EP141: Dive Into AI Magic on This Week’s RFP Success® Show!
What’s the biggest challenge proposal professionals are facing with AI in RFPs? Is it about how to effectively integrate AI into their workflows, or concerns about losing the human touch in their responses?
On this episode of The RFP Success Show, Lisa Rehurek discusses the rapidly growing role of AI in proposal writing. She answers some of the most pressing questions about AI’s impact on content generation, data analysis, and personalization, along with addressing common concerns around the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated content.
Lisa explains how AI can streamline your proposal process, why it's essential to maintain your unique voice, and what you need to do to prevent your AI-generated content from sounding too fluffy or generic. Tune in for insights on how AI can help you analyze data faster, craft stronger proposals, and ultimately enhance your win rates.
Key Takeaways
How AI is reshaping proposal writing
AI tools help generate initial drafts, analyze competitor proposals, and personalize content, but human oversight is crucial.Why you should never copy-paste AI-generated content
While AI can save time, customizing and editing the output is essential to ensuring your proposal resonates with evaluators.The benefits of AI for content generation
AI can help draft sections of your proposal, suggest language, and create outlines, freeing you to focus on tailoring the response.How AI can help with data analysis
AI can sift through past RFP responses to identify what worked and what didn’t, helping you refine your strategy for future proposals.Maintaining a personal touch in AI-generated proposals
Always combine AI’s efficiency with your expertise and insights to maintain the human element that evaluators are looking for.
Resources
The Role of Contracts in Successful Prime + Sub Partnerships on RFP Success EP036
How to Develop Your RFP Pricing Strategy on RFP Success EP081
Book a Call with the RFP Success Company
The RFP Success Book by Lisa Rehurek
RFP Success Show EP141 Transcription
Intro:
This is the RFP Success Show, the go-to podcast for RFP responding companies and professionals that are ready to ramp up their RFP win rates. Get ready for tools and resources, lessons learned by industry experts, and hot strategies to help your proposal stand out. Here's your host, bestselling author, speaker, and CEO of the RFP Success Company, Lisa Rehurek.
Lisa Rehurek:
Welcome to the RFP Success Show. I'm Lisa Rehurek, founder and CEO of the RFP Success Company and your host for this podcast. And today we're talking about an exciting topic that's transforming the landscape of proposal writing, and that is artificial intelligence. We're going to actually be doing two episodes on this. This is the first episode, and the next episode that we release will be part two.
Diving into more specifics around prompts, but today in this episode, we're going to explore how AI is reshaping the art of crafting proposals and how you can leverage this technology to enhance your RFP responses. So whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, grab your headphones. Let's get started.
So first, let's talk about what AI really is. At its core, it's a little bit of a dry definition, I'm actually going to read this: Artificial intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn. Okay, I'm going to read that again. Artificial intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn.
Now, why am I telling you this? Because by now, everybody is very familiar with AI. I'm telling you this because there is a simulation, right, of human intelligence. But it cannot replace human intelligence, and there is this big fear around AI. There's some legitimate fears for sure. But in the proposal world, one of the fears is that it's going to replace people. And I just don't believe that to be true.
Now, is it going to replace writers to some degree? Maybe, but it's not going to replace proposal managers. It's not going to replace the strategic writing, the persuasive writing, the writing that takes everything that you know about your client and pulls it together. I don't believe it's going to completely replace that, at least not in the short term. Maybe someday.
But, you know, in the context of proposal writing, AI can be this fantastic, amazing tool for us. It can analyze data, it can identify patterns, it can generate content. I don't know about you, but I'd rather edit content than start from a blank screen. There's nothing more daunting than staring at a blank piece of paper and trying to get started, revving up that writing engine.
And so I love artificial intelligence. We use it a lot for miscellaneous things. But I tell you what, there's so much to it. And we're going to dive into that today.
That can make it a bad thing. We've had clients come to us and say, "Hey, can you review this RFP response? I generated it all out of AI," and for lack of a better term, it's crap. It's just brutally written. AI can get really fluffy. It likes its adjectives. It uses a lot of crazy words like "robust," and the evaluators are getting smart with this. They can see it now. I can see it. A lot of us can see when something is written by AI because it's just too fluffy.
So we're going to talk about the things you need to do to make sure that it doesn't come out fluffy. But the first thing I want to tell you is, please, please, please do not just drop in a prompt, get an answer, and copy and paste it and move on. You've got to still massage it. It's going to save you a ton of time. And as you learn AI better, you're going to get better results, but the intent is never for AI to be the sole writer. It's meant to give you some content that you can go in and edit and customize.
So let's talk about how exactly AI is reshaping proposal writing, and I'm going to break it down into three areas.
The first one is content generation. This is the most obvious. This is the one that everybody's using it for, right? So AI tools can really help generate text based on the prompts that you provide. So imagine having a tool that drafts the sections of your proposal, suggests language, or creates outlines based on your previous submissions. That can save you amazing amounts of time and allow you to focus on tailoring your responses to meet specific client needs.
So if you're just, again, dropping in a prompt, getting the output, copying and pasting, and moving on, that's doing you a disservice because it's not going to be a great proposal.
So just know you need to customize it. Yes, AI can create your content, your first draft, but it is essential to infuse your unique voice and insights. The magic really happens when you combine that AI-generated content with your expertise.
The second area is data analysis. One of the fun things about AI is that it excels at analyzing large volumes of data very quickly. This means that you can leverage AI to sift through past RFP responses, maybe identifying what worked and what didn't. If you've got, like my old employer, a gazillion competitor proposals because every time they bid on something, they do a FOIA request and get copies of those proposals.
And you could take, let's say, two or three of your competitor proposals and have AI analyze them and give you key outputs of what they're doing really well. So instead of, in the past, having to comb over those and spend hours and hours with them side by side, AI can now do that for you and help pinpoint trends and preferences in the evaluation process.
So here's another example. If you notice that proposals with specific types of case studies, for example, tend to win more often, then you can incorporate similar elements into your future responses. So that AI comparison, however you do it, whether it's yours against another competitor's or your winning proposals to get the trends, all of that can give you a more data-driven approach, which will significantly enhance your chances of success as you take those lessons learned and put them into new future proposals.
And then personalization. AI has a powerful ability to personalize content. The more you put into AI, the more it's going to learn about you and your business, your experiences, and your voice. It can analyze your preferences, past projects, and even feedback on previous proposals, which we just talked about.
So with that information, you can tailor your responses to address your clients' specific needs. So you might even now I'm going to say this, and then I'm going to say, please be careful with this. But you could even put, let's say that you're bidding on something in the state of Alaska. You can prompt it to drop in some priorities that the state of Alaska has around a specific topic. My caution there is that AI is not always right. It's still being developed in a way that's going to give you good outputs, but you can do that.
And then that gives you a baseline for what you need to go research to just make sure that data is correct. So. You know, think about ways that you can do that. Imagine submitting a proposal that not only meets a requirement, but also speaks directly to the client's goals and challenges. Talked
about that a little bit in our last podcast episode about how important research is. AI can actually even lend itself to that, but you gotta make sure it's right. I actually used AI when I first started playing with it to write a bio for me, a biography for me. And oh my gosh, it was great in a lot of ways. It was really bad in a lot of ways. And then it gave me credit for writing three books that I had not written. The titles were phenomenal. As a matter of fact, one of them is kind of on my radar for a potential book down the road. And it said a couple of other things about me that were definitely not true. So you just have to be careful with that.
Another thing that AI can do is it can really streamline collaboration among team members. So by centralizing information and providing that platform for real-time feedback, AI tools can help ensure that everyone is on the same page, which you want to make sure that you're doing within your preference. By organization. Unless it's just you. But if there's anybody else that's
using AI, you guys want to be in the same tool. You probably want to have some cadence for what your prompts look like and what type of voice you want AI to come out with. It starts getting really individualized. But as a company, you really want it to be the company voice, the brand voice. So you want to make sure that you have a streamlined process that you're guiding your team into how you want to be using your AI tool so that everybody is on the same page.
Now, let's address some common concerns about using AI in proposal writing, because there are a lot of them. I understand that the general population, I think, is wary of AI for good reason. And again, I think in the proposal world, same thing. There's good reason for us to be concerned, but also it's here. It's not going anywhere. It's only going to continue to be a player in our space. So we should embrace it
and use it in a way that enhances what we do and not be afraid of it. If we're afraid of it, and we kind of set it off to the side and hope it goes away, it's not going to go away.
So one of the biggest fears is losing the human touch. Right. And for those of us that have been in the proposal world for a long time, we worry about that. And we know how important that human touch is. So while AI can assist in generating content, it's crucial to remember that really proposals are ultimately about relationships. So your insights, your passion, and your understanding of the client's needs are irreplaceable and that will show. I said a little while ago, evaluators are starting to get savvy around AI-generated proposals. They can see them coming a mile away, so you want to make sure that they don't feel that out of yours. You want to use AI to its maximum potential, but you don't want it to look
like you used AI to its maximum potential.
Second, there's a concern about accuracy and AI for sure. It's a powerful tool. I keep saying that, but it's not infallible. Always review and edit AI-generated content because you want to make sure that it aligns with your brand, meets the client expectations, and isn't just telling this crazy story that doesn't connect with you all at all.
And then finally, let's talk about the future. As AI continues to evolve, and it will, we can expect even more sophisticated tools that are going to revolutionize the proposal process. So staying informed about these advancements is going to be the key to maintaining a competitive edge. The more you're ahead of the game, the less you'll be coming from fear, and the more you'll be able to leverage the tools in a way that gets you more wins in less time.
This episode is brought to you by RFP
Success Express, the first and only small business one-stop shop, affordable technology platform to guide you from sourcing all the way through writing. Just visit rfpsuccess.express to learn more.
All right, so let's talk about integrating AI into your proposal writing process. I'm sure there are a whole bunch of you listening. They're like, Oh, yeah, we're doing that. We've been doing it for a year, two years, whatever that is. So wherever you are in the process, if you're new, I want you to explore AI tools. Actually, even if you've been doing this for a while, and you're kind of stuck on one, I love ChatGPT. It's just because that's where I started, but I play around with a whole bunch of other tools as well to see if I can find another one. We're actually developing our own AI tool that's going to launch in November later this year of 2024, where it's going to really help guide you through the prompt process. Those prompts are so crucial to the output
that you get from AI.
So just explore the different tools. Research the tools specifically designed for proposal writing or content generation, data analysis, those collaboration tools that I talked about. And then also start small. So this is for those of you who have not really started delving into this yet. Start by using AI for specific tasks. So for example, just play with one question in an RFP and start playing around with it. Gradually expand its use as you become more comfortable, but don't let it intimidate you. It's a simple tool. There's a lot to learn about it, but you can just start playing right out of the gate.
Another thing is to maintain your voice. Always, always infuse your unique insights and style into that AI-generated content. We're going to talk about this a little bit more in the next episode where we dig deeper into prompts. Those prompts are so important for getting the good
output, as I've said probably several times already, but also for maintaining your voice. The combination of using AI, but also getting those prompts right, will make your proposals resonate more with the evaluators.
And then stay updated, keep an eye on emerging AI trends and technologies. That landscape is changing so quickly and being informed is going to help you adapt even more. The quicker you learn it now, the easier it's going to be to learn and adapt to the new tools that will be coming out.
So as we wrap up today's episode, I want you to remember that AI is not, not, not, not a replacement for your expertise. It is a powerful tool and can really enhance your proposal writing process. And so when you embrace it, you can save time, improve accuracy, create more personalized and compelling proposals, but you still have to have skin in the game. You've got to edit that. You've got to customize it.
All right, everybody. Thank you for tuning into the RFP Success Show. If you found value in today's discussion, please share it with your network and leave a review. As always, your support helps us reach more professionals navigating the RFP landscape. So until next time, keep innovating and leveraging new tools to elevate your proposal. Here's to your success in the world of RFPs. Cheers.
Outro:
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