Clear thinking

Earlier posts used buyer types to explore the ways evaluators’ roles and experience shape the way they review proposals. In this and coming posts we'll show how to use that knowledge to develop value propositions for each buyer type. Anatomy of a value proposition...

Recent posts covered understanding prospects—including the economic buyer, technical buyer and user buyer—and how to organize and position features and benefits for each buyer type. While it’s helpful to strategize around buyer types, nothing beats knowing the actual...

Earlier posts focused on understanding prospects, including the economic buyer and technical buyer. Today we’ll look at users, the third main buyer type. User buyers are part of the evaluation team in any RFP for services. They represent individuals who will be...

Technical buyers are gatekeepers. They don’t have the economic buyer’s power to make the final decision—but they can keep your proposal from getting shortlisted. Technical buyers use specialized knowledge to analyse whether solutions meet the RFP requirements. Because...

Past posts have stressed the need to think deeper than the RFP language if you want to win large contracts. Part of this is understanding the buying process and those who will influence the purchase decision. This post profiles the economic buyer, the ultimate...

Low bids lose RFP competitions when evaluators have doubts about the technical solution’s reliability or completeness, or the vendor’s ability to perform, or to meet the delivery schedule, or some other aspect of the bidder’s offer. And nothing raises doubts like a...

Earlier posts focused on developing content prompts for proposal writers, managing early drafts and structural editing. Approaching content management and editing systematically improves efficiency and helps avoid last-minute rewrites. Copyediting is the next step....

This and upcoming posts focus on editing proposal content to keep evaluators reading. The goals are to make efficient use of resources and to avoid last-minute rewrite marathons. If you haven’t already read the posts on Developing content prompts and Managing early...

Recent posts examined management tools and techniques to help proposal teams avoid last minute rewrites, including why and how to use proposal narrative prompts. This post looks at managing writers’ initial drafts. First rule: Don’t delay Don’t make the mistake of...

Nearly every proposal team has had to rewrite major sections just before a deadline. These marathons typically stem from a last-minute realization that the content doesn't answer the questions. They take a toll on everyone and produce final submissions well below...