Shipley Insights

  Many businesses are good at describing their strengths, not so good at ensuring their offer has a competitive edge over other bidders. Use a Black Hat review when you know you have credible competition and you need to step up your game.   The ideal Black Hat review outcome is to credibly answer the

  Concise writing is easier to read and evaluate. Accordingly, it has a better chance of persuading the reader to reach the desired conclusion.   When reviewing and revising a proposal, break your writing down into three parts: paragraphs, sentences, and words. The goal is to make the text as short as possible while conveying

The pursuit of new business comes at a cost. Make sure that the opportunities you are investing in are aligned with your campaign plans or company strategic plans.   Consider these factors: ·         Potential for additional business ·         Product, market, and technology match ·         Fit to strategic business plan objectives ·         Corporate risks and chances

Here is a hint. There can be multiple reasons why deadlines for individual proposal tasks are constantly missed, but the most likely is that you have underestimated time allocated for some tasks and overestimated for others.   If you are told you have 20% of somebody’s time for three weeks: How do you work out

A proposal template that embeds and prompts for customer-focused writing can be an effective tool to remind your team to prepare proposals that address customer issues. But the template on its own can’t increase your win rate. You also need to monitor and manage its use to meet clearly defined, measurable quality standards.   Consider

Improving your bid decision gate discipline is one of the most effective ways to improve win rates. Improved bid/no-bid discipline can double or triple win rates, while extensive training and coaching to improve proposal quality might lead to 15 to 20 percent improvements.  But an individual’s bid recommendations are often influenced by their job function.

  Gate reviews are the forum for bid/no-bid decisions and for senior management sign-off on the strategy and progress you have made towards winning an opportunity. They determine whether the opportunity is still worth pursuing.   By contrast, the focus of colour team reviews is on improving the quality of the capture and proposal effort,