Tips to create an effective proposal
1. While writing the proposal keep in mind who is the audience. Is it a technical person, an end user, a finance guy or maybe a combination? Tailor it to suit their needs. This basic rule holds good for any document for that matter, always keep in mind who will read it.
2. A good introduction goes a long way in setting the tone of the proposal. The introduction should tell about the problem and the solution that your proposal intends to solve. It should also tell what to expect from the proposal.
3. Important points in the proposal should be bulleted, highlighted, colored or whatever it takes to make them jump out of the pages. Don’t make it look like a credit card’s hidden terms and conditions.
4. Keep it short. If the buyer has received ten proposals, probably she’ll pick up the shortest one first.
5. Leave the finances for the later sections, if money is not your selling point. If you can convince you have understood and can solve a problem effectively, the buyer shouldn’t bother much about it.
6. Your company’s profile should not appear in the first few pages. The buyer probably knows about that if she asked you to submit a proposal. It can be a part of the appendix at best.
7. Do a spelling and grammar check. Do not submit a proposal without a table of content.
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Comments
Hi Sanchit..I must say Most of your points are must haves..Also I think PDFs can be edited. we just have to make sure while creating that they are non editable but searchable..Do you advice any document management softwares. even if we are using templates i think automated document management softwares ensure its concise (styling, formating colors fonts etc) the other day I stumbled upon such a software but cant remember now.
Im sure I would follow up if you write about your personal experiences in form of case studies when proposals have or have not worked and how you overcame the situation etc.
(Its the same Jabbar, 2005..remember?)
cheers..
Good advise… Keep the format consistent across the proposal, ie, fonts, titles etc. Submitting the proposal in PDF format only enhances the appearance. PDF keeps the formatting like line breaks, page breaks consistent. It is also non-editable so accidently the user does not change the document. It reflects on our suaveness.