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

Putting the right people in the right jobs is a critical factor in developing a center of excellence. Training them to do those jobs to the best of their ability is another. Based on having clear definitions of roles and responsibilities, you should be able to develop a training map for each job in the proposal unit. The three components of effective training include formal training, mentoring activities, and on-the-job experiences. Thus, your training maps should integrate all three of these activities—in conjunction with proper goal setting—to give your staff the highest opportunity for success.

In terms of the necessary formal training, your proposal specialists should receive some of the typical training already offered within your company. But much of the curriculum will be specific to the skills required of a proposal center employee:

Principles of Persuasion

• Structural patterns for effective proposal writing—the persuasive paradigm, the structure of the executive summary, the pattern for effective case studies, resumes, answers, and so on.

• Value propositions and win themes

• ROI models and company differentiators

Proposal Project Management

• Managing the project

• Collaboration skills

• Analyzing the RFP

• Bid/no bid issues

• Developing a writing plan, distributing effort

• Handling production issues

• Time/organization management

Writing Skills

• Sentence structure for clarity

• Modifying text for different audience types

• Techniques for writing component parts of proposals

Use of Office Tools:

• Word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software

• E-mail system

• Proposal automation tools

• Web-based search tools, particularly internal sites