If you're a corporate communicator, are you playing a role in helping your company make written pitches for business? We think you should.
If you're a consultant, are you creating proposals that showcase your writing and critical thinking skills so well that you win the projects and assignments you want? We're sure you'd like to.
Operating a business on any level, from one-person band to global organization, is so competitive today that delivering excellent proposals can be critical. So we want to offer some guidelines and ideas, drawn from our own experience and from some people who've spent a lot of time thinking about proposal writing.
What's a proposal? It can be a sales letter, an unsolicited statement of capabilities aimed at a company you want to do business with, a formal response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) or anything along these lines. The general principles are similar for all (but we won't specifically address responses to government RFPs, which have their own logic and criteria).
Some of you in the corporate arena probably have a whole team devoted to proposal development. This doesn't mean that you can't be helpful—in fact, a writing/marketing specialist can be particularly valuable to shaping better proposals, and nothing can bring you closer to what makes the heart of your business tick.
When working on guidelines for proposals, we found—surprise!—that the advice we gathered sounds a lot like our advice on all writing. So if you've been reading "Working Words," you have a head start. But the ideas apply in somewhat different ways.
1. Know your audience.
"The client requests a proposal because that client needs something, and it's your job to find out the client's need and viewpoint and address that," says Masha Zager, owner of Bridge Communications in Brooklyn, New York. She notes that you have to learn about the prospective client in some depth "so you can speak to that client's level of knowledge. Many proposals are too technical. You want to provide just enough information but not overwhelm with technical data and industry jargon."
"Write for whom you perceive the decision makers to be and tailor the information to them," says Donna Anselmo, owner of a Long Island, New York-based marketing company who has also established a firm called Proposaldocs LLC, devoted to writing business-to-business proposals. "When you have a range of people evaluating your proposal, you must think about all their concerns and adapt your format, style and language."
It's important to match a client's mindset about what a proposal should be, Anselmo adds. "If it's a tiny company with an overloaded decision maker, don't overwhelm him or her. But if it's a multimillion-dollar company, sending a two-page document may not be enough to show you've researched and understood its needs. The proposal must resonate with the way the company does business."
She cites one instance in which a communication specialist came to her for help with a "big stretch" pitch to an international company looking to outsource a major project. The preliminary work was reasonably good, she found, but not geared to the complexity of the business being approached. It took her two weeks of research to understand the company and strategize about how to deliver a proposal that would succeed for this target.
She adds, "If you decide to make the commitment, make it all the way. Think, what are the clues that tell me what they really want? Their underlying business philosophy and approach? When will things have to happen? If I get the business, can I produce?"
2. Remember objectives and make them very clear.
In all but short proposals, putting the bottom line on top in an executive summary is usually a good idea. This section should demonstrate that you understand the need, how you will accomplish the job, the benefits and why you're the right person or organization to do it—in short, literally, it summarizes the whole proposal, because some reviewers may not read further—or won't if the summary doesn't work for them.
"One of the most common mistakes in proposals is being too generic, not saying specifically what you'll do for the client and how you propose to do it," Zager says. Of course, you should review the RFP with excruciating care and strategize about how to align your objectives with the clients' need and solve their problems.
Many of the proposals Victoria Canavor (yes, she's a relative!) reviewed while working to improve grants for an international development agency lacked both specific objectives and convincing evaluation criteria, and thus came across as promising too much—the unachievable. "Focus more on defining your long-term goal and objectives, less on detailing your activities," she recommends. "What are you actually trying to bring about? If you're pitching activities or services, emphasize the results you expect to get." For example, proposals about training should not focus on "we will train these legislators," but rather, "we will help them articulate their platforms in a clear manner."
The universal rule, she says, is: Be SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Realistic in Time frame.
3. Organize carefully and write well.
"Organization is incredibly important," Canavor says, "because it doesn't work if it's hard to follow. You can choose to organize in various ways—e.g., objectives, theme or timing—but the sections must support each other. I often see major problems with different sections contradicting each other, because they were written by different people. Someone absolutely has to go back and make it coherent, give it one voice." A good contribution for the communicator to make, we think.
As to word choice: Everyone we talked to agreed that you should keep it simple, and beware of adjectives. They are often the culprits in promising the unachievable. Canavor recalls a proposal that promised to "help make decision making more participatory, democratic, transparent and inclusive." But the writer couldn't explain how these lofty ideals would translate into a project reality. The words were eliminated.
What works in good writing in general should be applied to proposals: clear language, short sentences, short paragraphs. Every sentence should have a reason for being—otherwise, cut it.
Anselmo emphasizes that your audience doesn't want marketing fluff, but evidence. "Your prose can be pretty, but at the same time provide evidence of how your services have helped other customers and will help them. A capabilities list isn't enough—you have to match what you can do with what the client needs. A testimonial, data, a piece of evidence that demonstrates how you've made this work and how effective it's been will be the most influential piece of your proposal."
You probably noticed that much of the foregoing advice has to do with thinking through your content, rather than writing as such. But that's our constant underlying premise: Good writing is good thinking. In fact, when it comes to proposals, content and writing are inseparable.
That's why communicators who work inside a company, government organization or nonprofit should support proposal (and grant) development. Whatever the venue, you will never get more points than when you help bring in business or money.
And if you're a freelancer or consultant, your proposals should of course be models of good writing and good thinking.
Natalie Canavor is an independent business writer who focuses on publications, feature writing, and scripting for video and interactive media. She also teaches business writing. Formerly she was a national magazine editor-in-chief and, for more than 15 years, communications director for a major educational agency. E-mail her at ncanavor@optonline.net.
Claire Meirowitz, the owner of Professional Editing Services, is an editor, writer, proofreader and publications project manager based on Long Island, New York, where she specializes in information technology, business, education and labor relations. She has 20-plus years of experience in publishing and in university public relations. E-mail her at claire-m@att.net.
C&M Business Writing Workshops, the authors' new joint venture, provides practical learning experiences for corporate and nonprofit managers and staff on the client's premises.
Natalie is a former president of IABC/Long Island (New York), and Claire is the current president.
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