Page 155 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

146 Writing Winning Business Proposals

Lifeless. Uninteresting. Boring. Why? Because there’s no time in it, no sequence of
causes and effects, actions and reactions. It’s static. It doesn’t move. It’s more like
a rock, changeless, than an organization that, like my organization and yours, is a
living, breathing organism that constantly changes—and whose changes need to
be managed, which will be your job if you win the proposed project.
The first sentence, then, is static; the second, dynamic. The first is inanimate,
outside of time. The second is animate; it moves because it contains time and the
passage of time—like life. The first contains only facts (facts I already know); the
second subordinates the facts to a story. As the beginning of a story, the sentence
compels my interest because I want to know what will happen next. I want to
know the rest of the plot. Your strategy, then, should be to include in your Story
Component the necessary information, the facts, about my organization, but to
subordinate that information to your story about my problem or opportunity.
Too often, situation slots are written with the goal of feeding back information to
me so that I will know that you have listened. But I want you to do far more than just
listen. I want you to demonstrate not only that you have listened but that you have
understood—that you can take the information I have given you and analyze it,
synthesize it, place it in some context, and even educate me in the process. To dem-
onstrate to me that your project won’t be a data dump of undigested information,
there are four questions germane to the Story Component that you can answer:

◉ Causes: What is the history, the external and internal factors (for example,
those related to our markets, competition, costs, and processes), that gave rise
to our problem or opportunity?
◉ Problem/Opportunity: What is the problem or opportunity?
◉ Effects: What are its effects on me and my organization (the actual ones of not
solving the problem, the potential ones of not realizing the opportunity)?
◉ Attempted Solutions: What, if anything, has been done to solve the problem
or realize the opportunity?

Answering the first question, about the background, the history, of the situation,
allows you to begin your story as you narrate the events that caused the problem
or opportunity. These factors can be internal (new company initiatives, changes
in management) or external (aggressive moves by competitors, advances in tech-
nology, changes in the economic environment). By discussing the internal factors,
you can demonstrate your understanding of my company, people, and cultural
issues. By analyzing the external factors, you can demonstrate your knowledge of
my industry, projects, markets, and competition. When possible and appropriate,
you want to educate me about my organization, my market, and my perspec-
tives on the situation. By sharing nonproprietary, comparative information about
these factors, you pique our interest and imply your qualifications.