Page 124 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Identifying, Selecting, and Developing Themes 115

seem incompatible and perhaps even contradictory. But a new theme could
emerge from them—call it “balance.” That is, a salable quality of the propos-
ers could be the ability to understand the national need for consistency but to
remain flexible by balancing that need in light of the states’ and regions’ local
circumstances. This theme of balance also leverages the third principle listed:
“trade-offs.”

Developing the Themes

The downloadable Themes Development Worksheet is shown in Figure 7.6,
although you won’t be able to see it very well in this book. That’s because it needs
to be printed out in 11˝ × 17˝ or in A4. As several chapters in Part 3: Proposal
Preparation illustrate, the worksheet allows you to develop much of the persua-
sive content you will employ both during the proposal process and in the proposal
itself.
Using this worksheet, you can create a web of persuasion throughout your
communication. The worksheet uses some of the generic-structure slots you’re
already familiar with:

Given my organization’s SITUATION, these are the METHODS, out of a universe of
possible methods, that you will use to solve our problem or realize our oppor-
tunity. Given those methods, these are your QUALIFICATIONS for conducting
them. Given those methods and qualifications, these are the BENEFITS we will
receive from your solving our problem or realizing our opportunity.

This logic can be applied to each of your proposal’s themes, and in a completely
filled-out worksheet the argument gets developed both horizontally and verti-
cally. From left to right, the worksheet spins a web of persuasion related to your
theme. Assuming, for example, that your theme derives from a hot button, you
will be demonstrating your responsiveness to that hot button in four different
ways: first, that you understand its existence and my desire to address it; sec-
ond, that your approach is designed to consider it; third, that you are qualified
to act on it; and fourth, that I will benefit by your acting on it. The bottom of
the Themes Development Worksheet contains an example of a theme, “urgency,”
developed horizontally.
When the worksheet is expanded to contain several themes, an argument
will begin to be developed vertically for several of the proposal’s major slots. For
example, a completed worksheet would supply you with several good reasons for
why you have designed your methodology as you have and for why you believe
you are best qualified to conduct the project.