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Juggling RFP deadlines, stakeholder feedback, and customer questions can make it difficult (if not impossible) to reflect on your proposal approach and ways you can improve. To help you on this journey, we’ve compiled a few of the most common proposal challenges and steps you can take to solve them.
One of the most recognized proposal processes is the Shipley Proposal Process. The Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) recognizes Shipley as a top process and offers certification on it.
While it is an excellent process used by many major organizations, for some smaller teams, Shipley can be overkill. If your team consists of only a handful of people (or maybe even just you) and you respond to fairly simple RFPs, then the full process may cause more pain than benefit.
That’s why we follow a simplified version to reap the benefits without having to fill out a robust team with more meetings than are needed.
Read MoreWhen you search for proposal tips, you’ll find endless lists of rules to follow and recommendations on how to write your proposal. While all of these rules are full of good intentions and will make your proposal stronger, there are a few that you can maybe ignore.
Here are the top 5 proposal “rules” that I love to break.
Read MoreOn a random November Wednesday many years ago I learned that a rainy day in Vegas is not the same as a rainy day in the Midwest.
That particular Wednesday was the due date for the largest proposal I had worked on up until that point. Estimated at $20 million per year with 4 optional renewal years (a total of five years), it was a lot of money, and a lot of work.
Read MoreWhen an RFP lands on your desk, the first thing you do is open it up and start searching for everything needed to respond and win the project.
As you scroll through the document, you see requirement after requirement, questions followed by more questions, and a seemingly endless compilation of forms to be sent in with your proposal.
By this point you start to wonder, “How am I going to remember all of this?”
If you’ve ever been in that situation, then this post is for you!
Read MoreEver since I started working on proposals, I’ve had very few that ran right up to the deadline.
I do everything possible to avoid those situations because they are incredibly stressful, especially when dealing with RFPs; if you miss deadline, you’re out of the running.
I hate working up to the last minute because it means that we likely are behind on establishing a clear win strategy, content came in at the last minute, or changes were being made to pricing and/or the solution right up until it was time to hit submit.
Since those last minute changes can dramatically affect the quality of your proposal (and sometimes result in costly mistakes), I follow a clear process each time that allows me to establish strategy from the beginning, get the content started early, and hit deadlines time and time again.
Read MoreOne of the biggest complaints I hear is how time-consuming proposal writing can be.
At many companies, proposals fall to the salesperson, marketer, business owner, or assistant, all of whom have many additional responsibilities that must be completed in addition to proposal writing.
If that’s the case for you, then the steps below can help you to streamline your process, so you spend less time creating proposals and more time ticking items off your to-do list.
Read MoreThere comes a point for every B2B business where you have too many proposals on your plate and not enough time to do them all. The natural next question is: Should I hire a proposal writer or keep doing this myself?
If you’re struggling with that question now, let’s take a look at your options to determine what is a best fit for your company.
Read MoreWith proposals ranging from two pages to over two hundred pages, it’s easy to start to compare your writing process to that of a full-time novelist. Fortunately, the world of fiction has plenty of advice for how to handle writing large sections of content. Let’s take a look at a few that can be applied to proposal writing.
Read MoreWriting is a skill that requires constant work and improvement. Like any skill, sometimes you need a bit of outside help and guidance to continue to improve. There’s no better place to get help than a good book, and the resources on this list are the perfect place to get started. So if you’re ready to take your proposals to another level and curl up with a good writing book, read on!
Read MoreIt’s easy to have the proposal kickoff meeting to be focused only on assigning tasks and aligning on schedule. However, since this is often the one time where the whole team is available, it is the perfect opportunity to dive into your proposal strategy. Whether you use the kickoff call for establishing your strategy or you have a separate meeting, below are a few key questions to address to make sure you’re positioned to win.
Read MoreWhether you respond to RFPs or not, a clear Go/No Go process is essential to ensuring you don’t spend too much time on proposals that aren’t likely to win. Figuring out how to make that decision is the hard part, however. To help make it easier, here are thirteen questions you can ask to help you decide if you should send out the proposal.
Read MoreWhether you’re just getting started with proposals or you’ve created hundreds, odds are, you’re going to need help at some point. What many organizations don’t consider, however, is the type of proposal support that is best suited for your process. Before you create a job posting for a proposal writer or hire a proposal management firm, review the below to see what would be the best fit for your organization.
Read MoreWhether you have dedicated proposal writers or your sales team submits proposals (or something in between), there are many factors that impact the success of your proposal team.
Read MoreSending proposals to customers is often a high stakes activity. Most have hard deadlines, the potential for tough competition, and the pressure to win a new contract for the business. A clear and repeatable process makes it easier to create winning proposals. If you haven’t updated your proposal process for a while, it may be time to take another look.
Read MoreAs one of the final steps in the sales process, improving proposal win rates can have a direct impact on your business. While there are many steps you can take to improving your win rates, there is one that stands out from the rest.
Read MoreUnless you are a proposal writer, your main skillset isn’t likely in creating proposals. Because of this, it can sometimes be a good idea to bring in proposal help to make sure your potential clients receive your best possible proposal. In this post, we look at a few example scenarios of when you might need help and the types of support that would be a best fit.
Read MoreAfter spending hours crafting content, designing graphics, and formatting your proposal, you hear back from the customer that they went with someone else. While a loss is always tough, it doesn’t have to be a total loss. Instead, use this to improve your process for next time. Below are a few ways you can turn a proposal loss into a win for your proposal process.
Read MoreFrom working with legal to finalizing pricing to designing your proposal to inserting forms -- proposal writing is a process that involves a lot of various skills. Whether you're a team of two or a team of fifteen, the following tools will help make your proposal writing process easier.
Read MoreIf you have never responded to an RFP before, your first question might be “How do I actually win an RFP?”. In today’s post, we’re going to look at the tried and true process that nearly every company follows to win their first RFP.
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