Proposal Focus - Help with specific bids

Every proposal needs a clearly thought-out win strategy before the writing starts

Graphics, captions and ‘callouts’ help ensure that key points stand out and are read by evaluators ‘skimming’ the document

Planning and managing the bid effort

Most bid requests come with a tight deadline. Effective planning and communication are essential to producing, reviewing and submitting a winning bid on time.

We have managed bids involving multiple contributors in different sites and even different time zones. We can help you to plan and manage all the bid activities throughout the process, whether as the principal Bid Manager or in a supporting role.

Defining the proposal win strategy

Your proposal needs to play to your strengths and directly address the customer’s key concerns. Using facilitation skills and simple but effective tools, we can help you focus on the real ‘hot buttons’ and evaluation criteria, establish your competitive position, define your discriminators and devise the key win themes for your proposal.

And using storyboarding and hands-on proposal development techniques, we can help you ensure that the right messages are echoed throughout your bid. Your key selling points will stand out clearly, and will be supported by credible evidence.

Structuring the proposal

Sometimes the customer dictates the structure of your bid. This ‘straightjacket’ can make it difficult to respond effectively. (Not all customers are good at writing Requests for Proposals / Invitations to Tender!) At other times you are free to develop your own structure, which offers an important potential differentiator.

We can help you structure your bid in the most effective way, making it easier for the evaluators to score you highly.

Writing the proposal

Having devised the win strategy and structured the proposal, you need to convey your messages clearly and concisely, avoiding the ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ syndrome.

We can coach you in writing the proposal. Depending on your industry and the domain knowledge required, we even write parts of it for you - perhaps the all-important Executive Summary. Your proposal will be truly customer-focused, with compelling, competitive reasons why the customer will benefit most from choosing your company.

Reviewing and editing proposal content

Your messages can be diluted through unclear wording, jargon, typing errors, inconsistent use of terms, incorrect formatting, poor use of ‘boilerplate’ material etc.

We can offer a rapid turnaround in reviewing your existing proposal sections. Our edits and/or comments will ensure that the customer’s mind stays focused on your messages.

Running bid stage reviews

Depending on the size and complexity of the bid, effective stage reviews can add real value, while poorly conducted ones can be detrimental to the quality of the bid and demoralise the bid team.

We can help you at any stage of the bid process in running the reviews you need – from kick-off sessions through strategy reviews to final sign-off reviews and even post-bid ‘lessons learned’ reviews.