When asking for proposals to provide services, clients frequently require descriptions of relevant projects. And being a conscientious proposal writer, you always respond. The problem is that too often you probably select the projects that you know are relevant and tuck them into the “Related Experience” section but don’t let the client know exactly how

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’s maybe obvious.  But here’s something that isn’t so obvious: You need to

Style and tone matter a great deal in proposal writing. The customer’s selection process is really a process of elimination. Your job is to make it as hard as possible for him to eliminate your proposal. One way you can do this is to keep your writing from boring him to death. That’s a sure

True story: A client of mine visited one of his clients, a director of public works. It was simply a “touch base” call—Hi, I’m alive, just thought I’d meet and we could talk. On the way out my client asked the director “Oh, by the way, I’m curious—what do you like to see in a

This article is directed at those who have already submitted their proposal and have been invited to make a presentation to a selection panel.  If your client has required you to make your actual proposal in person, many of these tips will help, but you must address other needs as well. We’ll talk about those

In the beginning, you tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em. How you begin your presentation is critical. In fact, the introduction is the most important part of your presentation (it beats the conclusion out by a hair). Why? Because it’s your only chance to make a first impression. You can show the client

Every proposal gets reviewed.  Too often, however, it only gets reviewed once, and at the end of the process, just before it goes out the door.  This leaves no time to improve, and the quality will invariably suffer. What does your review process look like? You often prepare the proposal under so much time pressure

The best way–the only way, really–to make sure your proposal is giving the client what he wants is to have it reviewed by an objective panel that have been briefed to think like the client. This type of review is often called a Red Team Review. The idea is to assemble a group of people

How important is an executive summary? Simply put, it can be central to success. Consider this: The executive summary may be the only part of your proposal read by senior management and the only part read by all of the evaluators. Yet many firms don’t understand the significance of this key section. A poorly written

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”