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The goal of writing a proposal is to persuade the customer that you are their best alternative, so that they will accept your proposal. This requires taking into consideration all of the factors that impact whether the customer selects your proposal from among all of their other options. Even if your proposal is the only one under consideration, the customer may decide to do nothing. In fact, sometimes the customer deciding not to do anything can be your greatest competitor.  Who decides what th

Everyone says they have a proposal process. But what little they have on paper to describe it is different from what they actually do in practice. In many ways, the proposal process is something that is in continual development. It’s not something you write down and are done with. But what should concern you is that most of the hundreds of proposal process implementations I have seen have critical flaws. I'm not even talking about procedure mistakes. I'm talking about having the wrong goals and

The RFP is just one source of requirements that drive what you should offer in your proposal. If all you do is design an offering that responds to what is in the RFP, it will be at a competitive disadvantage compared to a proposal submitted by someone with a deeper understanding of the customer and their requirements. To prepare the winning offer, in addition to the RFP, you need to consider: See also: Offering Design What matters to the customer? The customer will make their selection not only

When every company intending to bid is struggling to prepare their proposal, then the one who does the best job of recovering from their mistakes is the one who is most likely to win. It may be counterintuitive, but in addition to giving your attention to implementing best practices, maybe you should give some attention to getting better at submitting imperfect proposals. It takes both offense and defense to win See also: Winning Putting effort into writing a great proposal is like playing offe

Here are some of the strategies that we employ when fixing a broken proposal. I prefer to focus on process and preventing these problems. But once a proposal is broken, it's too late to implement a process. Maybe improving your process can prevent the next proposal from breaking. Fixing this proposal requires a different approach. Often the biggest problem is getting people to realize that they aren't going to be able to submit the glorious proposal they originally envisioned and need to change

Some companies are built on formal hierarchies, with decisions made by someone in charge. Other companies are consensus driven and work through collaboration. Neither approach is right or wrong. Depending on the circumstances, one can be a better fit. However, picking an approach that does not match the culture of the company is doomed to failure. Rather than deliberate over how to determine which approach will work in a given environment, there is a much simpler approach. If you have to ask, th

It would be really great to know if you're going to win a pursuit, or even just have a decent chance at it, before you put all that effort into it. We are driven to really want to quantify our chances of winning a pursuit. We want to make it a science. Really badly. There are several reasons why people need to estimate the probability of win (pwin). It helps to: See also: Winning Determine whether a lead is worth pursuing at all Figure out how much to budget on the pursuit Assign the right st

Don't let the name fool you. An Executive Summary has a specific purpose in a proposal. But it has nothing to do with the name. If you don’t have time to read the whole proposal, what do you want to know? Is it: A little about each section of the proposal? A recitation of your own mission and goals from someone who claims to "understand" them? Information about the company submitting the proposal? Why this proposal is your best alternative for getting the most of what you want? An Executive

It is possible to start at RFP release and win. It may be challenging, maybe even extra challenging. It’s not something you should attempt if you’re going to be ordinary in your approach. It’s not something that should be your routine. But it is one of those things that if you are going to do it, you better seek to do it better than the folks who had time to prepare. But how?  Avoid being disqualified. Do you have the minimum registrations, certifications, and qualifications for their purchasing

Sometimes people get stuck writing a technical proposal about something in which they are not an expert. Sometimes the subject matter experts aren’t available or don’t exist within your organization. You can do research, but you can’t become an expert in a week or even a month. So how do you write a technical proposal that competes against real experts, proves your credibility, and earns your customer’s trust? If you’re the stuckee, we have good news for you. We have a little trick that may work

One of the joys of managing proposals is that none of the people who are drafted to contribute to the proposal actually report to the proposal “manager.” And frequently they are expected to contribute to the proposal after all of their other responsibilities are taken care of. It can be like working two jobs. So even when they want to help out, they often aren’t the most enthusiastic and cooperative people to depend on. Organizations that want to grow will do everything to ensure nothing gets in

Proposal management is needed when you want to go after contracts that are bigger than yourself and you have to work through difference between managing a small proposal and managing a large proposal. Proposal management means answering questions like:  Who issues proposal assignments and who is responsible for fulfilling them? Where do you draw the lines? On the organization chart? Between one person's role and another? How do you allocate proposal resources and perform scheduling? Who defin

When you’re a small business that’s stretched thin, can’t afford specialized resources, and everyone is wearing multiple hats, it’s easy to be intimidated by larger competitors with more employees and assets. But if you match your strengths against their weaknesses, you can consistently beat them. Here’s how: Have Stronger Relationships. Sure, big companies have a lot of staff, but they also have to be everywhere at once. If relationships are key to your line of business, then focus on developin

We like to think that when someone didn’t fully complete an assignment on time even though they accepted it, it was just a problem with motivation. It’s easy to throw shade. But experience shows us that it’s more complicated than that.  It’s also easy to assume there’s an easy solution, like better deadline “enforcement” by The Powers That Be. Or that people should “just follow” the process. But experience shows us that it’s more complicated than that. The key to being able to make improvements

Most people calculate proposal efficiency the wrong way. They calculate it based on how much effort they put into their proposals. This is based on the assumption that less effort always makes things more efficient. And it happens to be a wrong assumption. Efficiency is defined by maximizing productivity with the least amount of wasted effort. Measuring proposal efficiency The productivity of proposal effort is best measured by the amount or percentage won. This means that the efficiency of prop

Your proposal should not be about you. Compare these two approaches to proposal writing: Our approach is to do this and then we do that. We can do this well because we are so qualified.  You will get all this and as a result things will be much better for you and it will be easier for you to do so much more. If you’re talking to a salesperson about something you need, which approach do you want to hear? What does the customer really want? How should you say things in a proposal so that it's wr

Why do so many businesses set themselves up to fail? Just because you are capable of doing the work a customer needs does not mean that you matter. If you don't matter, the only way you can be competitive is on price. The closer you get to a commodity, the more important price is. With a commodity, every vendor is providing the same thing and which vendor you get it from does not matter. The closer you get to a complex solution or services, the more price gives way to credibility and value. If y

How do you go about influencing the customer’s RFP to give your company an advantage? When you start thinking about it and peeling back all the layers, it can seem quite complex. There's a lot to consider. And where should you start? Here is a simple formula that’s easy to memorize and can help you cover all the important aspects of the problem. Who. Who is the customer? Who is the decision maker? Who needs help? Who can make changes to the RFP? Who is playing the contracts role? Who is in charg

Imagine that when the RFP is released, the customer already knows you, and they trust you and your capabilities because you've demonstrated that you have insight into what can help them. You've shown them how to get what they need. Along the way, you’ve made recommendations to ensure the RFP doesn’t contain anything that would be a problem for you, as well as inserting some things that give you an advantage. Most importantly, you’ve gained some insight into the outcomes they are trying to achiev

The proposal process is not about efficient repetition. It is not even primarily about managing the steps that go into creating a proposal. The proposal process is about problem solving, starting with figuring out what it will take to win. It is about solving the problems that arise while trying to win your proposal. Each time you execute the proposal process you will encounter new, unanticipated problems that mostly result from the customer asking for new things, or asking for old things in new