The 4 Immutable Laws of Giving Great Proposals

by Ben Yoskovitz

Writing a proposal

I’ve never met a Request For Proposal I liked. They’re typically poorly designed, laden with pointless questions and ripe with ridiculous demands. Truth is: RFPs aren’t even meant to find the best vendor. They were invented by process-loving bureaucrats, whose sole mission in life is to procrastinate, justify their jobs and cover their asses.

RFPs suck. I make it a point never to fill them out. Not anymore.

But when a client does ask a reasonable question, for the love of padding your bank account, answer them.

Here are 4 laws of giving great proposals & project quotes that you should never break:

  1. Recognize Key Questions & Answer Them Thoroughly. If a client asks you a single question in an email, you can safely assume it’s important to them. Answer it. Ignoring questions to rush a proposal or quote is a clear sign of disinterest and disrespect. We’ve all had difficult clients that cross the line, but it’s critical to identify the real issues at hand, focus on those, and provide good answers.
  2. Answer Questions Before They’re Asked. The more practice you get answering key client questions, the better you’ll be at anticipating them in the first place. Once you know what a client is going to ask before they do you’ve won.
  3. Ask the Right Questions. Proposals and project quotes are as much about giving out information as they are about getting information. Clients rarely lay it all out on a silver platter; you need to probe and prod to get the information you need to get the job done.
  4. Explain Your Price. There’s nothing worse than a proposal or quote that gives no explanation of the price. If you can’t justify what you’re charging, it all looks like a sham. This is negatively compounded when the client’s already provided a budget.

    Client says, “We’ve got $10,000 for this project. So what do you think it’ll cost?”

    Idiot consultant, “Um…$10,000.”

    Pretty convenient, eh?

Referrals Rule, But…

Many of you will get a lot of business from referrals. That’s great. That’s exactly how it should be. But don’t let that panacea of referrals go to your head. Word of mouth is incredibly powerful; especially negative word of mouth. It only takes one frustrated prospect to rattle some chains. And prospects will get frustrated very quickly if they receive shoddy, flippant proposals. The jilted prospect can easily tell other friends about your lousy effort. Worse, they can go back to the person that referred them in the first place.

Writing Great Proposals is About Attention

There are some critical best practices for writing great proposals that everyone should know. But every proposal and project quote can’t be a masterpiece. You need to balance the effort you put in with a host of other factors (opportunity, budget size, timeline, your availability, etc.)

You don’t have to explain everything in a proposal or project quote to the Nth degree, but you do need to understand a prospect’s key issues and handle those properly. People need to feel as if you’re giving them the undivided attention they deserve. That builds customer trust and loyalty. And makes your proposals better.

August 15th, 2007
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Viewing 10 Comments

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    Hah, I don't have a lot of experience of RFPs, but I do recall having a micromanaging boss that made me send out a million of them with the most ridiculous questions to try to get a copy machine.

    I felt sorry for the other businesses. They eventually never returned our phone calls.

    Anyway, nice post. I agree with the "hey were invented by process-loving bureaucrats, whose sole mission in life is to procrastinate, justify their jobs and cover their asses." :)
    • ^
    • v
    Carl - So you don't have a lot of experience responding, but sounds like you were sending plenty! The horror! *grin*

    Hopefully you don't work for that boss anymore...
    • ^
    • v
    Responding to RFP's are a way of life for government contractors. Although they may at times appear overly long and difficult to respond to, it's nothing more than a want ad. The client (government agency) wants a specific job done and asks who can do it and for how much. Think about it: long gone are the days of wants ads in the paper looking for someone with generic job skills, like, "Wanted: Computer worker for engineering firm." Now want ads are more like, "Wanted: Computer engineer for engineering firm. Must be proficient in C+, Java..., ad infinitum" Well, just like the personal job market, the corporate job market. (Don't know which is the chicken and which the egg.) Instead of agencies looking for some company to manage a call center to help folks, now they want some company to create a manage a virtual tier 2 and tier 3 help desk based on ITIL concepts and manage by someone with a PMI, PMP certification, as well as being a SME.
    • ^
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    Steve - Glorious government work. Great for the pocketbook, but insanely frustrating for vendors. I've done some government work in the past, and been involved with other companies that focus almost exclusively on it. Very, very tough. Not a business I'd want to be in, although there are advantages.

    The government RFP has to be one of the worst ever, since the government is most likely really clueless on what they want, what they need and how it all works.

    I understand with the government that RFPs are used as a way of having a standardized system for everyone to try and get work. It's designed to create some transparency and consistency in the tendering of projects.

    Given how many scandals we continuously see (at least in Canada) over the awarding of contracts to friends, family, etc. I question whether the system works at all.
    • ^
    • v
    Whether you are dealing with a government RFP or a commercial one, I think it's best to look at the proposal as the closing of the sales process. In government proposals the successful companies are the ones that are marketing the customer _before_ the RFP is released. The same is true with commercial RFPs. You always need more information than is in the RFP and it's easier to get before the RFP is released. Plus, it gives you a chance to influence the RFP. Finally, even in government contracting, your relationship with the customer counts for as much (if not more) than the written proposal. While we approach our proposals as the closing of the sales process, they are only part of the overall sale.
    • ^
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    Carl - That's very sound advice. RFPs shouldn't be the initial contact between prospect and vendor. But very often they are, and those are RFPs to stay completely away from.

    Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!
    • ^
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    Ben,

    I really appreciate you distilling all of this information into simple and concrete tips. Personally, wading through tons of information to find good advice is tiresome. Your post is refreshing.

    I used your advice when writing a proposal earlier today. And guess what, I got the deal. So thank you again.

    - Mason
    • ^
    • v
    Mason - Great news! And congratulations on closing a deal.

    Do I get a commission? *grin* (joking!)

    Thank you for stopping by and commenting. Hope to see you around some more...
    • ^
    • v
    I know RFPs suck, but sometimes you really DO need to use them to find projects to bid on. If you're in that boat, head on over to the RFP Database. The site is free to publish and download RFPs and all of the data is user-contributed! You can also help out and drive traffic to the site by incorporating the RSS feed into your blog :)
    • ^
    • v
    Even worse is the RFI, then the RFP. Talk about a time suck.

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