The best proposal articles of 2019
This is what happens when you publish every week for 18 years...
2019 adds up to some big numbers
Since we started in 2001, we have had over 8 million visitors. That's nearly half a million visitors a year, on average. Over 71,000 have requested to join our newsletter. Over 3,500 became PropLIBRARY Subscribers.
A lot of people who need to win proposals for their business to succeed give us their attention and we appreciate it so much. I remember when I started down this path and could remember all their names. I still try to respond to nearly all the support requests myself.
The topics we published in 2019 covered a mixture of business development, capture, and proposals, with preparing to win as a common theme.
The best free articles we published in 2019
- Are you one of these 11 kinds of proposal manager?
- How to make better proposal decisions by using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Why you can’t just follow the steps to create a great proposal
- Examples of proposal content planning using MustWin Now
- 47 questions that tell you if the way you are preparing your proposals is any good
- Improving your win rate by asking the right questions
- Proposal writing: 10 before and after examples
- 16 things that need to happen long before proposal writing starts
- How to get ready to win before the RFP is released
- 6 examples of bad proposal writing and how to fix them
In 2019 we released MustWin Now as a free benefit for PropLIBRARY Subscribers
MustWin Now takes our recommendations related to how to win your pursuits, and turns them into a tool. Instead of learning about the MustWin Process via online training and written materials, and then implementing and following it, you simply use MustWin Now. The "process" simply becomes what you do, and what you do makes sense and delivers immediate gratification. And all of our online training and content becomes guidance available within the tool to inspire and accelerate everything people do to win your proposals.
We thought about packaging it as a separate product, but instead we chose to add it on top of all the other benefits of subscribing to PropLIBRARY. We didn't even raise the price. If subscribing to our online training and content library and using it to supercharge your company's growth was worth it before, it is now doubly so.
The best of the premium content we published for PropLIBRARY Subscribers in 2019
Our premium content is far more practical and detailed than the free articles listed above and provides information that is ready to use as checklists, templates, forms, etc. In 2019, we focused on a combination of process tools and and practical resources that can help solve key problems.
- The MustWin Process Architecture
- Assessing the impact of the organizational layer on your process
- Assessing the impact of the input layer on your process
- Assessing the impact of the performance layer on your process
- 6 targets for relationship marketing and 5 ways to reach out to potential customers
- How to build quality into every step of your proposal
- What's the difference between capabilities and corporate experience?
- A simple formula for influencing the RFP
- Why all proposal reviewers need training before every review
- Proposal Quality Validation Implementation FAQs
Looking forward to 2020
Next year, our development efforts will focus on MustWin Now, while our content efforts will focus on integration. By integration, I not only mean integrating content with MustWin Now, but also integrating the articles themselves with how they are used. Think of the titles above organized through a user interface that enables people working on a pursuit to drill down to whatever detail they need in that moment, while using MustWin Now to take action on the recommendations. That's where we're heading.
We're actually already there when it comes to topic coverage. But I want it to be more streamlined and intuitive, and that means reorganizing the content to better fit the new workflow. That ends up being quite a bit more work than it sounds. Don't expect a lot of fireworks and flash. The more intuitive we make things, the less things will stand out. PropLIBRARY and MustWin Now will just be there with what you need, when you need it, and it won't be as hard for you to produce great proposals. What you will notice is your win rate going up while your stress levels go down.
Access to premium content items is limited to PropLIBRARY Subscribers
A subscription to PropLIBRARY unlocks hundreds of premium content items including recipes, forms, checklists, and more to make it easy to turn our recommendations into winning proposals. Subscribers can also use MustWin Now, our online proposal content planning tool.
Carl Dickson
Carl is the Founder and President of CapturePlanning.com and PropLIBRARY
Carl is an expert at winning in writing, with more than 30 year's experience. He's written multiple books and published over a thousand articles that have helped millions of people develop business and write better proposals. Carl is also a frequent speaker, trainer, and consultant and can be reached at carl.dickson@captureplanning.com. To find out more about him, you can also connect with Carl on LinkedIn.
