Insights from a Decade of Experience
Over the past decade, we’ve worked on close to 400 proposals. As a result of this experience, we have a pretty good idea of what evaluators and looking for and how to help our clients put their best foot forward. Here are our seven hallmarks of a winning proposal.
1. A Design and Layout that Communicates Professionalism
“The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan. In the context of business, it suggests that your proposal’s design and layout may communicate as much about your firm and its service offering as the written word.
A visually engaging cover page, smartly organized table of contents, graphics to help the reader understand complex ideas or processes, and the careful use of white space on every page will accomplish two vital objectives. It will make your document imminently more readable, and it will confer professionalism upon your organization.
2. An Executive Summary that Helps Evaluators Connect the Dots
An executive summary should not be considered a “nice to have” or an afterthought. We encourage clients to see it as two to three pages that may be the difference between a winning and losing proposal – if carefully crafted.
An executive summary should act as a road map to your proposal, offering evaluators a preview of the journey your submission will take them on, addressing their most important considerations along the way. And when evaluation criteria are provided, an executive summary that highlights how specific features of your proposal address
each point makes it far easier for an evaluator to give full marks to your responses.
3. A Well-Written Proposal that’s Easy to Read
It’s essential to keep in mind that your proposal is one of many that evaluators will review. Well-written proposals are not only easier to read, but they also lend credence and credibility to a firm’s responses.
In addition to avoiding any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, there are many writing techniques to improve your proposal’s readability. As much as possible, we recommend writing in short, succinct sentences and breaking up copy into easy-to-digest paragraphs. Writing in the active voice, avoiding excessive industry specific jargon, defining the first instance of all acronyms, and using styles consistently will also improve your proposal’s readability. Most important, however, structure your responses to make the RFPs questions precisely, point by point.
4. A Document that Communicates Beyond the Written Word
Most first rely almost exclusively on the written word to persuade evaluators that their firm is the best possible choice. This approach ignores some compelling ways to communicate your unique value proposition.
For example, let’s say your firm has an enviable track record of deploying your solution within a specific industry or sector of the economy relevant to your proposal’s evaluators. We would want to reinforce this strength beyond the written word. Including infographics that highlight your firm’s industry expertise, brief client quotes or testimonials as sidebars or graphics, and sector-specific images with detailed captions are excellent ways to communicate information that complements the written word.
5. Connecting Past Project Success to a Client’s Specific Pain Points
Many organizations fall into the trap of waxing poetic about past project success. Demonstrating your firm’s similar project experiences is essential, but it’s even more vital to describe those projects through a filter or lens that’s relevant to your prospective customer.
When describing your past projects, you must highlight elements that are particularly important to evaluators. Are they concerned about budget, timelines, engaging stakeholders, or maybe risk mitigating strategies? Describe your past projects so that it’s abundantly clear how those experiences will help you solve their challenges and deliver the project successfully.
6. Show Evaluators What it’s Like to Work with Your Team
When choosing a professional services provider, “organizational fit” and “team chemistry” are often implicitly factored into the decision. And for lots of good reasons. Professional services contracts often last months, even years. Success can depend upon the quality of teamwork, collaboration and interpersonal skills. These soft skills can be the difference between project success and disappointment.
What does this mean for your proposal? Find ways to show evaluators, particularly within the resumes, project profiles and methodology sections, that your team is easy to work with and quickly develops productive and engaging professional relationships.
7. A Proposal that Builds Credibility through Honesty and Transparency
No organization is perfect. Every business has disappointed a client or delivered a service that missed the mark or fell short of a customer’s expectations. And to claim otherwise throughout the ages of your proposal is not only disingenuous, but it also squanders a great opportunity. We recommend a different approach. When your organization experienced a service failure, own it, and explain how you recovered and did right by the customer. And even more importantly, explain how this lesson has made your organization better equipped to improve future contracts’ performance. This approach, used judiciously, will communicate honesty and transparency and help build your organization’s credibility in the process.