Page 6 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Preface

his book is written for business people who prepare proposals (and for busi-
Tness people who evaluate them). If you are a consultant who owns your own
business or who works for a firm of one or one thousand, if you are an internal con-
sultant who “sells” services to your own organization, if you are a business executive
who “sells” ideas to your management, you will benefit greatly from this book.
If you are like most people, you probably find selling your services or ideas in a
proposal both demanding and difficult. Your proposals not only take too long to
prepare, they are often written when you least want to write them—at night or on
weekends, because during the day you are occupied with everything else that you do:
conducting projects, furthering relationships, developing people. Proposal writing
often seems like extra work, additional but necessary effort to get selected to per-
form projects so that you can be successful in your intensely competitive business.
Perhaps equally frustrating is the margin of difference between winning and
losing. Hundreds of people consulting in the private sector have told me the same
thing: the difference between winning and coming in second is very small, often
just two to five points on a hundred-point scale. Those who place a close second
never get back the upfront costs of proposal development. What they do get is
second place. The situation in the public sector is similar. For a recent proposal
to manage a $30 million project for a U.S. government agency, the difference
between the winner and the second-place also-ran was five points out of one
thousand—one-half of 1 percent!
What accounts for this difference? Sometimes it’s price, of course, some-
times your particular methodology or your qualifications. But all too often, it’s

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