What are your top three proposal management challenges?

I am working on the new material for my upcoming free webinar on June 3, 2013, on the subject of Top 10 Proposal Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them, and am looking for your feedback. I have my idea as to what these are from my observations – but would love...

10 Things to Avoid When Writing Proposal Sections

Everyone struggles with proposal writing—even proposal veterans. But when it comes to subject matter experts, it gets even worse. Here are ten things to avoid doing while writing proposals – with some suggestions on how to improve your writing experience and, of course, produce winning results.

Your Proposal’s Overall Professional Look and Feel

Your proposal’s overall professional look and feel has a lot to do with presenting you as a credible and reliable company to your prospective customers. Even the best possible solution, presented it in a sloppy manner, may plant the seeds of doubt in your evaluators’ minds.

Seven Cardinal Rules of Proposal Graphics

Another tool of proposal persuasion is graphics. Graphics will always prevail over text. Quite simply, they are infinitely more effective at presenting the marketing and sales message. You wouldn’t even fathom not using graphics when you put together a marketing or sales brochure. Yet, people routinely underuse graphics in proposals.

It is important to define that for proposal purposes, graphics or visuals are not just pretty graphs and flowcharts or photos. Instead, they are all the visual elements that break up the monotony of the text. A visual could be a figure, a text or a focus box, or a nicely rendered table.

Can You Outsource Capture to Consultants?

Many companies question whether they can have an outside consultant come in and be their capture manager. They may not have internal resources to run proper capture on a pursuit, but they don’t venture outside the house to get anyone else.

Earning a Trusted Advisor Status

When interfacing with Government customers while doing business development or capture, you need to remember that you are still dealing with people. The Government has its own rules, and the process is hard to navigate in the beginning. Government officials have their own culture and language, but all the universal rules for building business relationships still apply.

When you build a relationship with Government representatives, you have to take a multidimensional approach. Your first task is to create a contact plan using phone calls, visits, and, to a lesser degree (and very cautiously), e-mails. You need to build as many relationships as possible, with as many contacts at the agency as you could possibly find time to get acquainted with.