Reviewing live or recent proposals is one of the services that Shipley offers, providing impartial feedback and an “evaluator’s-eye view” of what you have written and submitted.
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As you can imagine, giving and receiving feedback on a proposal that hasn’t won can be a delicate and sometimes painful process. The thing is, we understand your belief that you should have won. When we read a proposal, we can often see that your business offers an excellent, maybe the best, product or service. The problem is that your proposals don’t do it justice.
Many businesses believe that the excellence of their product will speak for itself. Sadly, this is not true when it comes to competitive tenders. To win business, your proposal has to be as good as your product or service.
Like the solution, the proposal has to deliver to requirements – and the key requirement for a proposal is that it provides a justification for choosing you as the supplier.
When you look at the proposal from the evaluator’s viewpoint, you understand that it is your job to give them the arguments for choosing you. Your proposal has to speak for the solution, and only you can sell the value that the customer gains from its benefits and the features that deliver them. Only you can explain how your solution minimises risks to the customer. You have to make the claims (and back them with proof) that persuade the evaluator that your solution will provide the best result, because they are not going to do that work for you.
To do this takes the confidence that you get when you have undertaken a complete and rational analysis, know that your solution is the best fit for the customer’s needs, and can articulate why. While many businesses have confidence in the superiority of their solution, few can articulate why to themselves, and therefore fail to persuade the evaluator.
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