Page 194 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

CHAPTER 11

Writing the

Qualifications Slot

’ve probably seen more boilerplate in qualifications sections than in a furnace
Ifactory, especially from the larger consulting firms, the ones with big research
departments. These firms’ proposals list everything they can about what they’ve
done and whom they’ve done it to. There’s a better way, and I’ll tell you what it is.
The situation and methods slots allow you to demonstrate your qualifications
implicitly. In situation, for example, you can display your abilities as a prob-
lem solver by demonstrating your understanding of our problem’s causes and
effects and by indicating your awareness of the important questions that must
be answered before this problem can be addressed or solved. Your understand-
ing of these matters can be crucial to the successful conduct of the project, and
your clear and accurate presentation can serve as evidence of your experience,
expertise, perspicacity, ingenuity, insight, and whatever other characteristics you
wish to convey. In situation and methods, you’re showing your qualifications,
implicitly. In qualifications, you’re telling them, explicitly. You’re explicitly
attempting to answer the question “Why are you best qualified for this project?”
The answer to that question should focus on abilities and capabilities related
to my specific situation. Abilities are qualities of people, such as experience, kind
and level of expertise, and personal characteristics. Capabilities are qualities of
things, such as your firm or proprietary intellectual capital like methodologies,
databases, or models. In a great many proposals, abilities are discussed in résu-
més (often attached in an appendix) and in staffing sections or subsections that
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