Make These Three Shifts to Become a Better Proposal Writer

If the trickiest part of proposals was the process of preparing a compliant document with text and multiple graphics for submission, winning would be a lot easier. In the end, answering every requirement may prevent a proposal from being thrown out, but getting the win themes and subject matter expertise captured in hard-hitting text that speaks straight to the customer’s needs is what makes a winning difference. That winning prose is hard to produce. It takes a lot of time and effort and it causes prolonged suffering to everyone involved. Unfortunately, most pursuits do not get blessed with Stephen King-like engineers who can bang out several sections in a day, and they have limited budgets that don’t allow hiring a band of consultants. So, how can you get your team to write well?

It is an uphill battle. Authors usually face time limitations due to juggling their “day” jobs with proposal assignments. They also suffer from lack of confidence in their writing skills, writer’s block, procrastination, lack of exposure to basic writing tools and techniques, and bad habits such as indiscriminate reuse of old proposal text. Many people in technical professions seem to have the holy fear of writing the same way some non-technical people dread math.

The trouble is that proposal managers’ common bag of tricks with annotated outlines, requirements-filled storyboards, and threats to enforce deadlines does just the opposite of getting people to free up their time and get their creativity flowing. Motivation, creativity, and inspiration originate from the place opposite of linear thinking, forms, and threats. This is why storyboards are scarcely useful and often get abandoned after their review, when the “real writing” starts. Storyboards actually come from the movie industry, and they are based on the script that is already written. This tool was not created for people who do not yet know what to write. Paradoxically, just starting to write or issuing section assignments without instructions leads to an even worse output than using storyboards. It is often a difficult and tricky leap a proposal makes from storyboards to a good first draft.

Proposal Management: How Did We Get There? Where Are We Going? How Are We Going to Get There?

Proposal management has made great strides as a profession in the last decade. It is easy to forget the laments we had a few years ago about some company leaders thinking of proposals as an administrative job. Once in a while we get a reminder, though: when I attended the 2013 APMP International Bid & Proposal Con Chapter Officers Workshop, a woman from Egypt erupted into a passionate speech about the plot of proposal professionals in the Middle East where companies still believe them to be glorified admins, while truthfully they are the lifeblood and the growth engine of an organization.

“Picasso Method” for Proposal Graphics That Work

Picasso’s famous quote, “Good artists copy; great artists steal,” might as well have been about proposal art. Great proposal graphics can be born in various ways, but “stealing” a concept and making it something that is your own, something completely different from its original version and uniquely applicable to the current bid, is the fastest way to create them.

Do’s and Don’ts of Risk Management Sections

There is no better way to convince a potential customer that yours is the right company for the job than to demonstrate a true understanding of the risks the program will be up against and to come up with plans to mitigate those risks upfront. But in many proposals, the risk management section ends up as a missed opportunity to shine at best and a setback at worst. Rather than showcasing a real knowledge and understanding of the program and proposed solutions, the risk section falls flat or actually does harm.