Proposal Orange Book - Prepare a winning proposal

You’re ready to expand your business. You want to put some feelers out there.Attract and sign new customers. Try your hand at bigger or more high-profileprojects. Get your brand out there and your foot in the door. One of the bestways to do all this and more is to write a proposal.

However, you’re not a grant or proposal writer. You want to do what you dobest, which isn’t writing business proposals – it’s focusing on your business andyour industry. You Google some examples online and, frankly, it looks dauntingand a little boring. Or, you’ve written quite a few proposals, but they just aren’tgetting signed. You don’t know perfectly yet how to write a proposal and youdon’t know where to begin to improve your proposal writing.

Well, we’re here at Quote Roller to help get you started and to teach you howto write a proposal – and not just any proposal, one that will reflect yourexpertise and professionalism and get signed!

In The Orange Book, we break down the important parts of the proposal andteach you how to make them shine.

Inside The Orange you will find:• A better definition of what IS a business proposal?• The essential parts of a stellar proposal• How to open it up like a winner (Hint: It’s about them, not you.)• The seven stages of the business proposal lifecycle• Examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

• An effective sales proposal funnel• How to always be selling without ever appearing to be selling• ...and loads more!

For sure, proposal writing falls on a deep learning curve. And more thananything, as much as we hate to, we learn from our mistakes. In The OrangeBook, we draw on the knowledge the experts and we have gained and help youto do the same, so that every step of each proposal can be a step towardimproving your results.

The Orange is a must-read whether you are a novice or a veteran proposalwriter. When it all comes down to it, we continue to learn from each other aswe work to better understand what makes one proposal more successful overthe other and how to apply that knowledge to getting the next proposalsigned.

And you don’t have to read it cover to cover all at once. Treat The Orange like asecurity blanket, something you can refer back to whenever you want to honeyour proposal writing or nail down a particularly spectacular client.The whole point is that we are here to help you learn how to write a businessproposal better.

Now, what are you waiting for? Dive right into The Orange!

What is a Business Proposal – your comprehensive all-in-one guide.

What is a Mission Statement and why you need it for your proposals — Ask yourself: Why does my business exist?

The 7 stages of a Business Proposal Lifecycle — Like Simba, even Business Proposals have circles of life.

Write clear business proposals with the Power of SWOT — It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats,but how does that spell SOLD?

Why you should treat each proposal as a 5-step Process — Apply the capture planning technique and score big.

5 Skills for creating Great Proposals — 1. Strategic Planning, 2. Know Your Prospects, 3 … 4 … 5 …???

Six stages of an Effective Sales Proposal Funnel — A + I + E + P + R = $.

Top proposal myths debunked — brought to you by Picasso and Yoda.

12 Questions to ask yourself after Losing a Deal — Turn that frown upside down and snag that next sale!

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What is a proposal?

It might seem like a strange question to ask.

“Of course I know what a proposal is, why else would I be on a ProposalSoftware website?”In reality, though, proposals or the effective use of them is still something thatis largely misunderstood.You’ve probably sent or created many proposals in the past, whether for yourbusiness or in your personal life. Some proposals are simple while others cancompletely alter your life, or the way you do business.

What do all proposals have in common though?

A good proposal takes the reader on a ride, and frames the path YOU wantthem to take, and makes them stand up and shout, “YES! This person gets me!”Take a minute and think about your proposals from the past and ask yourself:

Do my proposals read like a....

Business documentContractual agreementResumeBoring, Boilerplate Company overview

Yes, your proposals might be performing many of the above functions butthose things tend to be utterly boring to read. A good proposal should be sexy,engaging and like nothing your prospective client has ever read before,especially from your competition.

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The problem with your proposals

The biggest problem with most proposals is they are not created with theproper goal in mind: to speak directly to the client in order to close morebusiness.

A proper proposal is an effective marketing tool, plain and simple.

Your marketing strategy should be at the core of your business. One of thebest marketing communications strategies is to speak to your prospects as ifthey are the only client you have. Everyone wants to feel special, even in themost mundane of industries.

Don’t simply assume that just because you’ve gotten someone to the pointwhere they request a proposal that you can start slacking off and hopeenough trust has been built to keep them interested.

Your proposals should require just as much thought and effort as the overallmarketing strategy your company employs.

When it’s time to send off your proposal, the absolute worst thing you can dois to send off a cookie cutter example of what your company does, and thencross your fingers and hope for the best. An equally bad tactic is to send offyour proposal and be unwilling to waver from what has been written inside it.

If you can take away one concept or idea from this article, let it be this:

Your proposal is a living, breathing entity that needs to evolve with yourprospective client and their needs.

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This is very closely related to the fact that your proposal needs to be aboutthem, NOT about you. Leave your ego at the door and make it all about them.

This can be a difficult concept for many businesses to grasp, especially if theyhave spent years crafting the perfect mission statement, identifying bestbusiness operations for use in-house and making their services attractive tocustomers.

While all of those things are certainly important to the way your companyoperates, your clients aren’t interested in your inner workings. The only thingyour clients care about is what you can do for them.

Your proposals need to address the problems they are having and what youcan do to solve them.

Don’t be so quick to assume though that your clients even know what theirproblems are. One great way to blow away your prospective client is to makesuggestions to pain points they might be having, but might not have evenrealized yet. You might be right about some or wrong about others, but eitherway, this is the fast track to getting to the bottom of the real problems yourclient is having.

Another bad assumption is that the problems your clients come to you withare actually the ones you need to be spending the most time focusing on. Theproblems they think they are having could actually be minor compared to theones you can help them uncover, and eventually solve.

Even the smartest business people can get too close to theirprojects/businesses and, as a result, fail to see the bigger picture. Once it istime to create a proposal for your prospective client, give their perceivedproblems ample thought, but also ask:

• What are their real pain points?• What problems are they really having?• Are the problems they say they are having really the biggest problem in

the grand scheme of things?• What can I do to help them alleviate all of these problems?• Do my solutions to their problems convey myself as a professional that

truly understands their business?• If I were in the prospective client’s shoes, would I be able to see

undeniable value in the proposal?

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Creating your proposal

The proposal creation process needs to be created with the following twothings in mind:

• Never stop selling• Never appear to be selling

While these might appear to be two completely conflicting ideas, they areconcepts that good copywriters will understand perfectly, let me explainfurther:

Never stop selling

Remember that your proposal is a marketing tool, and what is the main pointof marketing at its simplest level?

To sell.

You should be thinking of your proposal as one large, expertly written, ultratargeted sales letter. When laid out logically, a proposal will have all of thesame elements laid out in the same order as a well-crafted sales letter.

There is the strong opening, qualification, followed by identifying your client’sproblems and pain points, and how you can solve them, finishing with a callto action with the desired action for your client to take.

Once this is completely understood, someone that has never written aproposal can write a Grade A proposal.

Never appear to be selling

Here is where things can be a little trickier, unlike a sales letter, where thereaders are often entirely cold leads, in most instances anyone reading yourproposal can already be considered a warm lead. Their request for a proposalalready conveys an active interest in your services.

Instead of selling to them, prove your own value to them and turn them intoa buyer who feels like it was their idea to buy before you even give them theopportunity to. If you have been following the advice in this post thus far,your client will be feeling so confident of everything you can do to help theirbusiness, they will be asking where they can transfer the payment to, withoutfeeling like they have been sold anything at all.

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The key elements of a winning proposal

We have covered the concepts of what makes a stellar proposal, but what doyou actually put in there? While there is no perfect format for all proposals(remember they are living, breathing things and we have yet to find any living,breathing thing that was completely perfect), making sure your proposalsinclude some key elements will help you knock it out of the park.

Make your opening strong

This is copywriting 101, but is just as important to creating a strong proposal.

DO NOT make your opening an introduction to or overview of your company.Anyone reading a proposal from you should already be more than familiarwith your company and will be bored beginning to read your proposal byhearing more information that they already know about. Again, this proposalis about them, not you so make sure you spend time addressing theirbusiness and not stroking your own ego by talking about yours.

DO ask yourself when creating your opening, “will people read the wholething on the strength of the opening alone?” If the answer is “no”, then goback and keep working on it until you have people intrigued from the veryfirst sentence they will read. Openers that defy popular convention or ask thereader a question directly that they don’t know the answer to are bothexamples of strong openers that build interest from the moment they areread.

Good formatting is essential but over-formatting will work against you

Just like in a sales letter or any form of actionable copy, it is a must that yourproposal is easy to read and has a good flow to it. This ensures your readersabsorb your information at the correct pace and in the order you meant for itto be consumed.

The templates available from Quote Roller will help guide readers throughyour proposals in a way that is easy to digest.

While we can help with the template, the content will be up to you and it alsoneeds to come across in a way that is easy to read. Big blocks of text are yourbiggest enemy and most people will just skim through the big blocks, missingyour most important points.

Paragraphs, especially short ones, are your friend and help to segment yourideas and make them reader friendly. Subheadings are essential to helpingyou move from topic to topic and things like bold and italic fonts draw thereader’s eye to the important parts you want to focus on.

Remember, if your client wanted to read a big block of monotonous text, theywould pick up their favorite novel.

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Clear pricing leaves less room for confusion

Along with making your pricing clear, don’t be afraid to talk about price in thefirst place, your customers know your services are not free!

In making your pricing clear, it should all be completely evident within oneminute as to how much your different services cost. You may have a fewdifferent packages so it needs to be displayed in a manner that is easy todigest.

Your services might also have several variables that affect price but will onlybe applicable to a small percentage of potential clients. Instead of makingthem read about all the exceptions to your pricing, include a short addendumexplaining that anything outside of the services listed will need to bediscussed directly. This has an added benefit of appearing to have lessadditional costs and leaves less room for them to criticize or analyze yourprices for things that may not pertain to them anyways. A good proposal toollike Quote Roller will include optional pricing options for you to use.

Be personable and have social proof

At a basic human level, people buy from people they know, like, and trust. Youcan be a HUGE business with many people working for your client, but thetransaction is generally completed person-to-person.

This is best accomplished by creating a proposal coming from one person in

the company and not just from the company as a whole. That isn’t to say thatreceiving a proposal from a company isn’t professional -- it can definitelyconvey the fact that you are a large operation with successes under your belt.Having a name and/or face of a real person they can associate with theproposal though will definitely help to build trust.

Keep in mind that the proposal doesn’t actually have to be written by saidperson if they are not a great copywriter, but they should be familiar with theproposal that has been written as them, so as to keep everything congruent.

In addition to just being personable, having social proof is one of the biggestfactors to building trust these days. Include links to your business’s socialmedia profiles and if possible, a portfolio of previous works and successes.

Testimonials are also a great way to build trust, allowing your prospects tohear the opinions of others who have used your services in the past and beensatisfied with their decision. If at all possible, try to include testimonials forwork that is similar to that of the client you are sending the proposal to, sothey see you have done excellent work on similar projects in the past.

Keep it brief

It would be hypocritical to write a long paragraph here, so keep things asshort as you can. Explain everything in as much detail but in as few words aspossible. Doing so will make everything much easier to digest and much lessoverwhelming to prospective clients.

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An expertly crafted proposal doesn’t have to come from scratch

And despite what some people might tell you, we don’t recommend that itdoes either. We have perfected the art of sending proposals and are here tohelp you do the same.

With our easy to use proposal creation service, we handle all the technical bitsso you can focus on crafting the perfect angle that your clients can’t say “no”to.

Don’t take our word for it though, sign up for our free trial and discover howthe right proposal helps you to win more clients and build your business faster.

Have you asked yourself this question: what are the reasons your businessexists?

If you know the answer, good for you, go ahead and skip to the middle of thearticle, I won’t tell anyone. However, most of the solopreneurs and smallcompanies do not have a clear answer and this blurs the activities and goals oftheir business. How can you keep all your activities in sharp focus?

With the mission statement.

Mission statements are incredibly simple, so don’t be put off by the magnitudeof what you think they are.

Collective knowledge defines a mission statement as a reason for a company’sexistence.

We are going to make it even easier. Just answer these three simple questionto create a persistent and compelling mission statement.

Who: Who are your core target customers?What: What are you giving the customers?How: How are you different from the competitors?

Mission

Statement

Who

What

How

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Always learn from the best! Let’s take a mission statement of Harley-Davidson,Inc:

We fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling, by providing tomotorcyclists and to the general public an expanding line of motorcycles andbranded products and services in selected market segments.

Who: Motorcyclists and general public

What: Fulfilling dreams

How: Expanding line of motorcycles and branded products and services inselected market segments

One more example: Envato:

Our mission is to help people to earn and to learn, online. We operatemarketplaces where hundreds of thousands of people buy and sell digital goodsevery day, and a network of educational blogs where millions learn creativeskills.

Who: Everyone (though a push is into creative folks)

What: Ability to earn and learn online

How: By operating marketplaces and maintaining a network of educationalblogs

Mission statement should be reflected in every action you take and anybusiness activities you perform: starting from website design to your emailsignature. By communicating with you, your potential clients should see thatyou are consistent and have a clear understanding of what you are doing, andhow you are doing it.

When you are creating a business proposal, you should always take intoaccount your mission statement. It will allow you to understand if the clientneeds are the ones that you can solve. When crafting your mission statementtry to keep it broad enough for growth, e.g. Envato’s mission statement.

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Why your business proposals should include a mission statement?

In short, it will allow your clients to understand who you are and what you do.However, what’s more important, it will allow you to tailor each businessproposal more efficiently towards each customer. Let’s take a look at these twoexamples:

When you look at major corporations selling one type of product, this is afoundation for their mission statement, i.e. a car manufacturer only has onemission. To make cars and sell them to you: irrelevant of the style, price ordemographic.

Now, take a look at Virgin Group. They have over 400 brands and each has itsown mission statement. The Virgin Group then promotes their own missionstatement as an umbrella, overseeing all their objectives. So in reality, Virginhas two mission statements – one for the corporation and one for each subdivision.

When you are working on mission statements, use the same theory as above.Are you selling one product or do you have verticals? As a designer-developercyborg, you might offer programming services along with accompanyingdesign. Some of the customers will only need one of them; others will needboth.

Creating mission statements have to be planned out in a manner that showsyou in your best light yet does not deter from your objectives by trying toohard to appease one client. If you fall into this trap, you will spend your career

trying to fit in. Anyone who tries to fit in loses core values of their businessintentions, and looks scattered in their thought process.

You are in this to make a niche for yourself. Do you need to promote yourmission statement only to one target market or for multiple? Could you makevarious mission statements that you can adapt to each market without lookinglike you are scattered?

Remember that when you are creating a mission statement for your website,this is something you need to have set in stone. Yet if you are creating amission statement for a marketing proposal, then you can adapt it according tothe audience.

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Broad vs Focused Mission Statements

Here is a hypothetical example of a broad mission statement for a website anda more focused business proposal:

Our company creates a technology that can be licensed to the clothing industryin order to reach the maximum potential in time & cost effective inventoryaggregation. By implementing our unique API, we provide a drag & drop set offeatures that you can use for your back end storage supplies; and keep fulltrack of your purchases and sales.

This company has a technology to basically check inventory, see what’s selling,what’s not selling, create repeat orders automatically and sell off redundantpurchases that would usually be a financial & storage space burden.

Now, you are creating a presentation for Ralph Lauren so they can license yourtechnology. Yes, the Big RL is interested in what you have to sell, which makesyou now consider that they are not keeping track of their own inventory andyou have something they could use.

This is how your mission statement presentation would show when you sendyour business proposal:

Our company creates a technology that you can implement within four weeks,enabling you to track your purchases and discarded sales that require re-sellingat a discounted price. With seasonal trends and four global fashion events peryear, Ralph Lauren’s fabric inventory requires a surge of analysis after each

event. By integrating our API, we provide you the platform to review the fashionweek inventories that are big sellers, enabling you to reach your store buyer’sdemands in a faster turnaround. Our API also provides a summary of fabric thatis on the second tier of interest to buyers so you can repurchase at a lowerprice, based on supply and demand.

Do you see how you have not changed your core messaging or missionstatement, yet you have just adapted it for Ralph Lauren? In addition, you havenow triggered an idea for the RL team, who may have never assessed waste infabric purchases after fashion week and now need to dump the stockelsewhere. This simple adapted mission statement presents you in a moreprofessional way:

• You have a clear understanding of RL business: know what RL are doingseasonally,

• You are highly focused and customer-centric: your statement is directlyassociated to RL annual life cycle.

Furthermore, you didn’t have to compromise your mission statement in noway. It was broad enough to adapt it for a big client.

In summary, each business needs a mission statement to clearly present whatthey do and how they are different. The simple exercise of crafting your ownmissions statement will allow you to take faster bid-no bid decisions andpresent your proposals on a higher more professional level.

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Are you aware of the life cycle of a proposal?

No proposal is truly new territory – there are established best that will help youmake it happen. The life of a proposal actually starts well before it is actuallysubmitted. And, the cycle does not end with the acceptance of the proposal.

When you have a clear understanding of all the stages of the proposal you canvisualize big picture and take necessary action right on the spot and not miss asingle opportunity.

Let’s take a closer look at the big picture of the proposal life cycle.

1. Pre Proposal (Pre RFP)

You might be surprised to know that your business actually needs to operate ina state of readiness at all times. That’s right – ready for your next proposal, thatis. Before you can ever execute a successful proposal, you need to haveestablished practices in place and ready to go when the opportunity comes. Infact, you’ve even got to have a plan in place to identify proposal opportunities!

When a proposal chance does arrive, you’ll need to have not only a plan, but ateam in place to handle it. This all falls under the broad headline of pre-planning.

Here’s a look at some of the roles that must be in place before the proposalcreation can ever begin. You might not have all the people in house, but theseroles will help you to understand what skills are required at each stage of thebusiness proposal creation:

• Capture Manager – has top-level oversight of the proposal effort• Proposal Manager – oversees the day-to-day development of the proposal• Proposal Coordinator –administers all proposal procedures and creates

reports• Researchers /analysts – gather and relay pertinent information about

internal and external factors• Writers – create the actual content of the proposal• Review Leader – evaluates the progress and eventual success of a given

proposal

Assuming you have all of those positions filled within your organization, andeveryone knows the role they should be doing, you can safely say that you’reready to receive a proposal opportunity – and to make the most of it.

2. RFP/Opportunity

The first exciting phase of the proposal life cycle is the moment when your organization is presented with the opportunity to submit a proposal. This is often in the form of an RFP, but it may also come through more informal channels. Either way, this is the time to seize the moment!

Of course, you’ll want to go ahead and capitalize upon the initial wave of excitement permeating throughout your organization when a new RFP comes into the picture. Within a few days of receiving the opportunity, you should rally the whole team listed above for a meeting. You’ll want to use this meeting to present the RFP/opportunity to your team and layout some initial objectives to get the ball rolling on creating the proposal.

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3. Pre-Writing

Using the initial momentum carried over from the RFP initiation, you shouldbegin right away to conceptualize the proposal. This means outlining, plotting,and annotating everything. This will help you guide the proposal as it isdeveloped, as well as to evolve it along the way. You can always revisit youroriginal plans along the way to see if, by some chance, your proposal hasderailed somewhere along the way.

• DraftingThe next phase will be creating an initial draft of the proposal. Using your pre-writing as a guide, and your researchers and writers expertise, you’ll begincrafting the final proposal. This is by far the longest part of the whole process,and the most detailed. Every word has to be right, and the message has to beclear.

• ReviewOnce you have a draft of the proposal, it needs to be thoroughly vetted andevaluated by managers across your organization. This is sometimes called “RedTeam Review,” which basically means that managers who are not involved in theactual proposal process, pooled from elsewhere in the organization, are asked toread and critique the proposal. This should be executed about half way throughthe anticipated deadline for delivery, to allow as much time as possible forchanges to be made as a result of the review.

• RecoveryThis is the time for the proposal team to heed the recommendations of the RedTeam review. Most of the time, this is a relatively short process, but at othertimes, it can be a more involved process that will require additional time. Just becareful not to miss the proposal acceptance window, or your efforts will benegated!

• FinalizingOnce the recovery is completed, the final proposal should be solidified andapproved by management. This may be a structured process of approving eachsection in turn, or it may be a single exercise of approving the whole document.In either case, this part of the process should go by fastest of all, assuming allother parts in the process have been effectively executed.

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4. Submission

The biggest step of all is the one that puts everyone on pins-and-needles. It’sbest not to wait until the last possible minute to submit your proposal, whetherit is submitted via parcel, or electronically. You’ll want to allow a little time for itto arrive, and to allow you time to overcome any technical or logistical glitches inthe delivery.

5. Award

The award is the next most exciting event in the proposal life cycle. You shouldhave a plan in place for the proposal’s acceptance, and for transitioning to theappropriate team members who will see the proposal through to completion.This will vary among organizations and proposals, but it’s an import stepnonetheless.

6. Progress Management

Even if the actions of executing the proposal have been handed off to anotherteam, it is still up to the proposal team to make sure what they have promised isdelivered. This is done by working with the teams executing the proposal tocreate regular, detailed reports on the progress of the proposed actions. Progressis reported internally and externally, and always transparently.

7. Follow Up

At the end of the process, you’ll want to check back with the external companyand make sure all proposed actions were completed sufficiently. This is a greattime to get engagement from them, and ideally, to solidify the relationship ofyour two organizations in such a way that it can facilitate future businessopportunities.

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Knowledge is power, and nowhere is this truer than when it comes to forging astrategic advantage over your business’ competitors. Only by closely analyzingyour company can you come to fully understand where your brand stands inreference to market trends and competitors.

The SWOT matrix is applicable in making all sorts of decisions in business (andeven in your personal life). But for our purposes, we’ll look at applying SWOT todecisions that impact what goes into our business proposals, in an effort to winbids on a consistent basis.

SWOT is beautiful in its simplicity. Here are what the letters stand for:• Strengths• Weaknesses• Opportunities• Threats

Using SWOT to make a business decision will shed light on the state of yourbusiness, allowing you to better position your company in subsequent businessproposals. Simply put, by understanding exactly what your SWOT status is, youcan work to emphasize your plusses, while minimizing your minuses.

SWOT analysis is typically completed in a workshop setting by a givencompany’s leadership team. However, in a small company or for a freelancer, itmight be just you or two to three people involved. There is nothingcomplicated in SWOT, all you need is a whiteboard, several markers and apassionate team. No whiteboard? No problem, just draw everything on paper!

The idea of SWOT workshop sessions is to take a long, hard look at yourbusiness and frame its realities against its goals – aligning the discrepancies asoften as possible. SWOT is actually divided into two channels: the internalfactors of Strengths and Weakness, and the external factors, opportunities andthreats.

Let’s have a closer look at analyzing the internal and external aspects of SWOT.

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Know Your Strengths

SWOT begins with perhaps the most positive facet of the analysis: yourcompany’s strengths. Your business strengths are probably immediate to you,but uncovering all of them might require some deeper reflection.

Questions to ask and answer:

• What has been successful for you in the past?• What makes your company better than its competitors?• How have you lowered costs compared with market averages?• What types of positive feedback have you received from existing

customers?• What makes your company unique?

Finding answers to questions like these should be the result of the strength-finding workshop. Your team should be pulling strengths from statistical salesdata, as well as from intangibles, like customer perception and employeesatisfaction. The more legitimate strengths you can identify, the more of themyou will be able to callout, with authority, in your future decision-makingprocesses.

Be Honest About Your Weaknesses

Some of us like to avoid thinking about their business’ weaknesses; others of ustend to dwell on our weaknesses. In either case, the SWOT workshop is theappropriate forum to bring all those unpleasant shortcomings to light.Fortunately, this process of recognizing and acknowledging your company’sweaknesses allows you to overcome many of them, in all posterity.

Let’s delve into the kinds of things to watch for when it comes to assessingweaknesses.

• What areas could use immediate improvement?• What strategies have failed to realize results?• What internal factors are causing lost sales?• What relevant functions of your business are you unable to deliver?

Although, for most purposes, the weaknesses you note should be ones that youcan internally influence, it is important to gauge external reaction. How dopeople perceive your efforts? If the answer is poorly, then some internal factoris causing them to see it that way. Factoring weaknesses is the time for brutalhonesty and healthy introspection. You’ll thank yourself once you’ve been ableto combat the problems you discover.

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Recognize Opportunities

The next major point in using SWOT to make a business decision is identifyingopportunities. I am sure that you are already aware of just how beneficial suchan exercise can be. If you identify an opportunity that you had never thoughtof, it can potentially unlock a new revenue stream – which is always awelcomed event!

Some of the kinds of opportunities to look for include:

• Are there emerging trends that you have overlooked?• Has technology changed in your industry?• Has a new, leaner methodology emerged that would increase your bottom

line?• Have consumer buying habits changed in way that you need to address?• Has a former competitor left the marketplace?

The sky is the limit, though, when it comes to spotting an opportunity. In thisarea you should leave no stone unturned. Every opportunity that you identifycan potentially benefit your business’ future endeavors.

Address Threats to Your Business

The final component in the SWOT matrix is that of addressing threats to yourbusiness. External threats run the gamut from competitors and disruption, tochanging government regulations and consumer interests. Threats differ fromweaknesses because you do not always have absolute control over externalfactors, whereas you can generally dress-down weaknesses in-house.

As such, threats must be overcome at every chance.

Here are some potential threats to watch out for:

• Do your competitors control greater market share than your business?• Is there a bad public image related to your brand?• Has a new government regulation imposed an unplanned cost on your

company?• Are you struggling to get venture capital or maintain cash-flow?

Threats can come from anywhere, even from sources you might not expect.Most companies are at least casually aware of certain threats, but others mightcome as a total surprise to you. Again, this portion of the SWOT analysisprocess is sure to be eye-opening and beneficial.

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Applying What You’ve Learned with SWOT

Once you’ve compiled your SWOT findings, you will have a far better picture ofyour overall business than before.

As you can see, this information is of key importance in creating businessproposals. Not only can you use SWOT to make a business decision about whatto put into your proposals, the resulting information will be transparent tothose who receive your proposals. This means that SWOT, when accuratelyrelated to your business proposals, will help underline the strengths andcompetitive advantages of awarding a bid to your company.

As such, SWOT is a win-win. The more knowledge you enamor yourself with,the more you’ll be able to make informed decisions around that knowledge.SWOT allows you to know your business better than you already do, and thattranslates to being able to grow your business.

Here is a great video from Erica Olsen on SWOT, if you are too lazy to read.

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Every business proposal is not just a document, it is a process.

Think about this for a second. Most smart companies and your fellowcompetitors employ capture planning technique to win more and present theirproducts and services better. However, what is it?

Capture planning is a term that encompasses all activities that happenbetween the initial request-for-proposal (RFP), and the acceptance of theproposal by the prospective customer. Capture planning is essential to creatingwinning business proposals.

I won’t lie and tell you that it’s quick to build, quite on the contrary, efficientcapture planning requires careful preparation and execution to succeed. If youare dissatisfied with the results you have seen with proposals later, there hastruly never been a better time than right now to reign in the process of captureplanning, in order to start creating business proposals that effectively growyour business.

The most important wins in business hinge on great capture planning.

The process of nurturing a business opportunity from start to finish is complex,but like every facet of modern commerce, capture planning can be conqueredby understanding a few key concepts. Let’s have a look at five things you shouldbe doing with capture planning in order to win bids, every time.

RFPWin

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1. Analyze this!

Know Where You Stand (External Analysis)In order to really connect with your prospects, you need to understand them –and your competition – on a deeper level. Since those business professionalswho will receive your proposal are actively engaged in leadership roles andfocused on their own agendas, it is important for you to factor as many relevantdetails about them as possible into your capture planning efforts.This means defining the needs of your potential clients/customers early in thecapture planning process, through informed analysis. It amounts to sizing upnot only the prospect, but your own competition as well. By clearlyunderstanding what competitors have to offer the prospective client, you canbetter position your company to stand out. Careful analysis empowers you withinformation that will prove valuable when formulating your proposal.

Look Within (Internal Analysis)Once you’ve ascertained where your organization stands in relation to yourprospective customers and your competitors, you will want to realisticallygauge the extent to which your company can gain a competitive edge. This partof capture planning involves assessing your organization’s internal abilities andtrack record.The information gained from this internal analysis will prove valuable inestablishing accurate pricing in order to win business. It is important to frameall aspects of the internal analysis alongside the external analysis – the two areequally important in capture planning. You’ll want to keenly watch foropportunities where your experience and your prospect’s needs align, so that

those points of mutual benefit can translate into your proposal. For thoseelements of common ground to work in your proposal, they must first beestablished, and that is the ideal outcome of internal analysis during captureplanning.

2. Be uniqueThe analyses you conduct in capture planning should leave you with a list ofdefining traits that will make your proposal unique – and irresistible.The remainder of the capture planning process can then be shaped aroundthese discriminating factors. The discriminators will serve as a guide to keepyou, as well as the proposal itself, on track.

Analyze

Be unique

Write a

proposalLead

Refine

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3. Write a business proposal

Treat Proposals as More than Simply Writing Exercises

By now, you are probably beginning to sense that there is much more tocapture planning than merely working out a well-written proposal. While thelanguage of the actual proposal is very important, it is ultimately just one toolof capture planning among many others. Accordingly, the whole process shouldbe managed from the earliest prospect contact to the time when the deal issealed. Simply put, every prospect is a unique opportunity that should bethoroughly researched, evaluated, and understood before the ultimatesolicitation takes place.No magic combination of words will be enough to win-over discerning clients.The proposals you place before them need to speak to their realities, theirneeds. That knowledge is only gained through the analyses mentioned above,and will only work within the confines of the overall capture planning strategy.A great, well-written proposal is a must, but it is not a standalone breadwinnerby any means.

Write Business Proposals to Sell

At the point in the capture planning when the writing does begin, the proposalitself should be clear in its purpose: to result in a winning bid. For this reason,all elements of proposal copy should adhere to the concise expectations ofmodern, digital-age sales copywriting. Less is more, when it comes to sellingwith words, and the focus should be squarely fixed on the prospect – and onlysecondarily focused on your own organization.

Your business is only valid to your prospective customers to the extent that itfits in with their goals or needs. The knowledge gained in the external analysis,as well as the discriminators from earlier in capture planning process, musttranslate through the actual proposal. No single word in your proposal can existwithout purpose; all words should be tailor-made to win the bid.The writing process is a study unto itself, to be sure. But some short pointers –all pooled from the prevalent conceptions related to sales literature – will getyou on the right track. Here are some key points when it comes to the writtenportion of capture planning:

• Simple, plain-spoken language is preferable to complex or superfluouswording in sales material, which is just what your proposal actually is.

• Don’t write in an overtly advertorial way. Excessive platitudes andunfounded claims are best avoided. Facts, figures, and testimonials haveconsistently shown to be parts of winning proposals, and should bepreferred in your writing over blatant sales tactics.

• Share your successes through the writing, but avoid placing your ownawesomeness at the heart of the proposal. Instead, show off how well yourorganization understands your prospect’s needs. Invest more word countinto them than yourself.

• Ask for the sale. Don’t forget the offer, the all-important step in solidifyingthe business. Carefully construct the copy so that, at the end, there is anactionable buy-in step that your prospect will want to take. The close is thecrucial piece of tendering proposals, and your capture planning shouldnever lose sight of that fact.

4. Take a LeadCapture planning means not only developing a strategy, but also seeing that strategy through all stages of execution. This is where management skills come into play. Someone must be in charge – often the Proposal Manager – and that person needs to be abreast of all aspects of the process.

This means delegation must occur, with analysts, writers, and other team members working fluidly to create a stellar, winning proposal. The old saying “The only way to fail in business to go forth without a plan” is very true in relation to capture planning. The more thought and effort you place into the strategy, the more controlled the results will be.

5. RefineEvery business proposal – even one that does not work – can still be of value to your organization. Review and evaluate data from your proposals to gain an insight into areas needing improvement. Likewise, the data from a winning proposal can help you assess what worked, so that those elements can be honed in on in future capture planning efforts.

Beyond raw data, you can also seek feedback from the prospects themselves, or learn more from taking a close look at a winning competitor. In any case, the data generated from every proposal can prove valuable in the future.

It happens every day: proposals are made by businesses and accepted byprospects. No one ever said it would be easy, but your company can be on thewinning side of that equation by mastering the five skills needed to creategreat proposals that win bids.

It’s not a magic trick that others have mastered better than you have. It’s aconstant work on your skills. There is not a magic button that can be pressed,and all your proposals will automatically win every time.

The proposal starts with thorough planning, moves to great conception, andhinges on execution and follow-through. For a proposal to win, all those factorsmust congeal into excellence.

While on the surface this may all sound like a daunting prospect, there aresome great practices that you can adopt to make the most of each and everyproposal your business issues.

The truth is, the various must-haves involved in the proposal submissionprocess call for you and your team to conquer certain skills. Every step in theproposal-generation process can be linked to one or more individuals insideyour organization mastering some key skills.

Let’s take a deeper look at five skills needed to create great proposals.

Great

Proposals

Strategic

planning

Know

prospects

Communic

ation

Clear

writing

Salesman

ship

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1. Strategic Planning

It has been said that the best way to fail at business is to operate without a plan. This is very true when it comes to creating proposals. The fact is, your proposal strategy is the most important step of all.

But proposal strategy requires expert managerial skills, as you’ll have to understand your business and its prospective customers, your abilities to deliver on the customer’s needs, and any market challenges that your business faces. This means that you or a designee must be put in the Proposal Manager role in order to hold your team of researchers and writers in creating the proposal accountable.

As you may know from other aspects of your business, the better the planning you put in, the greater the results will be.

2. Know Your Prospects

One of the biggest – and most detrimental – mistakes you could make is to misgauge the needs of your prospective clients. Information in the proposal that does not meet with your prospect’s needs does nothing to win the bid. For this reason, your team must manifest great research skills in order to know as much as possible about the prospective company before the proposal creation ever starts.

If the language or your proposals is significantly disjointed from what your prospect needs, the whole effort is a loss. A healthy dollop of business reconnaissance will go a long way toward helping you secure a winning bid. As such, your team simply must have someone who specializes in getting to know your prospects and their needs.

3. Effective Communication

Every aspect of a given proposal must hit on points that are relevant to the prospective business. So the next skill needed to create great proposals is effective communication. And we’re not just talking about writing here; the need for effective communication carries-over into managing your proposal team and developing the fundamental concept of the proposal. Every person on your team needs to be clear on what your proposal is intended to convey to its recipient. Failure in this skill area can result in offering the wrong solution, or making excessive claims. Everyone involved in the proposal creation process needs to be on the page, and achieving that comes down to effective communication throughout your organization.

Of course, the proposal must also be effectively written and clear in purpose. It must sufficiently address the problems faced by your potential clients, as well as offer them a clear solution.

Communication is a skill that you cannot afford to miss!

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4. Writing Well

Closely related to the skill of effective communication is that of clear and concise writing. The problem is that all too often, people tend to think of creating proposals as simply being a writing exercise. Planning, conception, management, and delivery are all equally as important as writing. Nevertheless, the writing itself does matter.

The copy in your proposal should (of course) be grammatically correct, in a consistent font and style, and legible in every regard. Beyond those general writing skills, though, a successful business proposal should speak to the modern audience in the digital age. Wordiness, big paragraphs, and academic language just won’t do. In fact, research has shown that those things are repellant.

This is not to say that your proposals should be conversational in tone, though that may be appropriate in certain situations. More to the point, your proposals should be concise and should focus on communicating the message you need to send to your prospects. Whatever wording you use, it should be sufficient for the industry you operate in, never over-the-top, never overly simplified.

5. Salesmanship

The next main skill needed to create great proposals is sales technique. Now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it’s important to know that being

overly salesy is not the best approach, at all. The important takeaway is that every proposal is a piece of sales material, and it should be treated as such.

Let’s review the basic parts of the sales process:• A greeting/opening• Qualification• Overcoming objections• An offer (a call-to-action, asking for the sale)• Close

A proposal covers the traditional sales process, even if it is not as obvious as in other arenas. A proposal without an actionable ending that asks for prospect buy-in is really just a piece of informational literature. By ensuring that your proposal appropriately incorporates a sales element, you’ll ensure that your prospective customers are clear on how they can accept your proposal.

Do you get the impression that all of these five concepts are closely related?

That’s because they are! The sales aspect of your proposals should communicate your unique advantage effectively, with verbal concision. Excessive, overbearing claims and being advertorial will work against you, so it’s important to anchor your proposal’s selling elements with factual information and tangible benefits for your prospects.

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Let’s talk about the sales process in general and try to port this notion into salesproposals. If you are just starting your business and are capturing new leads(new clients with a potential project) this is indispensable knowledge.

By analyzing efficiency of your sales funnel, you will be able to spot bottlenecksand take the required action to improve the health of your business. Armedwith an idea that each proposal has a sales funnel of its own, you will be able toadvance your business proposals to a new level.

The ‘sales funnel’ is a term that gets bandied about frequently these days. Thetruth is, the same old marketing process has been around for ages, and, for themost part, only the medium has changed. The sales funnel is as it was back inthe heyday of television advertising – it has simply moved to the digital realm.Now that businesses operate heavily online, the result is that copywriting,marketing, and proposals, all look very similar to the consumer. What thismeans is that your business proposals are directly immersed in the sales funnel,online, all the time.

Far too often, businesses put tons of effort into sales copy, CRM, and digitalmarketing, but they forget to create proposals that are equally as compelling asthe rest of their business strategy. And this omission can lead to lost revenue, aswell as serious disappointment.

Let’s have a look at how good proposals work as sales tools, and how you canget the most out of them for the benefit of your business.

The Proposal as a Sales Tool

What do proposals have to do with the sales funnel – an instrument ofmarketing – you ask? The answer is: everything. At best, a proposal is aconsolidated piece of marketing material that manages to execute the wholesales process all on its own.

Here are the basic parts of the sales funnel:

• Awareness• Interest• Evaluation• Purchase• Referral• Repeat

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Awareness

Broadly speaking, awareness puts a brand or product on the peripheral of theconsumer. Whatever it is that your company does, you should state it in yourproposal’s leading paragraph what your business has to offer, and provide someassurance that your business is a reliable, trustworthy authority in its givenindustry.

If you are a digital marketer, for example, the opening of your proposal shouldmake that fact clear. Doing this right up front plays into the concept ofqualifying the customer. In our digital marketing example, only a customer whois at least somewhat interested in having his or her home painted will continuereading the proposal – which is fine, because those who do continue past theopening paragraph move from being mere possibilities to being leads.

Interest

Once the consumer has read past the opening paragraph, you can safelygraduate to explaining how your service meets the customers’ needs. This partof your proposal is a continuation of the process of qualifying the customer.

The part of your proposal that represents the ‘interest’ portion of the salesfunnel should be rhetorical to some extent. In effect, you are leading theconsumer to ask the question ‘why do I need this,’ specifically so that you cananswer that question in the next area of the funnel.

Evaluation

Your proposal moves along the sales funnel because you are able to help yourleads understand why your business is ideally suited to help them achieve theirgoals. An evaluation compares some features and/or benefits, and sometimesattempts to discredit a competing option or alternative.

Most commonly, a proposal will engage in an evaluation of the competingoption of inaction. If your proposals can succeed in illustrating that your serviceis all benefit, and inaction is all detriment, you will see your business start togrow.

Purchase

The purchasing step can take on a variety of forms, but one thing must bepresent in all cases: asking for the sale. You will never sell anything by notoffering to do so. That being said, you should avoid making people feel like theyare being sold. Instead, make the purchasing step an action – clicking a buttonto go to checkout, ideally.Closing the sale is the ultimate goal, so the content in this part of your proposalis crucial, and being successful will mean understanding your business, itscustomers, and their needs very thoroughly.

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Referral

In an ideal scenario, your customer will be glad to have made a purchase afterhaving done so. Consumers make purchases that make their lives easier or insome quantifiable way, better. At the end of the sale, if your business hasgotten everything right and delivered on what was proposed, you will likelyenjoy having the customer refer new customers into the sales funnel.

A referral may be as basic as a ‘like’ on Facebook or as traditional as word-of-mouth advertising, but either way, apart from the actual conversion itself, areferral is one of the best possible outcomes of a consumer interaction.

Repeat

The other great possible outcome of the sales process is the repeat customer.Having perfectly executed proposals is essential to the customer serviceexperience. Once the customer has passed through the sales funnel once, theybecome twice as likely to repeat the process. Presenting them with great,informative, and actionable proposals that don’t frighten them will go a longway toward earning repeat conversions.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, every aspect of the sales funnel is represented in an effectiveproposal. Of course, proposals can contain more than sales content, they cancontain digital space innovations such as analytics, multimedia, and more.

In any case, every proposal that your business generates is useful, even if itdoes not lead to conversion. Those consumers who fail to become leads, orthose leads that leak out of the funnel, can tell you where the weak points inyour proposals are, allowing your business to respond accordingly.

By giving equal attention to your business proposals as you would sales andmarketing, you can solidify your brand position and ensure customer retentionthrough continual refinement of the in-proposal sales process. As with anyother aspect of business, the best way to get ahead is to have a plan. So, putsome thought into your proposals, and relate them to your overall salesstrategy and goals – you’ll be glad you did.

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Rumors and trends tell you how to manipulate the customer to get that business proposal signed. We are here to tell you how to get that signature, while respecting yourself along the way.

Our team at Quote Roller is here to debunk those myths and offer you bare-bones advice to follow to make sure your business proposal stands out from the pack for the right reasons.

1. Low prices win more often

Sometimes playing the numbers game signals the time to walk away. I Recently heard a rumored tale of Pablo Picasso.

Later in his life, he’s in a cafe in Paris and a cute waitress tells him how she’d love her very own Picasso. So he takes about five minutes and draws an abstract on a cloth napkin. She is so excited, jumping up and down, ready to take it out of his hand, when he stops her with three words: “10,000 francs, please.” She responds that it only took him five minutes to sketch. Good ol’ Pablo says that he had spent his whole life working up to this number and to lower it would risk everything.

Now, you’re not the Picasso of your sector… yet, but excessively lowering your price sure isn’t the way you’re going to get there. Your service has a value. Of course, numbers matter, but focus your business proposal on creating and reinstating your business’s value. We promise you’ll be more competitive explaining the specifically tailored services you’re offering a client, than being the lowest of the low. Furthermore, your market will thank you too, as low-balling ruins it for everyone.

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2. Longer proposals win more

We all like to believe our mission statements are important. And they are –they help us understand our business better and, therefore, present ourselvesto a client in a better way. It is important to consider your company’s directionand mission through all steps – bid decision, writing proposal letter andbusiness proposal, negotiation and closing – but it is not important to tell yourclient. If your company stands for something, they’ll know it through actions,not words. Which means, leave all that bull out of your business proposal.

One of our team members once worked for a company that touted itself “ThePlace to Be,” meaning a great place to work for, always citing its ranking onvarious top 100 places to work in the U.S. listings.

Now, this is definitely something a potential employee likes to hear, making itan excellent thing to include in job offers and employee contracts. However, itwas a silly thing to put all over their company’s web page and inside everysales package and business proposal letter. It detracted from their message ofquality goods and services.

In other words, everyone likes to hear about themselves, not to listen topeople bragging. Make your proposal geared towards your client’s goals andneeds, not your own. Because nobody cares.

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3. Only skilled pros can clash a deal

You know where you want to take your business, but you can’t get therewithout taking risks. You receive a request for proposal from a potential newclient or from a recurring client who is asking for something not exactly in yourwheelhouse. Don’t step away!

However, don’t get ahead of yourself and bite off more than you can cheweither. Ask your team:

Is this something we want for our portfolio?Is this where our company is headed?Do we have the resources to complete this task?Have we done something like this before, but in a totally different sector?If your answers are affirmative, we say it can’t hurt to try.Yes, as dear Yoda says, “There is no try, only do.”

But, if you manage your client’s expectations, being honest that, while youhaven’t done something exactly like this before, you are a growing agency thatwants to try and that you believe you have the creative power to do it, we saytake the risk and send them a well-thought-out business proposal.

Now, this is where you may need to offer some sort of a deal, but, as long asyour company is in the black, sometimes expanding your portfolio in the rightdirection makes it worth it.

Also in the don’t wimp out category lies your competition. Yes, we know it isharder to steal business away, especially if you are going up against a bigdesign house with loads of resources, but we think, if you want the businessand you have the time to offer a better, more personal service, go for it.

Plus, using business proposal software allows you to send out more bids in lesstime. (There should be a shameless link to Quote Roller, but we think you knowwhat to do

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Dang it, your business proposal was rejected! Learn the questions you shouldbe asking yourself, so this doesn’t happen again. I will explain how you cancreate a proposal knowledge base you can reuse in your future proposals,understand what works and what doesn’t and get the next deal nailed!

Nobody likes to learn his or her lesson. However, as much as we hate to admitit, we really can learn from our mistakes. Sales is no exception. In fact, studyingour rejected business proposals, as much as our winning business proposals,can help us learn for the future. It can teach us about our client or a potentialclient, and we can use it as an opportunity to learn how to write a businessproposal that is sure to win them over next time.

OK, so your business proposal didn’t get signed and you didn’t get the sale.Take a nanosecond to be sad and then rally up and take it as a moment to learnfor your next proposal. Schedule you and your team five to ten minutes tobrainstorm as to what went wrong.

Client needs

Content &

presentation

Prioritizing

Next Steps

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Start by asking yourself these groups of questions:

Client needs:

1. What was the client looking for?2. Did our business proposal really aim to solve that problem, concern or

need?

Content and presentation:

3. Is our business proposal clear and concise?4. What could we have cut out of the business proposal?5. What could we have added to the business proposal?6. Was our business proposal easy for the client to open? To read through?

To sign?

Prioritizing

7. What did we think was important to the client?8. What did our client actually think was important? What did he spend the

most time reading? Was that because that part was unclear or because itwas important to her? (After reviewing your business proposal software)

Next steps:

9. Why do we think the client said no?10. Where do we think we missed the mark? Where did we fall short?11. Should we have been sending them a business proposal in the first place?12. Who is our audience? How do we define our prospective clients?

Taking time over a well-deserved cup of coffee to reflect on what went wrongwill help you and your company solidify the success of your next opportunity topresent a business proposal.

Make sure to look over those notes we keep reminding you to take. This is howyou can be sure you understood the customer’s requirements. Then, see if youaddressed them in your business proposal. Your notes and your proposalsoftware can combine to become a wealth of information that can teach youhow to write business proposals that get signed.

Analyze

If you are using an online proposal software like Quote Roller, win, lose or draw, you can track what parts of the proposal your client spent the most time examining and what they skimmed right past.

The parts of your business proposal that your client spent the most time examining are probably the same parts that lost you the bid. If it was the bottom line, probably you need to ask yourself if next time you can sell them a different package at a lower price or if maybe they really aren’t your target audience.

Take notes

Make sure you and your team take and share copious notes during conversations with clients before and after sending them your business proposal. It helps you reexamine where those seemingly small comments or objections that were made may have made or broken the deal.

It is also a way to compare your notes with your proposal software to try and see if there’s a pattern. If there’s an issue that comes up with multiple clients, that’s something you as a company needs to focus on rectifying.

Ask

If a client spends a lot of time examining an aspect of your proposal that was never discussed before, think about the questions you were asking. Consider what open-ended question that you could ask the client in the future about this certain aspect, so you can make sure to properly address the issue in your future business proposal.

This is where developing and redeveloping your value propositions becomes key, as you can offer your customers two different ways of addressing a single issue. The results can be the clue to changing your losing business proposal into a winner.

When in doubt, when you are thanking your potential client for his or her time and telling them you look forward to working with them in the future, it can’t hurt to ask them (politely!) what went wrong. Be very open and honest and say that you still want to learn from them and you’d love to gain some insight as to why they accepted another company’s business over yours.

Remember, people love to give their opinion and asking builds a relationship. Either way, these answers can give you the clue for working with them in the future, plus, you can take it into account the next time you are writing a business proposal.

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Employ help

Once in awhile, have your partner, friend or spouse read one of your businessproposals that failed. If those that love you can’t get through your proposalbecause it was too long or too convoluted, probably your failed customercouldn’t either. Your friendly everyman can teach you how to write a proposal,by helping you filter out distraction and overly complicated jargon. Thisoutsider can offer you a different point of view for free.

Now, if you are new to writing business proposals, perhaps you don’t have a lotof winners to look at… yet! Your proposal management software should havesample proposals that you can use to both as a business proposal template andas a way to compare your proposal against successful ones.

Once you build up your business proposal portfolio and compare your wins andlosses, it should be easy to notice trends that clients want to see and those thatthey don’t.

On the flip side, when you have a signed business proposal, it’s another greatmoment to see what your client liked and didn’t. Using your proposalmanagement software to see the last thing your client looked at before signingshows you his or her priorities for the future.

So remember, even though it sucks, losing and learning from that one bid couldhelp you get five more business proposals signed.

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A place where creative entrepreneurs and business ownerscan find useful information, advice, insights, tips, tools, casestudies and sample library to win their next project.

We help you win more deals by writing and presentingirresistible proposals.