Proposal writing is one of the most challenging undertakings. It takes a special person to be able to write technical content, make it compliant with solicitation requirements, and make it compelling and interesting. There are many good writers out there who struggle with the idiosyncrasies of proposals. You must write with the evaluators in mind, including technical, program, and functional personnel. The easiest way to ensure a non-compliant or losing bid is to ignore the composition of the source selection board. This is an activity typical of pre-solicitation capture work. That early look at the evaluators coincides with a company’s work to influence the solicitation.
Looking at this issue’s attributions (below), it’s clear that writing well has always been considered extremely difficult. There are “tricks” to this trade that aren’t tricks at all, but items to consider whenever you’re facing a blank page, a challenging subject, a confusing solicitation, and a hard deadline:
- You must have a deep understanding of your subject matter. In fact, you must have a love of your subject.
- You must always write with the customer in mind. You’re solving problems and easing their pain; always remember that the only opinion that matters is your customer’s.
- Don’t just pitch your features; describe their benefit to the customer. A benefits and features visual can go a long way to selling your value, but be sure to always list benefits before features; it’s the benefits that count.
- Proposal writing is “top-down,” which is the exact opposite of technical writing. Start with your most important message and then support, support, support. Your evaluators aren’t always subject matter experts, so sell at the beginning; be sure to get the most important points out early.
- Avoid at all costs “motherhood” statements, which are claims that are not merely unsubstantiated, but also not clearly in line with requirements. Statements like “Quality is important, therefore…,” are a sign of disaster.
- Don’t write about you – write about the customer. Don’t start all your sentences with “We…,” “Our…,” “Team XYZ…,” or anything like this. That is the surest sign that you’re not writing to the customer.
If you would like to discuss this in more detail, please contact me on info@perfblue.com or via my contact page. Thanks!
Attribution
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathanial Hawthorne
“If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.” T.S. Eliot
About the Author
Drew Cotterman is the Founder and President of performanceBLUE, LLC, a professional proposal development firm. He founded the firm in 2010 after working in the proposal world for more than 20 years. He provides capture support; proposal development including management, writing, pricing, graphics, desktop publishing, and production support; process training; and employee mentoring.