7 Ways to Refine Your Business Proposal

Ever notice that the most successful Business Proposals use the same writing formula?

In general, this comes down to two things: experience of proposal writing and deep knowledge of the subject matter.

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7 Ingredients of Successful Business Proposals

Here’s how to make your proposals more convincing to the Grant assessment team:

#1 Managing Third Parties

Show how you will manage partners, consultants and your clients’ staff. Give examples from previous projects.

#2 Quality Plan

Demonstrate how you will ensure that quality is managed through your Quality Plan and describe the role of the Quality Manager at different stages of the procurement process.

Note that the first tab is the Table of Contents. If you click on the links on it, it opens each of the spreadsheets.

[See Quality Assurance Plan templates]

#3 Industry Awards

Highlight awards and peer recognition from your industry. This gives you more credibility and helps the funding agency feel more comfortable about awarding you the contract.

#4 Intellectual Property

Confirm that all Intellectual Property Rights are given to the client in the Executive Summary. While this is usually obvious, make sure this is clear, again to ease their anxiety.

#5 Payment Schedule

Outline a suggested payment schedule, for example, 10% in advance, 50% after Development and 40% after Implementation.

#6 Sign-off

Outline the turnaround time required for sign offs, for example, three days. This keeps projects on track and avoids the client delaying the project schedule.

#7 Business Drivers

Discuss the key business drivers and how you plan to address these in your solution. Look for ways to gauge where the writers have most concerns in their Request For Proposal and then discuss these key points.

As I said at the start, there are different writing formulas out there, and all of them serve their purpose. This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, but it gives you the basic framework for persuasive content when writing business proposals.

This modern blue and platinum template allows you to add your own image. It can be modified quite easily as an internal report or a similar business document

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