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There is probably no aspect of sales, no part of running your own consulting firm, no part of doing government work that people hate more than writing proposals.

Unfortunately proposals have become a way of life. You may be seeing this yourself; you work with a prospect you analyze their needs, you understand their goals, you partner with them to develop a solution and then they say “ah sounds great why don’t you put that in writing for me” and a chill runs down you spine.

So what happens you run back to the office looking for a proposal you can copy preferably a proposal that someone else has already written and ideally one that actually won some business. Then you cut and past, send it, and hope for the best. So what can you do to make this process easier and to increase your proposal win ratio?

Concentrate on the four essentials of a winning proposal:

1. Statements showing you clearly understand your prospect’s problem or need.
2. A recommendation for a specific approach, program, product, system, or application.
3. Compelling reasons to use your recommendation instead of your competitors’.
4. Evidence of your qualifications and competence to handle the project and deliver the solution on time on budget, and to specifications.

Avoid the seven most common proposal-writing mistakes:

1. Focusing on our product or service instead of our clients needs, goals, problems.
2. Not persuasively structured. There is a logical order to presenting the content in a proposal that will lead the reader to make a decision in our favor. Most proposals don’t follow it.
3. Hard to read and full of jargon. Use simple language that everyone can understand. Even if your prospect understands your jargon, the CFO or the CEO might not understand. People don’t buy what they don’t understand.
4. Data dumping. More is not better. Less is better.
5. Inaccurate or incomplete. This incomplete thing is a real problem if you are responding to a formal Request For Proposal, because if you don’t answer all the questions your offer is going to be thrown out.
6. Creditability busters. Stuff like misspellings, grammar errors, typos little things really like spelling the prospect’s name wrong.
7. Not having a process or system for proposal consistency. A survey from the association of proposal management professionals found proposal win rates increased 1% to 3% just by having a proposal creation process or system.

If you are wondering how your own proposals measure up, and how they compare to typical proposals in your industry. Our team of proposal experts will examine your proposal, up to 25 pages, and summarize how well it measures compared to best practices in the four essential of a winning proposal described above.

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David Carlisle is a proposal expert who contracts to manage a proposal process on a “pay for win” basis. This service is especially beneficial for companies in a “must win” situation. He can be reached at dcarlisle@psgcompany or through his website, www.psgcompany.com.