Article on How to Write Winning Business Proposals

Content quality not quantity for better business proposals

KARL MESZAROS

Senior Copywriter

Marketing Consultant

Proposals alone do not seal deals but can, if poorly executed, eliminate your company from vendor selection processes.

Formal, written business proposals are prerequisite to most B2B sales involving substantial capital expenditures. Proposals alone do not necessarily seal deals but they can, if poorly executed, eliminate your company from vendor selection processes.

Prospects use proposals to evaluate sources for needed products and services, disseminate value propositions to other decision makers within their organizations, and thin a field of competing vendors. This is especially true after vendors and the client have already expended resources to reach the proposal stage of a sales cylce.

In large organizations, proposal writing is a dedicated and increasingly automated marketing function. Most small to mid-size companies however lack such resourcees and share proposal generation among other tasks performed by one or more members of the sales and marketing team. Sometimes daunting, often burdensome, the challenge of assembling a winning proposal among other pressing responsibilities elicits varying results.

Best practices to follow for smartly executed documents

1. Respond as requested. A Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quotation (RFQ) can come in a variety of formats—from a simple e-mail or letter, to a document of only a few pages, to hundreds of pages delineating requirements in great detail. The common element in any RFP or RFQ is a set of instructions from the prospect stipulating how to respond and submission deadlines. Once a decision is made to participate in a selection process, adhere to instructions. Whoever took the time to write them likely influences decision making and will expect compliance as first sign of genuine interest in doing business.

2. Relate specific value. More than generalizations of what your products and services do and have done for other clients, a prospect wants to know how their specific needs will be addressed. Ensure content on each page communicates in the context of the prospect's business and relates the value of your solution to their unique needs.

3. Use prospect's terminology. The RFP or RFQ may refer to a type of business system or process with terminology that differs from yours. Using the prospect's terminology helps decision makers to more easily recognize the content and selling points of your proposal. Terminology that your organization may coin for competitive differentiation can confuse the ininitiated. The fact that you have been invited to submit a proposal affirms that you have an ally in the prospect's organization who understand how the respective companies employ different terms to speak the same language. Problems arise when not all decision makers reviewing the proposal can recognize terminology used outside their own organization.

4. Excite in the Executive Overview. All decision makers will read a proposal's introductory Executive Overview, which summarizes the purpose and content of the entire document in just a few pages. Use the opportunity to clearly communicate your value proposition. Create the big picture. Cultivate interest. Establish messaging for competitive differentiation. Set up the details to follow in subsequent sections from a business perspective that will particularly resonate with executives.

5. Focus on quality not quantity. Overwhelming prospects with excessivelely long proposals is no way to win business. Efforts to impress in this way are more likely to intimidate. Shorter proposals invite being read and make it easier to stay on message cover to cover. Resist any urge to bury your competencies, value proposition and differentiators in pages of superfluous content.

Editing and repurposing boilerplates

In all likelihood, your organization maintains standard proposal boilerplate for quick ad hoc reply to informal Requests for Information (RFI) and as a basis for RFP/RFQ responses. Automated systems—from best-of-breed proposal generation software to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and office-suite applications—also enable storing computerized libraries of past proposals that can be quickly copied and edited.

Boilerplates, especially in conjunction with an automated process, clearly simplify proposal generation. Attention to detail and prospect focus however remain paramount. Editing should usually require more than a mere global change of the recipient's corporate identity and contact information. All best practices cited above should be observed. In fact, use of boilerplate for the Executive Overview section of a proposal is not recommended. If executing proposals properly, it would be difficult to communicate convincingly your deep understanding of a prospect's specific business and your unique value proposition with copy written for a different business opportunity.

Point-to-point RFP responses

A prospect will take the time to assemble a detailed questionnaire for inclusion within their RFP when selecting a vendor will mean a major capital expenditure and long-term business relationship. Penetrating questions will be asked to assess competencies for providing the products and services sought. Answers to most questions may already reside somewhere in your boilerplate or proposal database.

It is not unusual for a prospect to seek more from a business solution than is currently available in the marketplace. Be honest but forward looking when responding to such questions.

State what can and cannot be delivered. Describe when and how "futures" will become available. Many customer-driven businesses are guided by developing or refining products and services according to such stipulated needs. Prospects accept the idea of influencing a vendor's R&D as a sign of commitment to a strong business relationship. Moreover, they are likely to assign more value to a vendor that is knowledgeable and straightforward about their market and business capabilities.

Unsupported claims in an RFP response inevitably haunt, either in business lost from a perceived deception or when the products and services proposed cannot be delivered. Respect the RFP for what it is: a set of parameters for vendor selection. Even with a few shortcomings, your organization's integrity and capabilities to deliver within reasonable time can still carry the day.

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