How To Write a Business Proposal

If you want to know how to write a winning business proposal, the best person to ask is your customer. The goal of business proposal writing is to answer your customer's questions and persuade them to select you. Business proposal writing should be more about your customer than it is about you. Following a business proposal template won't help you with writing a proposal that speaks directly to the customer.
The customer.
There is no universal standard for layout or composition of proposals. If you think about it, it makes sense. A “proposal” is intended to persuade someone. What is required to do that is up to the person being persuaded.
If you want your proposal to succeed, you must know your customer. If your customer wants:

• If your customer wants details, give it to them. If they don’t want to do a lot of reading, give them a short proposal.
• If your customer wants references, give it to them. Otherwise, don’t.
• If your customer wants pricing, give it to them. If they’re not ready for pricing, don’t give it to them.
• If your customer wants contractual details, give it to them. If they’re not ready to discuss contractual details, don’t force them.
• If your customer wants to know who will be doing the work, tell them. If they don’t care, don’t tell them.
• If your customer wants things presented chronologically, organize your proposal that way.
• If your customer wants information organized functionally, organize your proposal that way.

If you don’t know the answers, find them out.
If the customer doesn’t know what they want or need, give them criteria to help them figure it out.
Never load the customer up with a bunch of paper just because they might want something. Give them what they want. No more, no less.
A simple proposal formula
Here is a simple approach to help you cover all the bases in your proposal. For each section/requirement that you must address, make sure you answer: who, what, where, how, when, and why. Repeat it until it rolls off your tongue and you have it memorized. Use it to identify and answer all of your customer's questions.
After you have written your proposal, you can use the same formula to review it. In each section of your proposal, simply ask yourself if it answers "who, what, where, how, when, and why?"

• Who: who will do the work, who will manage the work, who does the customer call if there is a problem, who is responsible for what
• What: what needs to be done/delivered, what will be required to do it, what can the customer expect, what it will cost
• Where: where will the work be done, where will it be delivered
• How: how will be work be done, how will it be deployed, how will it be managed, how will you achieve quality assurance and customer satisfaction, how will risks be mitigated, how long will it take, how will the work benefit the customer
• When: when will you start, when will key milestones be scheduled, when will the project be complete, when is payment due
• Why: why have you chosen the approaches and alternatives you have selected, why the customer should select you

This simple little phrase (who, what, where, how, when, and why) can help you ensure that your proposal says everything needed to "answer the mail." For each of the customer’s requirements, go through the list and you will probably have everything covered. Simply doing a better job of answering your customer's questions can give you a competitive edge when everything else between two competitors is equal.
In addition to using it for inspiration when writing, you can also use it like a checklist for reviewing a draft proposal. When you read a draft proposal, consider these questions and pretend to be the customer. Go over the questions and see if the proposal provides all of the answers.
All you have to remember is "who, what, where, how, when, and why."
And you thought proposal writing was supposed to be hard.


Nnamdi E. Armstrong
stone4sloane@gmail.com
+2348162319833
+2348122735908