a structured or systems approach. The process also includes careful analysis of what the customers say, how they say it, and what they probably mean. The shredding process encompasses detailing every compliance requirement and estimating the effort required.

Use A Disciplined Approach To Developing Your Strategy
Too many times companies decide to produce a proposal when they have not fully prepared a winning strategy. Too often the company decides to Bid when a No-Bid is the right answer. If you do not have a formal process for preparing your strategy, develop one.

Use Full Color for Smaller Proposals
The average going rate for high-quality, full-color printing is now less than $1.00 per page. The high impact of color photographs is indisputable, but you can also make information easier to see by using color. We have produced high impact, full-color proposals using $300 Inkjet printers at less than 30 cents per page.

Make the Proposal Available on the Web
Even if the customer requires hardcopies of the proposal; make the proposal available on your Web site. This makes it easy for the customer to extend review copies to a wider audience. Many security issues can be resolved easily.

Keep Accurate Metrics on Your Proposal Process
If you spend a little time keeping production metrics on your proposal efforts, even over a short time, you will be able to estimate the true cost and time requirements for future proposals. There are many little secrets to getting the metrics. For example: Did you know that MS Word automatically keeps track of the number of revisions and the elapsed time during the revision process for each document?

Prepare Writer’s Kits Instead of Making Verbal Writing Assignments
Most people in every company struggle to express themselves in writing. Their contributions frequently need much editing time. Turn things around and hire an editor to prepare an expanded outline of the response and give the writers the outline to complete with information like “Who,“ “„How,“ “What,“ “Where,“ and “When.“ Include lists of winning themes in the outline. It is a good idea to also hand out lists of trade words and acronyms as well.

Get Your Writers and Proofreaders to Use the Grammar Checker
On many proposals; we require that the writers submit a report of the “Readability Statistics” along with their rough drafts. Configured properly, the Grammar Checker does a very accurate job of pointing out areas for improvement (over 97 percent accuracy.) Training on the Grammar Checker takes fifteen minutes and pays big dividends in reducing editing time and (most important) improving the quality of communication. In addition to saving time and money and improving the proposal quality, after two or three proposals, the writer are beginning to understand the basic English rules they could never quite master in high school and college.

Apply a Formal Structure to All Three Phases of the Proposal Process
The entire proposal process from Capture Management to Production can be a very complicated endeavor, even on a small proposal. Structuring the processes allows better organization and tracking of the process and provides all team members with an understanding of their contribution. Once the formal process is in place, you can measure performance in a way that that permits process improvements.