Page 167 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

158 Writing Winning Business Proposals

WORK SESSION 7: Writing the Situation
and Objectives Slots for ABC

Before you actually begin to strategize the proposal, Gilmore sends you a memo
concerning the formatting, page layout, and other such “requirements” about
which he wants you to adhere. You expect this memo because it is his standard
operating procedure.

Requirements for the Proposal’s “Look and Feel”

In almost every project, you have heard, Gilmore engages one or more of the
buyers in a discussion of the quality of writing in the prospect’s organization. He
does so for two reasons.
First, it allows him to understand the culture better. An organization’s docu-
ments, he knows, are like cultural artifacts, and embedded in them are important
aspects of the prospect’s culture. Are their decision-making documents composed in
PowerPoint or in Word? How powerful are the Format Police, those individuals, usu-
ally in Marketing, who have spent months developing a consistent document “look
and feel” that harmonizes rather than conflicts with the organization’s attempts to
support the firm’s branding? To what extent and how often does the prospect, in
this case Anil Gupta, use the format requirements, and if he doesn’t, why doesn’t
he? What seems to be the expected length of decision-making documents and the
reaction to documents whose length exceeds those expectations? For example, does
President Armstrong get frustrated by having to read more than an executive sum-
mary (as, in Gilmore’s experience, is typical of many CEOs and presidents)?
Second, this discussion invariably leads the prospect to show Gilmore some
of the firm’s decision-making documents and, if he is fortunate, some proposals
and reports submitted by external consultants for previous projects. By having
Gupta comment on such documents and their formatting and quality, Gilmore
can make strategic decisions about the format and design of your proposal.
Here are the key points from Gilmore’s memo to you:

◉ Although most of the previous consultants’ proposals and reports were written
in PowerPoint and designed in landscape, as are ours, ABC’s internal decision-
making documents are in Word and designed in portrait. Their default font
appears to be 11 pt. Century Old Style, and the content in their charts appears
to be 9 pt. Helvetica Neue. The captions in those charts, however, appear to be
8 pt. Myriad Pro.
◉ Given the above, we need to write our document in Word and in portrait, with
11 pt. Century Old Style as the “normal” font and 9 pt. Helvetica Neue for