Three Steps Prospects Take to Evaluate Your Proposals
Ever heard of a Red Team review? If not, here’s the deal: It’s basically a mock proposal evaluation, done to predict how the customer will score your document. It happens after draft completion and before production/submission, complete with checklists, evaluation spreadsheets, and the participation of employees outside the core proposal team. Sounds beneficial, right? It is, but with the exception of some federal contractors and large commercial proposal teams, we’ve seen fe
Four Quick and Easy Ways to Make Proposals More Persuasive
Reality check: Proposal evaluators don’t care about your company. Really. They’re not mean, they’re just busy, so they don’t want to comb through pages and pages of content about you: your company history, experience, qualities, and products/service offerings. Instead, they want a simple, straightforward explanation of how those things will affect them. They care about benefits, not features, and they want to quickly find them in your document. That makes sense, but you’re bu
Five Steps to Clearer Business Writing: The Bob Vila Edition
Clear, straightforward business writing can do a lot: get you hired, get you promoted, save you time, make you money, and save you money. Lots of money. Think we’re exaggerating? Think again. Researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey found that using a clear writing style would save the U.S. Navy alone $27 million to $75 million annually in time wasted reading and rereading. That’s a lot. Regardless of whether you’re a seaman or sales professional, chances are
Eight Exercises for Strengthening Your Business and Marketing Writing
Writing skills are essential for today’s business professionals. Don’t believe us? Consider this: a study from SunGard, a data services provider, found that approximately 90 percent of today’s business communications take place electronically. That’s right, whether you’re an accountant, architect, advisor, or administrator, writing is a key part of your job. Now consider this: a study from the American Management Association found that strong writing skills yield a 30 to 50 p
Nine Steps to More Concise Business Writing: The Chopped Edition
In today’s world of ultra-tasking and information overload, being concise is more important than ever. Whether reading a short email or 500-page business proposal, your audience typically doesn’t have the time or desire to search for information. They don’t want to read six lines for what could have been said in six words, and they don’t want to decipher meaning. They want to get in, get information, and get out. If they can’t, your message is lost. So this week we’re taking
