Winning Proposals: 10 Guidelines

The concept of proposals has accomanied business-activities throughout the past few centuries. In recent years this concept has become a more integral part of how we conduct business. If you are in any industry you should be completely aware of the entire affair; if not then you are doing something wrong or you are out of business. Having spent a few years as a consultant has taught me much about the entire proposal process, and about evaluating them as well. If you have seen what I have seen you would be amazed to learn that the majority of proposals evaluated were of an exceptional poor quality.

One would expect a company to go that extra mile when preparing a proposal for a project amounting to a couple of million dollars; yet I found that some companies cannot even follow the most basic instructions in a Request for Proposal (RFP) document. Of all the proposals that has passed over my desk in recent years, Information Systems and other related Information Technology proposals provided the majority. Among them, approximately 10% of these proposals qualified as "good proposals". This top percentile of material evaluated were to the last one prepared by and submitted by one of the top 10 IT companies or their affiliates / strategic alliances. Why were these proposals good? These companies has learned, or in most cases had a consultant tell them what qualifies as a good proposal; what to include and what to exclude; and generally how to write one.

In order to write a good proposal you must adhere to the rules. Remember that presentation of your offer is nine tenths of the battle. You may have a good product, but it does not really mean anything unless you can present it in such a way as to convince the reader that:

• Your product is the best product from the 20 or so evaluated; and


• Your company would be the preferred company to work with because you are conversent in the subject area and your professionalism goes beyond the norm.

In the past companies and their representatives were quite disappointed because they were not selected - the representatives sulked and made themselves guilty of underhanded activities to get their products selected (to no avail) or re-evaluated. Any good evaluater will nod politely and then tell them 'No' - they have had their chance in the evaluation process where they were evaluated on an equal basis against all other candidates. When told that their proposals are beyond the point of sub-standard and their products are poorly represented, there were always arguments. However, if these companies exhibited basic professionalism when preparing their proposals, a lot of tears could have been avoided.

Writing a winning proposal

In order to prepare a professional and above all a winning proposal, you must adhere to the following guidelines:

Follow the instructions in the RFP to the letter. Prepare your proposal according to the guidelines provided. Do not get creative - Evaluators has to go through a lot of work during the longlist evaluation and will not spend extra time trying to puzzle out how you organised your proposal.

Present Your Company, Present Your Product - Define why you should be chosen. Be clear on who and what you are. Be specific on what you can do. Be specific on the features of your product. Ensure that your product covers all points of the RFP.

Be specific. Do not embellish. Always represent the capabilities of your company and your product without embellishment. In other words do not BS. If your product or company cannot meet a stipulation of the RFP, look to forming strategic alliances with companies that can provide in the requirement.

Strategic Alliances: One point of contact. Customers do not want to have hassles when implementing, or maintaining a system after implementation. If at all possible define a proposal leader amonst your alliance and define this company as the single point of contact for any upfollowing activities.

Structure and Order. Stick to the point. Provide a good referencing structure in your proposal. Remember, a proposal is not a Lone Wolf gamebook (the kind where you have to page around to read the story). Put all relevant information pertaining to the RFP in the main body of the document. Any ancilliary material goes in an appendix with adequate referencing from the body.

Cater to your audience: Proper Mix of Tech and Sales. Keep your proposal readable and believable. This can only be achieved by putting a leash on your sales people and by teaching your techies how to write copy that is readable by the human species.

Inspire Confidence. It is always a good idea to include a corporate resume. Only list past projects that are relevant to the issue at hand - do not include irrelevant work to fill out your proposal.

Spell out how you work. Define the project structure and scope adequately. Identify your personnel and technical competencies berforehand. Create a believable project plan.

Methodology is key. Customers and evaluators want to be reassured that you know what you are doing and that you will attempt the assignment in a structured and ordered manner. If you do not have a methodology by which you work, establish one or acquire it. Ensure that your personnel are trained and are conversant in this methodology. Remember, a project plan on its own is not a methodology.

Run the proposal process as a project. Time is money and money is time. Resource assignment on a proposal should be justifiable. Do not spend too much time and effort on little jobs, and too little time and effort on big jobs.