Winning more proposals by finding the meaning and purpose in them

Obsessing over the deadline and resource pressure that defines most proposal efforts can make you forget about other important things and limit your ability to maximize your win rate — not to mention it can also lead to total burnout. It’s a curious dilemma and a bit counter-intuitive but obsessing over getting your proposal done can help you lose.

So take a moment and put away your deadline and resource pressures. Take a moment to think about the purpose of it all. Because the purpose is more than making your deadlines and surviving the experience. It’s more than simply winning. Proposal writing should have meaning.

Purposeful proposal writing

Do you write to fulfill, complete, and comply, or do you write with a purpose that gives what you are writing meaning? If so, what is that purpose? 

Proposal writing requires fulfilling requirements and compliance, but those should just be things you write about, and not why you write. Why you write proposals should involve considerations like these:

Do you write proposals to solve problems? Do you write proposals to help people? Do you write proposals to achieve growth for you, your company, and your customer? Are you creating jobs so that people can prosper? Do you write proposals to achieve a mission? Do you write proposals to make your tiny part of the world better off?

If so, then how do you do that? How do you write proposals with a purpose?

The answer is one sentence at a time. One paragraph at a time. One section, one solution, one proposal at a time. But start with a sentence.

What is the point of that sentence? Is your goal in writing that sentence simply to comply with the RFP and complete your assignment? Is that all your customer wants? Or do you write to make a point that supports your broader purpose? Even if your purpose is simply to win, writing to make a meaningful point can make your proposal far more compelling. It can turn proposal writing from a task into something with purpose.

The opposite of writing to make a point is to literally write something that is pointless. It is entirely possible to write a fully compliant proposal that is completely pointless. It turns proposal writing into nothing more than a transaction. The only way you are likely to win by writing a proposal like that is if all the customer cares about is the price.

Writing with purpose is part of competing on something other than price. So start writing with the intention of making a point. Then another. Then another. Just make the points add up to something that matters to the customer. And yourself. 

Does it matter?

If you choose a shallow purpose, you will make points that do not matter. 

For example, you might make the point that your company specializes in something. But this does not matter. It's a skill. It's a qualification. But it is not an outcome. It is a claim with no impact on the customer. If your purpose is to be whatever you need to be or say whatever you need to say to win, then what you have to say won't matter. The customer doesn't care about how great you think you are. And obsessing over how great you are can fill you with pride (good or bad), but it won't give you meaning.

If you choose a purpose that does have an impact, then the points you make in your proposal will have a similar impact. The amount of impact your point has determines how much it matters. It's good to matter. But it's even better when it matters in a way that fulfills your purpose in writing.

If your purpose is to change the world, help organizations fulfill their missions, create jobs, or anything else you find worthy, then write proposals that matter in ways that fulfill your purpose. Write proposals that have a major impact.

But what impact should you have? If you don’t know what major impact would interest the customer, you’ve got a problem. Most companies water their impact down if they think there might be any risk at all of anyone along the way not agreeing with something they said. And when they do this, they water down their purpose until they do not matter. Doing this ignores the fact that customers want they money they are spending to result in something that has a major impact on what matters to them.

Finding meaning

What do you do that has an impact? What matters, both now and in the future? How will all of the stakeholders be impacted? Having an impact brings meaning to a proposal. 

It doesn't have to be the most important thing to you as an individual. It just has to be worthy. It doesn't even have to be a single thing, although that makes it easier to communicate. People rally around worthy causes.

Doing this brings meaning and purpose for your company. It brings meaning and purpose for the staff who will work on their project. It brings meaning and impact for the customer and their stakeholders. It brings meaning and impact for each individual proposal writer.

Proposal writing is not just fulfillment, compliance, and a search for the magic words that can persuade. Proposal writing is about meaning something. Proposal writing with a team of contributors is about finding meaning for everyone involved. 

Proposal writing is not just about making a submission with something that can win. It is a chance to actually matter and have an impact.