Page 9 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

viii Preface

◉ A small Excel application that includes criteria for determining your posi-
tioning with the potential client and, based on that positioning, a forecast of
your prospects for winning
◉ An elaboration on the content in Appendix D that discusses the differences
between proposals and recommendation (or final) reports and provides
strategies for composing the latter
◉ A discussion of Stakeholder Matrices, which can be used during proposal
development, the engagement, and account planning to improve your
positioning

Acknowledgments

One doesn’t write a book like this in isolation, and over the course of many years
on this effort, I have numerous people to thank:

◉ Consultants from ECS Limited in New Delhi and KPMG in Chicago, who were
helpful in providing opportunities to test my initial concepts, and the hun-
dreds of consultants from A. T. Kearney’s and IMS Consulting’s American,
European, and Asia-Pacific offices, who helped me refine those concepts
◉ The many graduate students at Iowa State University, who have served as a
laboratory to develop my ideas, as well as the university itself, which provided
release time so that the project could be completed
◉ Mike Hora, pricer and negotiator extraordinaire, whose insights about pricing
were helpful in composing Chapter 13
◉ Barbara Minto for her work in what she calls the Minto Pyramid Principle,
which forms the conceptual basis for Chapter 5 as well as the discussion in
Chapter 11 and Appendix D
◉ David Maister, whose ideas about the professional-services firm and the sell-
ing of professional services saturate this and former editions
◉ The large team of McGraw-Hill editors, designers, and proofreaders—espe-
cially our project editor, Susan Moore, whose tireless efforts have significantly
contributed to the quality of the book

—Richard Freed (richardfreed@gmail.com)
Ames, Iowa