Land contracts with winning proposals

"Avoid making your proposals a list of features and instead stress the benefits. Keep asking yourself what positive results the reader will get by doing business with you"

A written proposal can be a vital step towards landing a contract. How do you make sure it gets your message across and wins you the business?

What is a good proposal?

Writing a proposal to submit as a document is your opportunity to shine and stand out from the competition. You will not succeed if you just dash off a proposal or recycle a standard document. Each proposal should be tailored and appear to be so.

A good proposal will be customised to the prospective client's needs. It will confirm your understanding of what's wanted, building on the good feeling created during earlier meetings. It will offer appropriate cost-effective solutions and benefits. A good proposal, although brief, is not trivial and begs to be read or makes the client really sit up and listen.

Make them go with the flow

The main barrier you must overcome is the reader who is often over-stressed and chronically short of time. So, above all, your proposal must earn a reading or an audience. First, make sure you have a well thought out and presented structure. This will give your thoughts a logical flow and ensure you don't miss any elements. If it is a document it also means busy readers can skim it, yet still catch the gist. The golden rules for structure are: Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you've just told them.

Structure it intuitively

You need to make navigation easy, so use a title page, a table of contents with all numbers correct, an executive summary, a main body, a conclusion and appendices, for details or reference material.

Try to create a clear, easy-to-understand proposal, this will impress more than one full of jargon, so use short words, short sentences, short paragraphs and an uncluttered style.

Be persuasive

People want things to reflect their point of view and your proposal should reflect this. The word 'you' should appear much more than the words 'I' or 'we'. Even changing the phrase "we will provide regular updates" to "you will receive regular updates" creates a better tone. Avoid making your proposals a list of features and instead stress the benefits. Keep asking yourself what positive results the reader will get by doing business with you.

Focus on the ends, not the means

The prospective client needs just enough information to be convinced you can do the job. However, the detail of how you do it is your problem. If you tell them everything, they won't need you.

Describe what you mean

If your proposal prompts unnecessary questions then your description is inadequate. Succinct and genuinely descriptive writing enlivens proposals. It ensures your reader really feels how it will be to work with you or to use your product or service. So use your descriptive powers to leave a picture in the reader's mind. A 'system that's effective', for example, could be one that 'runs as smooth as silk'.

There is a difference between a description being clear and workmanlike and being noticed in a particular way. You want people to feel that you have taken the trouble to put things in their terms. If you are starting from a template proposal, make sure you ruthlessly cut out anything that is not relevant or focused on this client, and rephrase examples to match their industry and circumstances.

Brief is best

Keep strictly to the matter in hand and think of the overworked reader. Faced with a few proposals, people are more likely to read a shorter one first, which then sets the agenda. Don't make it so short, though, that it is trite or vague. Use appendices for more detail, references or background information. If there are a lot of these, bind them separately to keep the main proposal slim.

Present yourself like a pro

Invest in an office binder, use good quality covers and find a pleasing, clear page layout. Get a designer to create a template with a good look and feel, with distinctive fonts to make it instantly different and recognisable. Use any means to emphasise what needs to stand out: bold type, italics, bullet points, indenting and so on.