Business Development Writer - Amanda Cary

Staffing Agreement

The goal of Staffing Agreements1 is to shape every role at Unison Solutions to fit each team member’s skillsets and passions while ensuring that Unison’s requirements are met.

ROLE SUMMARY

The Business Development Writer will make the most impact by creating communication strategies to market Unison product verticals to government, foundations, and other revenue sources through proposals and grants, as well as producing tools that make writing proposals and grants more efficient and effective. Your skill set is critical to our work because you are adept at organizing, prioritizing, tracking, and managing workflows, and you are an expert in technical writing.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. TECHNICAL WRITING/HUMAN CAPITAL PROPOSALS

• Create strategies for convincing others to take action.
• Generate written proposals based on the Solution Architecture business development process and ensure proposals are of good quality and submitted on time.
• Collaborate with various subject matter experts to gather the knowledge needed to create required proposal content and other documentation needed.
• Synthesize information from multiple inputs to write compelling, clear proposals in response to customer requirements.
• Translate talent and tech concepts and explanations into easy-to-understand language.
• Act as a coach and resource to other Talent Proposal Writers, members of the Business Development Team, and other Senior Leaders of Unison to ensure alignment and complete work in a deadline-driven environment.
• Identify constraints/roadblocks and operate and manage within them.
• Develop a deep understanding of the company's products and services to write effective proposals.
• Remain up-to-date with emerging trends, technologies, and methodologies relevant to successful proposal writing.
• Ensure that all proposals are consistent with the company's branding guidelines.
• How we measure success:  1) On Time Submissions, 2) Average Proposal Score, which may be internal or external, 3) Win Rate, which will be a joint target across business development, and 4) proposals align with all branding guidelines and RFP legal and ethical standards.

2. GRANT WRITING

• Write grant proposals across the verticals for funding from government, foundations, and other revenue sources identified by Growth Strategy Director; ensure submitted on time and of good quality.
• Clear understanding of translating human capital talent needs and initiatives into grant proposals.
• Translate talent and tech concepts and explanations into easy-to-understand language.
• How we measure success:  1) On Time Submissions, 2) Average Proposal Score, which may be internal or external, 3) Win Rate, which will be a joint target across business development, and 4) proposals align with all branding guidelines and RFP legal and ethical standards.

3. WRITING TOOLKIT BUILD

• Build out the checklist, playbook and set of tools that makes writing proposals more efficient and effective and streamlines that process while building a set of templates to use on the go forward basis.
• Develop and maintain information architecture model to support easy creation of win strategies. Maintain and evolve this in partnership with Brand and Content Manager and Director of Growth (and other Directors) to ensure our proposals keep pace as our offerings and business model evolves.
• Work with Brand Manager and Content Writer to build out sets of reusable content in order to design more of a plug-and-play approach to the development of commercial, federal, DoD, or grant proposals.
• Support the Director of Growth in establishing a toolkit and refined and repeatable set of content and processes by employing project management skills.
• Identify constraints and roadblocks and operate and manage within them.
• How we measure success: Playbook/toolkit targets met.

4. PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS

• Support execution and development of teaming agreements and partnerships.
• Support the build out partnership agreements as needs are realized.
• How we measure success: Partnership satisfaction survey targets.

5. BRIDGE SOLICITATION TO AWARD / KICK-OFF PHASE

• Support product directors as needed in development of content moving customers and partners from the solicitation phase into partnership and execution with the purpose of identifying and working with the leadership team to bridge any potential gaps.
• Support seamless transition from proposal to execution phase.

6. BUFFER

• This buffer-time allotment accounts for content development, rock participation or management, and special projects as needed.

DOMAIN COMPETENCY & GROWTH

We use the Competency Dictionary to establish a shared language so that everyone at Unison can (a) set clear, explicit expectations, (b) give and receive meaningful feedback, and (c) support our own and each other’s growth. The table below outlines the expectations for your role. The three most important competencies for the role are underlined in orange text.

AUTHORITY & DECISIONS

• Writing projects. You independently manage writing projects and reach out to the needed talent, tech and senior staff to gather information.
• Proposal content. You ensure that proposal content is accurate, complete, meets Unison and customer standards, and is compliant with RFP/solicitation/grant requirements.
• Brand voice. You establish a consistent brand voice and tone across all written proposal material.  

POTENTIAL CHALLENGE AREAS

Below are the potential challenges someone might face in this role:

• Deadlines. You will be challenged to meet tight deadlines and long hours to meet customer timelines.
• Priorities. You will be challenged to change priorities based upon leadership guidance
• Proposal requirements. You will be challenged by the need and ability to understand commercial, DoD, Federal and Grant proposal writing. Each entity has its own unique features that need to be considered when writing the proposal.
• Complex workflows. You will be challenged by dependencies and hand-offs that can create high cognitive load requiring the ability to continuously refine and create better end-to-end flow in the process.

TEAM STRUCTURE

• The BD Writer will report directly to the Director of Growth.

HOURS AND AVAILABILITY

• Hours per week: You will work approximately 32 hours weekly. We operate on a 32-hour work-week model, but we don’t dictate when you work those 32 hours except for our agreed-upon shared spaces (see below).

• Internal availability: You must be available during shared Team Time (Wednesdays 9:30 – 11:30 a.m. MT) and Flex Time (Thursdays 8:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. MT) each week. In addition, you will be invited to—and expected to attend—internal meetings across Unison, including management meetings, planning days, etc. The rest of your time is flexible and will be determined by you, your team, and your clients.
• Remote work: You can work anywhere you’d like! You will need to attend in-person meetings as required with fair advance notice.  
• Client/participant availability: We are committed to being available to clients based on the standard working hours per their time zone. Our clients are based in the United States, so team members who are not in the U.S. must be available for live meetings and other client requests as needed.

THE CANDIDATE

STRENGTHS

Unison is looking for someone who is:

• Meticulous. You create effective, efficient, and prioritized work and contingency plans.
• Savvy. You understand resource requirements and plan accordingly to leverage resources to accomplish tasks.
• Authority. You have practical knowledge of business development, and you prioritize training from reputable organizations to stay up to date in the practice area.
• Collaborative. You show mastery in working with clients and/or stakeholders on projects.
• Resilient. You can successfully take knowledge and apply it to new, different, and increasingly complicated situations and scenarios.
• Guiding. You can build others’ capacity, skill, and expertise in business development.
• Intentional. You select appropriate media to ensure that key points are understood and retained across a variety of audiences.
• Persuasive. You articulate facts, ideas, and opportunities to individuals and groups through effective and compelling writing forms.
• Expressive. You verbally communicate facts, information, and ideas to individuals and groups in an engaging, clear, and succinct manner.

VALUES & CULTURAL ALIGNMENT

It’s essential that all our team members are aligned with our Core Beliefs and Culture Code.

CORE BELIEFS

Core Beliefs are the way we want the external world to experience Unison, which means we also must embody these internally.

• Guide from Beside. We do not sit in ivory towers. We do not tell; we show. We hit the trail with you, help you see what's around the next bend, and lend a helping hand to get up the incline. Your success is our success; your failure is our failure. We walk beside you every step of the way.  
• Create the Conditions. We design content and experiences based on an in-depth understanding of the latest research on adult learning and retention, which indicates that adults learn by doing and by making connections with their head and their heart. Lasting growth and change happen when participants come to conclusions themselves. Our job is to create the conditions and manage the process to guide our clients there, then help them do the same for their team and organization.
• Impact Matters Most. If our clients don’t see and feel a meaningful impact in 3 months, we’ve failed. Everything we do is chunked into 12-week cycles on purpose: it simultaneously creates accountability and demonstrates progress in a reasonable amount of time. If clients don't get what they thought they deserved, we'll give them their money back, no questions asked.
• Go Add Value. Everything we bring to our clients is theirs to keep. Anytime we introduce a tool or framework and teach our clients how to use it, we also help them integrate it into the organization's fabric so it sticks.

CULTURE CODE

The culture code is the way we treat each other internally. Our Culture Codes shape our team climate and culture.

• We believe in the power of organizations to promote the pursuit of meaning in a person’s life. As such, we practice extreme flexibility and intentional community building, create shared agreements between individuals and the organization, and are committed to personal development.
• We believe that change starts with us. We are committed to setting a powerful example and using Unison as a safe space to train ourselves. Get used to hearing “practice what we preach”; nearly all the content we deliver to clients is practiced internally.
• We believe in a growth mindset. We believe a growth mindset builds high-functioning teams while also enabling everyone to thrive both professionally and personally.
• We believe trust is a verb. We know that trust is the foundation of high-performing and happy teams, and see this to be an example of how to build lasting trust in an organization. We practice openness and transparency, create shared expectations, distribute ownership and authority (and accountability), and many other intentional practices.

COMPENSATION

The compensation for this role is an annual salary of $67,000 with 5% 401K matching. The start date is July 17, 2023. The above activities will amount to approximately 32 hours weekly. There may be some weeks that require a heavier workload, balanced by weeks with a lighter workload.

Benefits

Paid Leave

We offer 20 days of accrued PTO and 12-13* company holidays. We also have two week-long office closures for Unison employees to take a team-wide break: 1) the week between Christmas and New Year's and 2) the first week of July.

*If Christmas Eve falls on a workday, we close the office that day.

Insurance

We cover 75% of the team member premium for Medical, Vision, and Dental coverage on the Group Plan and 50% of the premium for one family member, if applicable.

401(k)

We match up to 5% of your salary in a 401k Matching Plan, available immediately upon hire.

Employee Stock Option

Unison is developing an employee stock option that will likely be available by January 1, 2024. This role would be eligible to participate in the stock option once the program is established.

Flexible Hours

We operate on a 32-hour work-week model, but we don’t dictate when you work those 32 hours except for our agreed-upon shared spaces. (See “Hours and Availability” section).

Tech stipend:  Up to $1,200 to be used towards purchasing hardware, such as a monitor, laptop, keyboard, etc. Team members are eligible for this benefit every 3 years, and it is paid as a reimbursement.

Remote work allocation: up to $150/month for approved remote work expenses = up to $1,800 annually.

Additionally, the Director of Operations will have an additional budget to consider implementing policies (e.g. phone and internet reimbursement, increasing the existing amounts). However, until that person comes on board, the above is our starting policy.

Onboarding

It’s important to us that your transition to our organization happens in a way that feels purposeful and well-paced. We have a 90-day onboarding schedule that combines group onboarding activities, solo work, and team-specific onboarding activities.

For context, here is our onboarding schedule:

Week of July 17, 2023

• Basecamp onboarding items (tech set up)
• Solo onboarding study
• A handful of onboarding meetings other new folks will be attending: Tuesday 12 noon-1pm MT, Wednesday 11am-11:30pm MT, Friday 10am-11am MT.

Week of July 24, 2023 – All Team Retreat (virtual)

• Tuesday 7/25, 8:30am-10:30am MT
• Wednesday 7/26, 8:30am-10:30am MT
• Thursday 7/27, 8:30am-10:30am MT

Week of July 31, 2023

Group, solo, and team-specific onboarding continues!

We look forward to you joining the team!