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A dozen versions of the same paragraph, with more than 50 things done wrong and how to correct them.

Don't look at filling your pipeline as one big monumental task. Divide and conquer. Do this based on defining categories for your leads and setting targets. People often look for “a” source of leads, when they should be looking for all of the potential sources of leads.  But what percent of your leads should come from each? This varies a great deal, company by company. What you don’t want to do is chase them all with the results being random, because then your company will grow like a weed.

What’s the point of it all? What does the customer want to hear from you? What do they need to complete their paperwork? What makes you their best alternative? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking as you prepare to write an Executive Summary for a proposal. To answer them, you need these four things: A winning solution or offering design. You can’t articulate why the customer should care about what you are offering, if you yourself don’t know what you are offering. You n

The things you need to communicate, your priorities, and the best sequence for presenting them should change from proposal to proposal, based on what it will take to win. If you always write your Executive Summary in the same sequence with the same topics in the same order, you should reexamine your priorities. Start with two simple questions: What does the customer want to see? What do you need to say? What you want to say should match what the customer wants to see. Usua

This is the electronic version of the tutorial we publish. It addresses: It also includes and a sample to show how the pieces come together. Writing different types of Executive Summaries Why an Executive Summary might not actually contain a summary How to introduce yourself in writing Multiple strategies for preparing to write an Executive Summary How to incorporate your win strategies into writing the Executive Summary Advice for how to format your E

what matters to the customer.

Often preparing the pricing is that last thing people do when working on a proposal. This is especially true with proposals for services where people have to figure out what their offering is going to be before they can price it. However, a good argument can be made that proposal pricing should be done first. In between those two sits the basis of estimate (BOE).  A BOE is a combination of the data and formulas you’ll use to calculate an estimate, such as the price for doing something. A

Information gathered pre-RFP must be assessed and become part of proposal content planning for it to reliable find its way into the proposal document. Creating the items described in this exercise can help you streamline and integrate these efforts.

In between collecting proposal input and the outline/compliance matrix is the kickoff meeting. The kickoff meeting is an opportunity to integrate efforts and get everyone on the same page.

Proposal development should not be treated as an expense to be minimized. It is an investment as part of the cost of sales. When you compare what an increase in win rate does to your revenue, you find that the investment generates a positive return. Decreasing the investment leads to a lower win rate, and what that does to your revenue is create a death spiral. The trick is to lower proposal development costs without lowering your win rate. A winning proposal is one that is based on what yo

The customer?s key concerns are often unspoken. While the RFP will ask you to describe your qualifications, it often won?t say that they are asking for your qualifications so they can determine whether they should trust you. When you realize this, you can write about your qualifications in the context of proving that you are trustworthy. Talking directly to the customer?s concerns gives the customer more of what they are really looking for and raises the apparent value of your proposal.

This is an example of a solution that we prepared for someone else. The solution that we prepare for you will be based on your particular needs. However, it’s a good way for you to get an idea of how we work and a great way to start a conversation about how your needs are similar or different. The Customer’s Circumstances. A company with international offices contacted us about proposal training for 500-600 people. They weren’t sure what to do because it just wasn’t economical to send an in

This is an example of a solution that we prepared for someone else. The solution that we prepare for you will be based on your particular needs. However, it’s a good way for you to get an idea of how we work and a great way to start a conversation about how your needs are similar or different. The Customer’s Circumstances. A company wanted training in proposal writing provided at their site. They were potentially interested in other services, but wanted to start off with the training.

This is an example of a solution that we prepared for someone else. The solution that we prepare for you will be based on your particular needs. However, it’s a good way for you to get an idea of how we work and a great way to start a conversation about how your needs are similar or different. The Customer’s Circumstances. A company with multiple business lines (B2B and B2G) wanted to improve the quality of their proposal writing and accelerate their proposals. Their initial plan was to imp

This is an example of a solution that we prepared for someone else. The solution that we prepare for you will be based on your particular needs. However, it’s a good way for you to get an idea of how we work and a great way to start a conversation about how your needs are similar or different. The Customer’s Circumstances. There were two customers. One was a government contractor that wanted to see how their proposals stacked up against our standards. The other was a small mom and pop finan

One of the most common questions we get is, "What should my proposal look like?" So when a company we’ve teamed with many times in the past started talking about producing some templates to help people format their proposals, we told them we have a few thousand friends who might be interested. As a result of that conversation, we now have a bunch of proposal formats available. Only these aren’t just any proposal formats. These are designed by the 24 Hour Company. If you don’t know them, the

Winning proposals is about information. But that knowing that fact alone is not enough to produce a competitive advantage. Gathering a bunch of information does not magically lead to winning. Winning is not even based on who gathers the most information. Here are five steps to gain an information advantage and turn it into a competitive advantage. Figure out what information you need and get it. The secret here is that you need to develop the right relationships and ask the right questio

One of our customers had asked us to provide them with training so they could do a better job of preparing for an upcoming proposal. Naturally, before the training could get started they received notice that a customer was about to release an RFP, and had released a draft. So we incorporated the draft into the training. But the approach we took surprised me with how effectively it opened their eyes, how well it reached beyond just the proposal specialists, and how it contributed to real organiza

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