lead for EMEA proposal management and RFX process previously leading their UK & Ireland Opportunity Management function. Before Teradata, Nic also worked at Liberata, Atos/Siemens IT Solutions, Dell, HP and Fujitsu.
Nic has served on the APMP UK Chapter Board of Directors since 2007. Nick was also 2017 and 2018 UK Conference director. At an international level, Nic has served as APMP International chair, past chair and was also first ever Treasurer for the Association. Nic is APMP Practitioner certified and has a business management degree from university of south Africa. Nic also served in the board of AFSM International, Rotary, Lions International and various education institutes.
EPISODE 14
Dick Eassom, aka Wordman, a Certified Fellow of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP®), past APMP Chief Executive Officer, recipient of the APMP William C. McRae Founders’ Award, past Chair of the APMP California Chapter and a proud member of the chapter’s Mentor program. Dick has presented at 15+ APMP Annual International Conferences on using Microsoft Word for proposal development.
Dick has authored over forty articles for “Wordman’s Production Corner” in the APMP Perspective. In his 40+ years of experience, Dick has led or contributed to numerous proposals in the USA, UK, Canada, Germany and Australia. Dick has a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Leeds in England.
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Tim Snell has 20+ years’ experience in helping companies create solutions to win business. He has worked in some of the most remote, austere and dangerous places in the world including Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Mali and Sudan in support of military, United Nations, NATO and commercial organisations. Tim is an executive & Personal Coach, Business Winning consultant and Trainer. Tim is APMP Deputy Chief examiner and a regular speaker and contributor to APMP.
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Kirste Webb is APMP Fellow with 30+ years’ experience in all facets of business development and marketing services. Kirste is Senior Vice President Business Development at ARS Aleut Remediation. Kirste has twice been the volunteer Chair of APMP and was also instrumental in APMP’s certification program by pushing for an APMP Body of Knowledge (BoK). Kirste also serves as a counselor with the East Tennessee Procurement Technical Assistance Center. She achieved APMP Certification – Foundation Level, and holds Bachelor’s degree and MBA from the University of Phoenix.
EPISODE 4
Eric Gregory has 42 years experience in business development, capture and proposal operations.
Eric has been honoured with APMP’s highest service award, the William C. McCrae Memorial Award, he also received CACI’s top honor for service excellence, the Admiral Thomas H. Moorer Award.
Eric is APMP-certified proposal professional (APMP CPP) and an APMP Fellow, Twice ex. CEO of APMP
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COMING SOON...
Publish Date :30th May
2020
EPISODE 30
Jim K. McCarthy career spans over 37 years of marketing and proposal strategy creation, proposal development, and oral presentation coaching in support of contractors seeking to expand their market shares or to enter the government contracts market sector. As a founder of AOC Key Solutions, he built an organization that, since its inception, has played a part in winning more than $184 billion in federal contract awards for its clients.
Jim frequently serves as a conference guest speaker or panel moderator on topics ranging from leadership to winning government contracts through every legitimate means available. He has served in an advisory role with the George Washington University, Virginia Science and Technology Campus, Technology Accelerator and has been a frequent speaker with the George Mason University Procurement and Technical Assistance Center. Jim has also served on the board of the Veterans Institute for Procurement GovCon Council. In February 2016, Jim was named to Executive Mosaic’s Washington 100 as one of the top–100 most influential leaders in the government contracting arena. He currently serves on advisory boards for the USO-Metro and the National Contract Management Association.
Since 2016, Jim has served at the Chairman of the Board of Rekor Systems, Inc., a publicly traded technology and AI company traded on NASDAQ: REKR.
Publish Date :1st June 2020
EPISODE 31
Brenda Crist has 25 years of experience providing capture, proposal, and program management support for information technology companies serving the Federal market. She is currently the Vice President at the Lohfeld Consulting Group. Prior to becoming a full-time proposal professional, Ms. Crist served as a Group Manager for OAO Corporation and Project Manager for Harris Corporation. She has provided onsite system, application, and network management solutions for civilian and military clients. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from American University. She is certified at the Professional Level from the Association of Proposal Management Proposals and has delivered APMP certification training to hundreds of students since 2011. She is a Fellow of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) and former Chapter Chairperson of the Year.
Publish Date :3rd June 2020
EPISODE 32
Mel Smith is a Senior Business Winning Consultant with Harmonic with a track record of winning bids in the commercial and public sectors worth up to £1.4bn. Mel has a varied career background spanning Graphics, Marketing and Communications for International Investment Banks, Asset Management Companies and Hedge Funds as well as having owned her own Florist business before returning to the corporate life and the world of bidding.
Mel has been a member of APMP since 2012. Mel is current past UK APMP chair and is 2020 conference director. She is member of the APMP UK Chapter Board since 2018 where she held Marketing & Communications Director and Vice Chair positions. Mel led the delivery of chapter’s strategic goals, building on its current comms and engagement activity and developing the way chapter engage effectively with its members. Mel is also an International APMP Board Member since Jan 2020.
Publish Date :6th June 2020
EPISODE 33
Bruce Farrell is proposal director for Plante Moran’s consulting group. He leads a multi-national team who provide proposal, presentation, and other practice development related support. He is also a design geek who specializes in bringing strong design principles to brands, proposals, presentations, and other business documents. He particularly enjoys using thoughtful design to help people create documents that can make an impact. Bruce is a frequent presenter at Association of Proposal Management Professional (APMP) events, primarily focusing on presentation or proposal design. He is a member of APMP’s International Board of Directors.
Publish Date :9th June 2020
EPISODE 34
Larissa Cornelius owns nFold, a South African proposal consultancy that inspires success through words that win. She is the current chair of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) SA chapter. She has over 17 years’ business development and operational experience. She is a certified APMP Professional and was voted as one of the 40-under-40 APMP professionals in 2018. By combining proposal best practice with her operational and sales background, she actively promotes the proposal profession and helps businesses to win more. She is passionate about proposals and following best practices; as winning proposals ethically – improves lives, by creating and retaining jobs.
Publish Date :12th June 2020
EPISODE 35
Sonya Wooley is the President of Mammoth Technologies, LLC, a small boutique proposal firm specializing in proposal management for small business federal contractors. She has over fifteen years of experience in business development, proposal preparation and management, and pricing for federal government opportunities. She has generated proposals valued from $25 thousand to over $1 billion, acting as both Proposal Manager and Capture Manager for small to mid-sized government contracting firms. Sonya has a MA in Behavioral Science from University of Houston-Clear Lake, and received her BA in History from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She has served as the Chapter Chair for the Lone Star Chapter of APMP for seven years, served on the international board of APMP from 2015 to 2016, and currently serves on multiple APMP committees
Publish Date :14th June 2020
EPISODE 36
Chris Whyatt has spent the last 25 years of his career working in the adjacent disciplines of sales and bidding. After winning major £10m pa deals with British Gas, Barclays Bank and the Halifax Building Society in the late 90’s, Chris established Practical Bid Solutions Limited (PBSL) as an independent bid consultancy. This work led to more involvement with sales improvement programmes, and as a result, PBSL was rebranded as Get to Great in 2008 and he supported 100+ small and big organisations such as VMware, McAfee, NICE Systems, Camelot , HP, Glory, LivePerson, Virtual Clarity, G2Speech, Cyient, NetApp, Fujitsu, Babcock, NTT, SIMS and Babcock.
Chris has been delivering training programmes for TechUK for 15 years and has supported clients on ~50 major deals, co-created 25 business winning frameworks, trained ~1,000 people in sales and bid aspects of business. Chris co-founded the UK chapter of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) in 2001 with Jon Williams and served on the Board as COO for the first 3 years. He was a Fellow of the Sales Leadership Alliance, which rebranded as the Association of Sales Professionals.
Chris has conducted extensive research into improving the working relationship between sales and bid, publishing his second paper on this subject in January 2020.
Publish Date :16th June 2020
EPISODE 37
Carl Dickson is the founder of CapturePlanning.com and PropLIBRARY. Carl is a proposal manager, writer, trainer, and coach. A career spanning 30 years, Carl has published over a thousand articles, whitepapers, books, and training materials. The articles he publishes reach over 100,000 professionals every week and over 7 million professionals have visited his websites.
As a speaker, Carl has presented at conferences and events sponsored by (APMP); Society for Marketing Professional Services; Marketing Research Association; Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Assoc. (AFCEA); FOSE; Deltek; Fairfax County Community Business Partnership; Government Contracting Institute; and the Washington DC Office of Contracting and Procurement.
Publish Date :18th June
2020
EPISODE 38
Krystn Macomber has more than 17 years of experience in various marketing and pursuit roles within the architecture/engineering/
She regularly serves as a trainer and workshop leader in her roles at work and throughout the industry, including for the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP). She also regularly presents on marketing and pursuit best practices to small and diverse-owned businesses throughout California.
Krystn serves as the marketing manager for Burns & McDonnell’s California regional operations where she is responsible for strategic marketing and pursuit efforts across the state.
Krystn is currently serving a three-year term for the APMP International executive committee as vice chair, chair, and past chair. She previously served in various board of director roles, including chapter chair, for APMP California, APMP Greater Midwest, and APMP National Capital Area chapters. In 2018, Krystn was selected as the APMP Bid & Proposal Industry Executive of the Year and recognized as an APMP Fellow, the organization’s highest honor.
Publish Date :24th June
2020
EPISODE 39
Olessia Smotrova, CF.APMP Fellow, the president of OST Global Solutions, Inc. has more than 20 years of experience in business development. She led winning bids for four out of the five top government contractors, winning more than $22 billion over the course of her career. She is the author of the book How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of $1 Trillion Pie, and seven other books. She has taught a graduate course for the Stevens Institute of Technology, and provided training to Treasury and NASA. She has served for 2 years as the President of the National Contracts Management Association (NCMA) Bethesda/Medical Chapter, and for 2 years as the President of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) National Capital Area Chapter. She is recognized as an APMP Fellow for her contributions to the field of capture and proposals – the highest honor in the business development profession. Her skills span every aspect of business development, sales, and marketing. Prior to supporting hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and small businesses as a proposal consultant and growing OST, she worked as a business developer for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and wrote for the Financial Times of London.
And more….