Clear thinking

Imagine a general assembling his field commanders and saying, “We’re going into battle tomorrow morning. I think we can win this. You and your soldiers know how to fight. Be ready at zero-eight hundred hours. That’s it. Dismissed.” It doesn’t take military experience...

Recent posts have covered using section storyboards to integrate visuals, creating rich visuals on small budgets, visualizing with flowcharts, and using meatball charts as visuals. This post describes ways to reuse visualizations in informal proposals. Informal...

Many RFQ and RFP responses today are page limited. This constraint challenges proponents to summarize and showcase their strengths while using as little narrative space as possible. How, for example, do you express your team’s experience and joint working history, or...

In recent weeks we explained how to plan visualization into your proposals and made the case that proposal graphics do not have to be expensive. Here we describe how to use flowcharts to show processes that differentiate your solution and/or involve client...

Last week we described how to use storyboards to increase the use of visualization in proposals. Lack of planning is one reason proposals teams include too few graphics; cost is often another. But visualization doesn’t require high-end graphics. In fact, very large...

Visualizing key aspects of your solution is a powerful way to engage evaluators and help them remember your key strengths and benefits. Many bid teams get excited about this idea, and then fail to make it happen because of process. And that's unfortunate–because...

When we join a proposal team part way through the response window, we always make the same request: “Let’s see your executive summary.” Typically, the answer is: “We haven’t written it yet. We do that once the proposal’s finished.” That’s poor practice for two...

Bidders are often unclear on the difference between a cover letter and an executive summary. In the last two posts, we reviewed common cover letter mistakes and also how to write a hard-working cover letter—one that does more than simply fill a couple of pages. So you...

Last week’s post advised avoiding a trite cover letter opening: “Thank you for this opportunity etc.,” followed by self-centred chest pounding. It recommended showing you understand the critical requirements of the planned purchase. But a good opening just gets the...

Proposals are sales pitches. And successful salespeople know the importance of first impressions. You may make a sale after showing up dishevelled, but the odds are against it—especially when selling a solution that’s important for your prospect's organization. The...