Now that all Federal appropriations have been passed by Congress and signed by the president, proposal personnel can breathe a sign of relief. Last year business was slow because the gridlock in congress slowed the appropriations process down so much. We expect that this year will resemble 2010, when business was good, healthy and strong.
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Volume of Proposal Activity in the Fall
We are optimistic that the volume of solicitation releases / proposal activity in the fall will be higher than usual. Due to the latest ever passage of final appropriations in 2011, there was not enough time remaining to process all the procurements needing to be processed prior to end of the fiscal year. Therefore, many of these procurements were pushed into the October to December first fiscal quarter 2012 timeframe
As a result of having FY 2011 business pushed into the fall, we estimate that the proposal services market will be 12 – 15% faster than usual during the fall quarter. This estimate is supported by the virtually unanimous expectation among seasoned proposal professionals and industry analysts that volume of solicitation releases will be up significantly in the fall. However, to keep things in perspective one must remember that proposal activity is traditionally slow in the fall quarter, and that there is often only 40 – 50% as much proposal activity in the fall months as there is during some of the fast months such as May and June.
Should You Write The Executive Summary First or Last
Should you write the Executive Summary first and build your proposal to support it, or should you write it last, as a summary of all the material developed in writing the proposal? There are good reasons for taking either approach, but which is best for you will depend on your circumstances and goals.
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A Whole New Way to Think About Sales Proposals
Here’s a worthwhile experiment. If you’re interested in selling more stuff, that is.
Dig up a few of your company’s proposals from five-to-ten years ago and compare them with today’s. Have they changed much?
Chances are you’ve made incremental progress. Maybe you improved the look, created content that better reflects new and emerging client interests, or even restructured your proposals away from “all about me” and toward “all about you”.
Those are good changes to be sure. But alas, we suspect your proposals still use the same methodology you’ve always used. In other words, when you compare the old and new proposals, you’ll probably be looking at two “paper” documents, meant to be read from start to finish.
Fog Index and Pace
Perhaps the main reason of writing is to communicate — arguably this is the root purpose of any writing. In order to communicate through your writing, it must be easily understood. In two-way communication — face to face — you can reiterate a point in response to a question, or simply communicate through a raised eyebrow or a confused look. Writing, however, is one-way communication, so you have only one chance to ensure comprehension. Two techniques that you can use to improve your readers’ comprehension are the use of Fog Index and Pace. The following paragraphs describe these techniques.
Strategy-Theme-Discriminator Tree Development
During 40 years in the industry, I have found that a Tree-type graphic helps proposal authors visualize the connection between strategy, win themes, and evaluation factors. In this article, I present an example of such a Tree. Take a look at the graphic with this article. Note how we constructed it.
Write a Winning Transition Plan
Courtesy of Carl Dickson, www.CapturePlanning.com
Transition Plans may be an important factor in determining who wins the contract. If there is an incumbent, they may not even need a transition period. If there is no incumbent and everything else is equal, the vendor with the best transition plan may have an edge.
Proposal Strategy Tree
Most companies formulate win strategies, but then they leave it up to the authors to include them in their proposal sections. Frequently these strategies remind one of a teenager learning to swear: the words are there, but they appear awkward and make no sense.
Effect of the Stimulus on Government Contracting and Proposal Activity
The present situation for Government contractors reminds me of the introduction to Charles Dickens’ famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.“ Never during my 30 years in Government Programs has there been anything like it. At the same time, we have:
Keep Your Sentences Short: Why Shorter Is Better
Recently I was working with a client, helping them improve their Executive Summaries. We focused on developing a more client-centered message. We talked about focusing on the customer’s problems first, then showing how solving those problems would deliver a big payback to the client’s organization.
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Editing (2)
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Marketing (8)
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Key Personnel (3)
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Red Team (5)
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Proposal Writing (19)
- A Current Look at the Proposal Market
- Volume of Proposal Activity in the Fall
- Should You Write The Executive Summary First or Last
- A Whole New Way to Think About Sales Proposals
- Fog Index and Pace
- Strategy-Theme-Discriminator Tree Development
- Write a Winning Transition Plan
- Proposal Strategy Tree
- Effect of the Stimulus on Government Contracting and Proposal Activity
- Keep Your Sentences Short: Why Shorter Is Better
- Eliminating Background Noise
- Avoiding Death by Bullet Point
- Leading Non-Professional Proposal Writers
- How to Write a Better Proposal Introduction
- Writing Persuasive Reasons Why Customers Should Select You
- When to Start Writing Before the Final Solicitation
- Resumes - Hints on Preparing Winning Resumes
- Management Plans: What Makes a Quality Management Plan
- Tell 'em, and tell 'em, and tell 'em again
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