Five Key Steps

Five Key Steps
First, you’ll need to analyse the proposal to determine what must be covered in your response. This will indicate how much work is required. You’ll also need to determine what resources are needed to create a response. This may seem obvious, but it’s worth emphasizing: don’t try and create a full response if you don’t have the time or resources to do it. After determining how much work the response requires, you’ll need to determine what’s required in order to meet the client’s specific needs and requirements. If the opportunity doesn’t come with a formal request for proposal, those requirements may be poorly articulated or, often, not expressed at all. Only then can you determine if you can do what the requester is asking for. Now you’re ready to decide how you should respond. There’s no point in responding to this opportunity unless you have the time to create a good proposal and also have the resources available to deliver on that proposal. If both of these conditions aren’t true then the right response may not be a full proposal. Instead, the right response is a polite acknowledgment that you’ve received the request and, while you’re not responding to this request, you would be interested in subsequent opportunities. An honest response looks much better than a perfunctory proposal.

Writing a Successful Proposal: The Challenge
You’re the last person in the office one night and the boss says to you, “Here’s an opportunity that needs looking after. Knock out a proposal, will you? They need it by Friday”. What’s your plan? To get started, you’ll want to avoid three common responses: Cloning, brain dump and avoidance. Cloning means you cut and paste from previous proposals rather than preparing a fresh response for a new opportunity. Such a proposal will not likely address the requester’s requirements (even though it might address a similar problem someone else once had). You’ll also want to avoid including everything you (and the marketing...