Shipley Insights

Make sure evaluators get their answers as quickly as possible. State your most important point first. Proposal evaluators read until satisfied, score the question, then look for the answer to the next question. Writers’ styles are influenced by the documents they read. So proposal writers with a technical background often model their writing on the

Decision gate reviews are about deciding whether to proceed, not on critiquing and refining the technical solution. The technical solution is only one facet of your complete offering. It might also include your management solution, pricing solution, past performance, quality assurance plan and transition plan. Suggest a separate review of the technical solution, and who

Resumes should be organised according to the readers needs. Proposal resume evaluators, rather than screening to eliminate individuals face a more complicated task. They are assessing for: •Understanding of the customer’s needs •Degree of commitment •Match between position requirements and the individuals proposed •Team coverage of all requirements Best-in-class resumes: •Clearly define the requirements of

Value propositions establish the value basis for the business relationship. They describe how your solution will improve the customer’s business and how the improvement will be measured. Make sure your value proposition is: unique to each of your clients predicated around what is important to the client detailed, specific and quantified

…until the proposal is submitted Many people have been told the Executive Summary should be a one-page document prepared after the proposal is written. This is unhelpful advice as executive summaries are the most important pages in your proposal. A draft executive summary should be prepared early during the capture planning or pursuit phase, well

Decision makers are more likely to worry about risk, what could go wrong, than about relatively minor price or technical differences. Some sellers prefer to avoid any discussion of risk. They correctly see risk as negative but incorrectly avoid discussing risk because it is a negative topic. Identifying and highlighting mitigation of key project risks,

Proposal strategy can be implemented in four fundamental ways: Emphasise your strengths, mitigate your weaknesses, highlight your competitors’ weaknesses, downplay your competitors’ strengths. Of these four, most Business Development teams and Bid Managers tend to focus most on the first – emphasising your strengths. It feels right – tell them how good we are, they