What your proposal is and isn’t

Think of these base patterns as a ternary chart with each pattern representing a point on the triangle:

1. Technical tome
2. Open lawfare
3. Fancypants showcase

You may expect the majority of firms’ proposals would land somewhere in the center. However, writing a proposal that perfectly balances technical, legal, and marketing concerns is exceptionally difficult and not necessarily desirable. Instead, firms’ proposal styles tend to cluster toward one of the three points depending on their intentions. Few go fully polar by excluding the other two poles.

Technical tome

Description: that highly-technical proposal too detailed to be readable or stakeholder-relevant

It’s large, so it must be good, right?

Ironically, the quest for efficiency and completeness turns proposals into unreadable monstrosities. Most writers construct proposals from repurposed content, which is normal and necessary, but wait, what were the EPA’s 3 Rs again?

1. Recycle
2. ???
3. Re-use

Ah, who cares, we only need two, right? Armed with years of boilerplate and strong control/command-C, -V, and -H skills, proposal authors write tomes due to a lack of time, subject matter expertise, customer contact, or all of the above. On the plus side, all that pre-existing chaff lets the author focus on getting the estimate right, but estimate accuracy won't matter if the rest is unbuyable.

Open lawfare

Description: by reading this sentence, you bind yourself (hereafter “you” or “Client”) to these Terms below.

1.0 Definitions

You’ve seen this before. Pure contract-ese with zero context and few project specifics. This vendor allowed legal counsel to drive too much.

2.0 Services

There'll be minimal customer- or problem-focused thought. Thinking creates commitment which begets liability. Good luck finding much beyond a bulleted list.

3.0 Confidential Information

This proposal type activates a purchase from the buyer while committing nothing from the seller.

4.0 INDEMNIFICATION

If something goes wrong, it’s Client’s problem.

5.0 Entire Agreement

Despite the legalistic pomp, this proposal is actually quite thin. Documentation that follows this will either be extremely similar or jarringly different.

6.0 Acceptance

Sign here? Pretty please?

Fancypants showcase

Description: proposals turned into massive, beautiful slide decks

More lecture than proposal, fancypants showcases hybridize proposal fundamentals and marketing-grade schtick into one saga-length PowerPoint that’s dressed to impress. Interestingly, their authors snatch brand and product imagery from their target prospect’s online presence, leveraging it in an engineered attempt to program you, the reader, to view yourself as the hero in a happy-ending story where your business and the proposing firm are already working hand-in-hand.

This proposal format takes a boatload of up-front work, but can be easy to modify, rinse, and repeat. We first saw this fielded by design houses based on the coasts some years ago. They’ve since spread like a virus.

If the previous section described a proposal’s intended purpose, this part describes their functional realities and true limitations by highlighting what a proposal isn’t.

A self-contained, self-selling pitch

You and your marketers might think your proposal showcases your brand’s best effort. After all, you crammed every checkbox statement into 50+ information-dense slides. To pretty things up, your team hustled and ground dozens of graphic designers to the bone. You’ve included the client’s brand and offering at every strategic point in your formulaic message. It’s complete. A shame then that you’ll lose everyone’s attention after the first few slides. Do you read the giant decks you receive?

Also, you may think prospects can/will pass your slideware along internally where it can “sell itself”. If magical self-selling proposals exist, we’ve never seen them or their effects. Remember, your proposal’s a reference piece and a button prospects can push to activate your company. While your proposal may self describe, it cannot self sell. Furthermore, no stakeholder powerful enough to approve your proposal has time to read through it. Reading is for their subordinates.

Bottom line: If your attachment’s more than 10MB, please stop.

An ironclad project plan

The difference between your proposal and your project plan is that your project plan targets:

• Specific dates
• Specific outcomes
• Specific resources
• In a specific order

Instead, your proposal sets memorable expectations all parties can agree to. You shouldn’t pour Herculean effort and Nostradamus-grade predictive energy into fussy-yet-fictional planning. Remember, whatever you commit to is what your client will remember, so you’d prefer they remember your proposed schedule outline instead the highly-detailed one you’re certain to miss.

Bottom line: Mock/practice schedules work better pre-sale because you can’t control when contracts get executed. Don’t fret, with the right setup, you’ll get paid to do your in-depth, for-real project planning.

An accurate technical scope of work

The difference between your proposal and your technical scope of work is that your scope gets into the nitty gritty about each technical component of your proposed solution, outlining the engineering thinking behind each component.

Proposal-level descriptions tie back to customer needs without forgetting them, continually stitching loops of requirement + rationale + function + process-to-achieve into each primary product or service description. “Need W because X, get Y outcome by Zing.”

Bottom line: Propose your services provided against your prospect’s stated needs. When you win, you’ll get paid to architect your proposed solution in fine detail.

Detailed requirements

The difference between your proposal and your requirements specification is that business analysts test and challenge the underlying facts behind each stated need before declaring it genuine enough to go all-in on detailed functional and non-functional description. There’s very little room for that effort pre-sale. Ironically, if you did pre-BA your proposal, your resulting document wouldn’t reflect the buyer’s ask enough to actually get purchased.

Bottom line: Your proposal’s a starting point for BA work, it’s not the BA work done and dusted.

A successful proposal touches your client’s specific problem, makes clear sense, and turns your offer into a credible purchase. Do those three appeals sound familiar?

A skimmable overview

Like a product website, people come to your proposal to be informed, not to read. At least not until they determine it’s worth reading. Here’s what people look for in order:

1. Price
2. Start and end dates
3. The gist (their problem meets your solution)
4. Price

I said price twice. People scan for price first because it’s the simplest determinant for whether or not a proposal fits their expectations and capabilities. Start and end dates function like your price’s wingman. Stick your price and dates on the first page or the final page—key skimming destinations. Do not hide them.

A solid gist builds credibility quickly by clearly communicating the whats and whys instead of concealing the proposal’s purpose behind text walls. This soothes anxieties about buying from you.

Bottom line: You’ll never get through executive stakeholders without skimmability.

An expectation-setting description of what will happen

Proposal writers screw this up because of the preconceived notion that because your proposal is a contract, it must be hyperspecific and executed to the letter. News flash: lawyers can fight over letter and spirit regardless of what you write. Your proposal won’t ever function as a magic talisman.

Furthermore, as the proposal author, you probably can’t control the customer’s ultimate outcome, but you can certainly set expectations along multiple lines. For each project (or feature):

1. Need
2. Context
3. Rationale
4. Activities
5. Deliverables
6. Outcomes

Your descriptions of each should provide enough detail to address most potential questions. You don’t need to be perfect, you have to demonstrate that you understand both their problem and your solution.

Bottom line: You’ll never get through implementation-level stakeholders without setting clear enough expectations.

An actionable contract

Recently, we’ve seen two firms win deals with our customers, defeating all challengers in two of Next Mile’s structured procurement programs. Yet, somehow, both initially produced proposals their new customer couldn’t act upon. That seems small, but it creates an immediate nuisance, causing needless delay and back-and-forth because stakeholders had nothing to submit to their supporting legal, finance, and procurement teams.

To make your proposal cleanly actionable, it must contain legal agreement content, financial attachment information, and accounting parameters.

Agreements

Legal and business stakeholders need these to formally act on your proposal and engage your product or service:

• Declarations
• Governing document references if applicable
• Products or services provided
• Assumptions
• Signature

Attachment

Finance teams need these to classify and, ideally, capitalize this purchase:

• Name the current internal effort your solution is a part of
• Continuous/discontinuous purchase and duration
• Product or service (or both)
• Avoided opex trigger words (like “management” or “oversight”) and/or invoked capex keywords (“customer experience” or “new product development”) that qualify your professional services effort for capitalization (and help it survive a subsequent audit)

Parameters

Accounting teams need these to create purchase orders:

• Price
• Payment terms
• Start/end of service
• Invoice schedule

Bottom line: You’ll never get through procurement, legal, finance, and accounting on your first attempt without this information aligned and implemented.

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When Next Mile helps procure the right new fulfillment vendor for your technology initiative, we help square these things up before they slow progress down. Contact us to ensure your team and your vendors propose properly.