Four tips to help you write persuasive proposals — as fast as you can!

Simon Carter | August 21, 2024

We help all kinds of business write all kinds of proposals and complete all kinds of RFPs. We know what works, we know what you need to do to get it right — and we know what’s practical.

And we feel your pain. We know how tempting it is to do a ‘Save as’ of your last proposal and change the prospective client’s name. And we too have felt the overwhelm of working through a huge RFP.

So we decided to share some ideas from our own experience. This article sets out four tips that will help you write a proposal or RFP response that persuades — and get it done as efficiently as you can.

For an extra efficiency boost, use these tips alongside these two free Write resources:

Write’s Checklist for Proposal Writing

Write’s Quick Guide to the Magic of Threes

1. Sharpen up reusable content when you’re not busy

Every proposal or RFP includes chunks of content you’ll reuse over and over again, from case histories and biographies to descriptions of your process. Polish up this content when you have time rather than when you’re in the middle of your pitch.

Sharpening up this content when you’re not up against a deadline gives you three useful wins.

1. Content that convinces and persuades. Take time to make sure all claims are backed up with facts, and that you’ve spelt out the benefits of your points of difference. You’ll find more detail on these ideas in the Write Checklist for Proposal Writing.
2. Content that’s error-free. No more typos, wrong names and dates, or misstated numbers.
3. Content that’s ready when time is tight. You won’t have to scramble around at the last minute to find — or hurriedly write — that perfectly relevant case history, or that biography of the new project manager who’s worked in the prospective client’s industry.

This work is not glamorous. But it will save time and heartache when the deadline looms.

2. Decide your top three ‘pick me’ points at the start

You need to be certain of your strengths — and that they line up with what your prospective client needs. These are your ‘pick me’ points.

And a strength is only a pick-me point if it lines up with client needs. For example, one of your organisation’s strengths may be that you have 15 offices spread across the North and South Islands. But this is not a pick-me point if the prospective client only wants your services in Auckland.

To get your ‘pick me’ points clear, create a two-column table. On the left, write down what you believe are the 10 most important points from the prospective client’s brief, or RFP.

Focus on the things you believe will matter most to them — the ‘difference’ points rather than the ‘hygiene’ points. For example, the fact that you are a member of your industry’s professional body is a hygiene point: it’s expected, it won’t impress. But experience of relevant projects may be a point of difference — particularly if you have glowing client testimonials from those projects.

On the right, list your top 10 ‘pick me’ points. Test your points by researching what competitors say about their own strengths, talking to colleagues — and asking your clients what they see as your strengths and points of difference.

Now pick your three strongest points. If you’re writing a proposal, these points will be the core of your executive summary. And if you’re completing an RFP response, your top three ‘pick me’ points are the threads you need to weave through the response.

3. Consider drafting your executive summary first

Two schools of thought exist on when to write your executive summary — at the end or at the start. The Proposal Writing Checklist suggests writing it last, but it’s often helpful to write the draft summary first.

Here’s why. Drafting it at the start will help you to:

• jump-start your thinking on what your prospective client wants and needs
• get to the pick-me points that will persuade your prospect that you’re the right choice
• plan how the completed proposal or RFP response will cover the ‘pick me’ points that aren’t in your executive summary, and set out the facts that back up all your ‘pick me’ points.

You can find out more about how to build a persuasive summary — and how to use your summary to structure your proposal — in our Quick Guide to the Magic of Threes.

4. Check, proofread, then check again

This is another task that’s far from glamorous. But errors in a proposal or RFP response don’t inspire confidence. We’ve seen bids for high-stakes projects fail because they contained errors.

Build proofreading time into your schedule, and get someone outside your team to check what you’ve written.

Find out more about how to write a proposal that persuades

Take a look at our training workshops on proposal writing — or get in touch to discuss a tailored workshop for your team.

Book on one of our Proposal Writing workshops

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