“How do I figure out what to say in my sections when there is so much I could say? Where do I begin?”

The technical folks usually ask it. They are faced with an RFP requirement that is pretty vague, like “Describe your approach to Mission Control Software” or, even ...]]> Here’s a question I get asked often:

“How do I figure out what to say in my sections when there is so much I could say? Where do I begin?”

The technical folks usually ask it. They are faced with an RFP requirement that is pretty vague, like “Describe your approach to Mission Control Software” or, even worse, “Mission Control Software” under a general heading of “System Specifications.” Furthermore, they are often given a tight page limit.

The problem is that the expert has a lot to say about the subject. She could go on and on about any topic in her field. And, left unchecked, she often will. The author is faced with a universe of data from which to choose as she decides what to write about. And what do you think she’ll do? She’ll likely write about that with which she is most familiar and comfortable-technical data with no real proposal focus.

That’s why technical sections are often so dense and irrelevant to the proposal.

Plus, the frustration of not knowing what to write will keep many authors from starting immediately. This is one of the biggest reasons authors procrastinate when it comes to writing the sections they have been assigned.

What’s the solution? It’s something you learned years ago, back in high school. Topic sentences.

Remember topic sentences? They appear somewhere near the top of a paragraph, announcing what the rest of the paragraph (or set of paragraphs) will be about. As your English teacher told you, the topic sentence prepares the reader for what you are about to discuss.

What your English teacher also told you is that the topic sentence focuses the writer’s attention on what to say in the subsequent paragraphs. This is as true in proposals as it is in any other kind of writing. In fact, topic sentences are even more important in proposals because in proposals every word you write has to be focused on addressing the customer’s needs. Get off the track, and the reader will quit reading and will miss all that you have to offer.

But topic sentences don’t simply arise from the authors’ minds. They, too, have to be linked to something-and that’s where your strategy comes in. It’s critical that you have developed proposal themes, main messages that you want to send. It helps the authors develop topic sentences.

Say you have arrived at the following as one of your proposal themes:

“We offer the lowest risk technical solution to meet [the customer's] needs.”

This gives focus to the author who is responsible for preparing the section on Mission Control Software. He can develop topics (and associated topic sentences) that show how your approach to MCS offers the lowest technical risk. Having that degree of focus limits the authors’ universe of potential things to say to a very manageable few things to say. This significantly reduces the potential amount of information he has to include in his section and increases the chances he’ll supply pertinent information. Plus, he’s more likely to get it in on time.

The lesson: Develop proposal themes and drive them down to your sections. Base your sections on the themes and you give your authors a better idea of where to start. And they’re likely to give you better input more quickly.

Simply put, FOIA lets individuals or companies obtain records from Federal agencies. You can use these documents to both assess upcoming opportunities and evaluate potential competitors.

Here are some samples ...]]> Doing business with the federal government? If you’re willing to dig, you can find a wealth of “insider” information through the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) process.

Simply put, FOIA lets individuals or companies obtain records from Federal agencies. You can use these documents to both assess upcoming opportunities and evaluate potential competitors.

Here are some samples of the kinds of documents you can request to assess upcoming opportunities:

• Active Contract Summaries—Tells you what an agency has going on now; you can extrapolate.
• Source Selection Plans—Shows you what a client has to do to prepare for an acquisition.
• Strategic Plans—Identifies agency goals, objectives and even some action plans.
• Acquisition Planning Documents—Gives a snapshot of a client’s acquisition plans.

And here are sample documents you can obtain that may give insight into your competition:

• Past Contracts—Tells you who contracted for what work and how the contract was structured.
• Contract Change Requests/Contract Modifications Executed—Gives you a history of contract modifications asked for by a contractor/consultant and accepted by the client.
• Performance Reports (CPARS)—Gives information on the performance of a contractor/consultant on a given project.

Some Limitations

Some information is protected from release under one or more of nine specific exemptions. The exemptions are: (1) Classified Documents; (2) Personnel Rules & Practices; (3) Exempted by Statute; (4) Trade Secrets/Proprietary Data; (5) Internal Deliberative Memorandum & Opinions; (6) Personal Privacy; (7) Investigative Records; (8) Financial Institutions; (9) Geological/Geophysical Data.

How To Request Information

Here are some tips for requesting information through FOIA:

• Determine what you want. You need to ask for specific documents; you cannot simply ask for information. This means that you have to know what documents contain the data you want.
• Identify which agency has the information. Don’t shotgun a request to a variety of agencies. Don’t write a “boilerplate” letter.
• Write your request clearly and specifically. Don’t ask for a broad range of documents hoping to find some gems. The FOIA officer at a given agency is vastly overworked as it is; don’t add to his/her burden.
• Maintain contact with the FOIA officer. Follow up your request with a phone call.
• Be prepared to pay something. Your costs may cover processing, copying and mailing.

Follow up. If you haven’t heard back in a reasonable amount of time (the law requires a response within ten working days, but many agencies are swamped with requests) call and leave a gentle reminder.

Note: This is a pretty generic list. It cannot address whether the content of the ...]]> A couple of years ago, a client of mine asked for a checklist for a good proposal section. Because a lot of people have asked me for one since, I figured I might as well publish it. So, here it is.

Note: This is a pretty generic list. It cannot address whether the content of the section is accurate. That’s up to the proposal manager, the section writer and the reviewer. But it is a good start. I will publish an article on how to kick-start proposal writing sections in upcoming newsletters.

Responsiveness to the solicitation documents and/or specified customer requirements. Does the proposal answer the mail?

• Does the section meet all the requirements called out in the RFP (SOW, spec, etc.)?
• Does it meet the evaluation criteria called out in the RFP?
• Does it follow the organization required by the RFP?

Persuasiveness of the proposal. Does the proposal make a clear case for selecting us over any other competitor?

• Does the proposal section demonstrate that we understand the customer’s problem?
• Does the proposal section present a solution that clearly resolves that problem?
• Does the proposal section demonstrate that we are technically competent?
• Does the proposal section reinforce a clear theme or main message?
• Does the proposal section cite clear benefits of the approach to the customer? Are these benefits clearly called out?
• Does the proposal section draw a clear distinction between us and the competitors?
• Does the proposal section make it clear why no other competitor should be selected?

Readability of the proposal. Is the proposal easy to read and can the client find the information important to making a decision?

• Is the proposal easy to read by a non-specialist (limited use of jargon and jargon well defined)?
• Are the sentences short (15 words avg.)?
• Are the paragraphs short? (No more than four sentences?)
• Is active voice used more than passive voice (We will do this work, vs. This work will be done)?
• Have we used small words (use) rather than large words (utilize)?
• Is there ample white space?
• Is there a variety of graphical elements (bullets, tables, photos, drawings, call-out boxes, etc.)? Are they used in a pleasing way?
• Is it organized well for easy scoring?
• Is it “skimmable”, that is, easy for someone who is just skimming through it to pick out what’s important?

That should do it. Feel free to edit this and customize it to your business. Having a checklist is a great way to make sure you cover all your bases and improve your proposal hit rate.

If you’d like more tips, strategies and examples for how you can write better proposal, I welcome you to order and download my new book: How to Write Winning Proposals: An Expert Guide to Planning, Writing and Managing Proposals that Win!

For help with your

On the other hand, are you really saving money by doing this? How productive is your staff going to be on ...]]> Many firms claim they keep proposal costs down by preparing proposals during off hours — after work and during weekends. After all, you need to have your staff be as billable as possible, don’t you?

On the other hand, are you really saving money by doing this? How productive is your staff going to be on a project during the day if they’re staying until eleven at night working on a proposal? And the more fatigued and worn out your staff, the more the quality of the proposal itself suffers. If you insist on doing project work during the day and proposals during “free time” and after hours, the quality of both your billable projects and the proposals will suffer.

The answer to this is straightforward, though it’s a tough sell: write fewer proposals, ones that come as a result of long-term pre-solicitation client contact. And when you write them, plan carefully, and draw from your marketing budget to pay for them. Over time, more of your proposals will be winners. And your staff won’t be so close to burn-out.

You must remember this crucial fact: From the customer’s perspective, most firms in a given competitive procurement are ...]]> The single most important element of a winning proposal is a clear set of direct benefits the customer will receive by selecting you. Nothing is more important than that. Your proposal will win or lose on that alone.

You must remember this crucial fact: From the customer’s perspective, most firms in a given competitive procurement are technically capable of doing the job. The only way you can win is by differentiating yourself from the competition. And you do that by offering a solution that has more benefits to the customer than anyone else.

And here’s something else to keep in mind. What you perceive as a benefit may not be what the customer sees as a benefit. I cannot count the number of proposals I have read that cited features of an approach as if they would automatically be perceived by the customer as benefits.

Which brings us to a definition. What’s the difference between a feature and a benefit? A feature is an element of your solution. It’s what you will do, or what you will offer. Air conditioning in a car is a feature. But is it a benefit? Most of us would say yes. But what if we lived in Nome, Alaska? Is air conditioning still a benefit? Or is it a piece of equipment I may use once or twice a year but the rest of the time is a costly attachment that decreases my gas mileage?

A feature is not automatically a benefit. It is a benefit if and only if the customer values it. So, you can’t just fill your proposal with feature after feature and expect the customer to see the intrinsic value. You have to discover what the customer values, and present your features as a way to bring that value. Then it becomes a benefit. In order to discover what he values, you have to find out what his hot buttons are.

Your client buys what you’re selling because she perceives it as having some benefit to her!

That may be obvious.  But here’s something that isn’t so obvious:

You need to point ...]]> I realize you have heard this before. I know my clients have (I say it all the time, like a broken record), but I’ll say it again:

Your client buys what you’re selling because she perceives it as having some benefit to her!

That may be obvious.  But here’s something that isn’t so obvious:

You need to point out what the benefit is, even if you think it’s obvious.

Too often, proposal writers think they’re calling out benefits when what they’re really doing is simply citing the features of their offering.

Features vs. benefits. A feature is a characteristic of your approach; it’s a part of what you are offering the customer. A feature of a refrigerator, for example, is its cold drink dispenser in the door. Now, this may be a benefit to some buyers, but the benefit is not intrinsic; the cold drink dispenser by itself is not a benefit.

A benefit is what the feature does for the client. The cold drink dispenser lets the user have cold water with very little effort on her part. She likes that, and sees how it would simplify her life; the feature makes the refrigerator more attractive to her than one without that feature. That’s the benefit of the feature. Too often, proposal writers assume the intrinsic niftiness of their technical solution is self-evident, that just citing a feature will be enough for the reader to immediately see its benefit. Not likely. It’s your job to point out the obvious, because the obvious really isn’t. How do you know what the client will consider a benefit? This is a direct result of your win- strategy brainstorming. And the benefit statements you use are the manifestations of your proposal themes.

Characteristics of effective benefits statements. Benefits statements vary according to what your client thinks is important. But in general they:

• Should be the major point of the section.
• Must be conclusive, factual, quantified, and brief.
• Must be stimulating; it needs to capture the readers’ attention and drive them to seek proof in the text and graphics of the section.

Benefits are the heart and soul of a proposal; they’re what will close the sale to the client. Citing clear and direct benefits to the client is also an excellent way to spike yourself above the competition. In the end, you want the client to feel she will get more value from your solution than from anyone else’s. In the end, the proposal that has the biggest benefit to the client will win.

But first, we need to think about the technical person-the “subject matter expert”-and what drives her. ...]]> Getting the technical people to write what I call “proposalese”-the language of proposals-is the Holy Grail that all marketing people seek. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet here. However, I’ve found that there are some ways to help them along.

But first, we need to think about the technical person-the “subject matter expert”-and what drives her. I don’t want to make too many generalizations here, but I’ve found that most “technical” people have a difficult time writing “sales” documents because they firmly believe that what they are proposing-a solution to a problem-is valuable because it solves the problem. And if the problem is solved, the benefit is obvious-no more problem.

But, that’s not all the customer is looking for. Sure, the technical evaluator in the customer’s shop needs to see that the technical proposal writer fully understands the problem. But by also calling out the benefit of the solution, the proposal writer demonstrates that she knows what the technical evaluator thinks is valuable. The evaluator says, “Okay, they know what’s important to me.”

But there’s a more important consideration: the technical evaluator is not the only one evaluating the proposal. In fact, evaluation panels often include more non-technical readers than technical ones. And these people don’t often know the technology well enough to see the intrinsic benefit of the technical solution. These are the people the technical proposal writers really have to reach.

One way to get the technical people to focus on the sales aspect of the proposal is to hold a mini-training session at the proposal kick-off meeting. This should run no more than an hour or so, and should cover the basic principles of proposal writing. This session must include before and after examples of proposal sections-the before sections with just the features and the after sections that highlight the clear benefits along with the features.

Another great tool to use is what I call “section directions.” These are written by the proposal leader and give specific instructions about what details to include in the sections, and the main benefits that must be highlighted. These directions take a long time to prepare, but the time spent doing them pays off big time in the end by reducing the amount of rewriting.

Plus, I have found that the technical people love the section directions. We all know that the hardest part of writing is getting started. The section directions remove that major stumbling block.

Finally, you have to hammer at the features/ benefits connection whenever the opportunity arises. When you review the sections, write “what’s the benefit?” or “so what?” in the margin. If you talk with a writer in the hallway about her section, say, “Don’t forget benefits.” At the various proposal meetings, say, “What’s the benefit of doing it that way?”

The point is that the writers have to be constantly thinking benefits, benefits, benefits, and they need reinforcement.

As I said, there’s no magic bullet to getting the tech staff to concentrate on benefits. You just have to keep reminding them. And while they may get sick of hearing it, the proposal sections they write will be better for it.