Listen in: Executive Quick Bites Podcast

APMP Business Sector Hosts New Online Show

APMP’s Business Sector recently launched a new podcast, Executive Quick Bites, hosted by Jody Alves, Business Sector chair and senior proposal writing specialist at International Game Technology (IGT), and Jamie Ninneman, senior director of customer success and advocacy at SAP America. The podcast stands out, even in these COVID-19-era, programming-rich times, by providing easily digestible conversations with senior-level and adjacent-role leaders on topics that reflect member requests and current events.

Here’s what you can expect from the first three episodes:

Episode 1: It’s All About the Function
Conversation with Roby Luna, President, Aretec, Inc.

In this episode, Luna discusses his past experience contributing to the proposal process as a technical writer, as well as his plans to build and grow a proposal center for his company Aretec. While Aretec primarily serves the federal space, Business Sector members can hear Luna’s observations on the strategic role of proposal management in driving his company’s success.

Quick bite: “My partner and I developed a [phrase] recently where we say, ‘If you’re not bidding, you’re not winning.’ As a result, that’s [become] part of our fabric, where we feel the proposal management process is the lifeblood of the company.”

Episode 2: Originally, I Wanted to Be a Fighter Pilot
Conversation with Andrew Hough, Founder and CEO, Association of Professional Sales

Hough shares his perspective on how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the global sales landscape and discusses the humanization of sales engagements, acceleration of digital transformations, addictive leadership — and why he never became a fighter pilot.

Quick bite: “If you take [a trend like] globalization and then overlay the context of the pandemic, that’s really accelerated the requirement to change and to look at things differently. What we’re now starting to see is an emergence of sales leaders who are being forced to look at what’s happened over the last 60 to 90 days and accelerate the fact that they need to change because what’s going to happen over the next 60 to 90 days is somewhat known, but the next three to six quarters is very unknown and, therefore, [their leadership has] to evolve.”

Episode 3: Concierge Service
Conversation with Katharine Hazard Flynn, Executive Director, Business Engagement Center at the University of Rhode Island

The University of Rhode Island (URI) is one of a growing number of higher learning institutions that has formalized the process and created a gateway to productive partnerships with companies, from entrepreneurial startups to major corporations. Flynn discusses the URI Business Engagement Center’s concierge role, how businesses with one “ask’” find multiple benefits and why the partnerships are a win-win for students, businesses, the university and the economy.

Quick bite: “Any university that’s thinking about their future should be thinking about relationships with their local or regional corporations. Their students are going to need jobs, they’re going to need to have research and other activities from industry. We have industry [professionals] coming in to use our labs … to do speaker series — all of these things are really important. Students are hungering for that real-world conversation.”

Upcoming episode topics include alternative ways to measure process and proposal relevance to the customer, as well as humanizing the sales experience. Members can share ideas for future topics and feedback on podcast episodes at businesssector@apmp.org.

Visit APMP.org/group/businesssector to learn more about the APMP Business Sector and the Executive Quick Bites podcast, or you can visit APMP.org and select “Business Sector” under the Chapters and APMP Communities menus. 

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