Wrangle the Nitty-Gritty of Proposal Details

Abstract

Writing winning government proposals is as tedious a job as jobs get. You have to provide everything that’s requested in the exact form dictated in the RFP, and if you miss even one requirement, it will reflect poorly on your proposal or could even get it thrown out of the evaluation. You don’t have creative license to come up with your own structure; instead, you have to be inventive and persuasive within the strict confines of the format and page count imposed on you. Sometimes the task might seem impossible, like a rather typical requirement to summarize your technical and management approach and provide a performance work statement in 10 pages for a complex $90 million project. Compound the challenge with a schedule that is 30 days on the long side, and more like 5 to 10 days on the short side, and you get the picture. To master proposal preparation, you will have to acquire several key skills, especially planning your work, paying attention to every detail, outlining your proposal correctly, and making your proposal more persuasive within the bounds of what’s allowed. In this chapter, I cover how to develop a schedule for your proposal to avoid the last-minute scramble and produce an error-free, professional set of bid documents. Then I discuss the importance of attention to detail, and take you through the process of outlining a compliant proposal to get the highest score from evaluators. Finally, I show you how to make your proposal sections more compelling through executive summary, win themes, persuasive language, and graphics.