Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts

A proposal center can define and implement best practices for proposal development, standardize the company's output, and raise the overall level of quality. It can create and maintain a pool of information and reusable content. It can become a repository of expertise in the intricacies of procurement rules and contracting policies. It can supply expert help to get major proposals done on time. And most important of all, a dedicated proposal team can be a valuable asset that helps the company win more business.

Typically, a proposal function that is well integrated into marketing and customer relationship activities will play a broader role in business development than simply writing proposals. Other roles and contributions for the proposal team may include:

• Developing standard tools for customer assessments, such as an Opportunity Assessment Worksheet, that focus on customer needs, issues, goals, and so on.

• Participating in account planning and competitive assessments prior to or at the outset of a bid opportunity

• Participating in bid/no bid analysis

• Assuring that proposal development resources are applied to those opportunities with the most strategic value to the organization

• Maintaining a repository of current, persuasive, reusable content

• Developing and maintaining win themes related to specific product and service offerings

• Researching trends, issues, and themes, both on a customer-specific basis and in terms of the market in general

• Acquiring expertise on the procurement rules that govern how contracts are awarded, particularly for government clients, so the account manager will know how much he or she can do before the release of the RFP to influence its content or even to circumvent it by moving the opportunity to sole source status

• Implementing formal methods to assess the competition, both for specific opportunities and in general, and publishing competitive information to benefit the organization as a whole

• Writing or assembling a large percentage of each proposal

• Attending bidders' conferences

• Attending customer debriefings, regardless of a win or loss

As the preceding list suggests, in defining the mission of your proposal center, you should probably think a little beyond proposals.

If your proposal operation is a support organization, you may find it necessary to establish a formal process by which you take on projects. By requiring your internal clients to enter into a "contract" with your operation, you can clearly establish roles, responsibilities, and expectations on both sides. The contract should define the proposal project, timeline, charge rate (if any), scope of effort, and deliverables. Using a contract will prevent conflicts and missed expectations and may even enhance your role as a strategic resource within the firm.