Proposal Templates and Reuse
People often assume that because the topic of a proposal is similar to an earlier proposal it can be easily recycled just by "changing a few words." This is hardly ever true. Unfortunately, the level of effort required to transform the focus, goals, win strategies, themes, results, keywords, and points of emphasis in a template or sample into another document can easily exceed what it would have taken to write it from scratch. That's okay because there are better approaches than templates or reuse files to provide inspriation, guidance, and acceleration for your proposals.
How to Determine Whether Templates Will Help or Hurt Your Proposals Sometimes after you make all the changes needed to customize boilerplate proposal files, it ends up taking longer than it would have to write it in the first place. It sure would be nice to know if that is going to be the case before you start. We have developed a model that shows the factors that determine the extent of the changes needed, so you can determine whether boilerplate is really an option for the type of proposals that you do.
Whether it makes sense to use boilerplate in your proposals primarily depends on:
The type of offering. If you are proposing a unique or engineered solution, you may not be able to employ re-use material effectively. Even if you are responding to similar requests, the number of edits required to adapt it may exceed the time it would have taken to write it in the first place. If you are proposing a product or a commoditized service, you may be able to employ re-use material effectively, if your customers' concerns are also consistent. The consistency of RFPs. If your RFPs are very consistent, you may be able to use re-use material effectively. If your proposals don’t have a written RFP, then whether you can effectively employ re-use material will depend on the consistency of your customers’ concerns and evaluation processes. In addition, the following concerns can also impact whether or not using boilerplate works in your environment.
The consistency of customer concerns and evaluation. Even if you are proposing the same thing, if your customers have different concerns or follow different evaluation processes, you will need to customize your response to reflect it. Since your proposal should show how your offering responds to the customer’s concerns, a difference in customer concerns can totally change the context and how you describe your offering. The strength of your writers. If you have weak writers, you may want to rely more on re-use material. Instead of training and guiding them through the process of creating winning proposal copy, it may be easier to write something good once and then re-use it often. However, this can be dangerous. Even if you provide detailed checklists and guidance, if the writers are weak to begin with, you may find that you are submitting proposals that are not customized and your win rate will suffer. When you look at the nature of your offering and the RFP, you can actually see where boilerplate might be applicable.
This model shows us that:
Boilerplate works best when you are offering the same services/products on every bid and the RFP is the same each time. Boilerplate requires time consuming edits when you offer different services/products on every bid and the RFP are different each time. In between these are two conditions where boilerplate may or may not be a good solution:
When you offer the same services/products on every bid, but the RFP is different each time. When you offer different services/products on every bid, but the format, structure, and content of the RFP is the same each time. The most important thing to remember is that there is a difference between being similar and being the same. Most of your offerings and most of your RFPs will be similar. They may be about the same things. But unless they ask for exactly the same things, in the same order, using the same terminology, and evaluate them against the same terminology, the response will have to be different. The amount of that difference is what determines whether boilerplate helps or hurts.
Whether it makes sense to use boilerplate in your proposals primarily depends on:
The type of offering. If you are proposing a unique or engineered solution, you may not be able to employ re-use material effectively. Even if you are responding to similar requests, the number of edits required to adapt it may exceed the time it would have taken to write it in the first place. If you are proposing a product or a commoditized service, you may be able to employ re-use material effectively, if your customers' concerns are also consistent. The consistency of RFPs. If your RFPs are very consistent, you may be able to use re-use material effectively. If your proposals don’t have a written RFP, then whether you can effectively employ re-use material will depend on the consistency of your customers’ concerns and evaluation processes. In addition, the following concerns can also impact whether or not using boilerplate works in your environment.
The consistency of customer concerns and evaluation. Even if you are proposing the same thing, if your customers have different concerns or follow different evaluation processes, you will need to customize your response to reflect it. Since your proposal should show how your offering responds to the customer’s concerns, a difference in customer concerns can totally change the context and how you describe your offering. The strength of your writers. If you have weak writers, you may want to rely more on re-use material. Instead of training and guiding them through the process of creating winning proposal copy, it may be easier to write something good once and then re-use it often. However, this can be dangerous. Even if you provide detailed checklists and guidance, if the writers are weak to begin with, you may find that you are submitting proposals that are not customized and your win rate will suffer. When you look at the nature of your offering and the RFP, you can actually see where boilerplate might be applicable.
This model shows us that:
Boilerplate works best when you are offering the same services/products on every bid and the RFP is the same each time. Boilerplate requires time consuming edits when you offer different services/products on every bid and the RFP are different each time. In between these are two conditions where boilerplate may or may not be a good solution:
When you offer the same services/products on every bid, but the RFP is different each time. When you offer different services/products on every bid, but the format, structure, and content of the RFP is the same each time. The most important thing to remember is that there is a difference between being similar and being the same. Most of your offerings and most of your RFPs will be similar. They may be about the same things. But unless they ask for exactly the same things, in the same order, using the same terminology, and evaluate them against the same terminology, the response will have to be different. The amount of that difference is what determines whether boilerplate helps or hurts.
How To Prepare Proposal Content For Reuse First, determine whether you are a candidate for reusing proposal content. Sometimes it can take longer to tailor past proposal content than it would to write something from scratch. Taking shortcuts can cause you to lose your proposal. In past articles we developed a model and a checklist to help you determine whether reusing proposal content make sense in your circumstances.
Organization
If your proposal is organized according to outline instructions provided in the RFP, it may not be structured properly to address the next RFP. If the requirements provided in the Statement of Work are different, then the topics addressed and the level of detail will be wrong.
If the RFP does not specify an outline, or if it only does so at the highest level, then you can organize your proposal for reuse. The best way to approach this is to break it down into topics or responses to questions that have broad applicability. Details that are specific to a given customer reflect options that do not apply to every proposal, or are not broadly applicable should be put under separate headings.
Files, fragments, software, databases, or what?
Until you have hundreds of topics, you may not need specialized software to manage your reuse library. With less than a dozen folders, each with less than a dozen documents, containing up to a few dozen related topics you can quickly get to a lot of reuse material. Then, because of the way you have organized it, you can quickly copy and paste it to where you need it.
The real challenge isn’t search and retrieval. The challenge is setup and maintenance. By the time you get to the end of this article you’ll probably realize that you can’t just store your past proposals “as is” and expect to be able to conveniently reuse them. The steps below describe what you need to do make your previous proposals ready for reuse. It won’t take a lot of effort, but it will take some.
Maintenance is the real problem. Every proposal reuse project that I have ever seen undertaken by anyone anywhere suffers from maintenance issues. The problem is, how do you capture new information created on future proposals and use it to update the documents in your reuse library? Most people don’t. Some try, but it’s difficult to do at all, let alone well. At best most attempt a quarterly or annual refresh. That doesn’t capture all the new information, but at least it captures some.
Maintenance is the reason that most companies just give up and create a library of previously written proposals that can be keyword searched and leave it at that (even though it will do more to harm future proposals than to help them). How do you get out of this Catch-22? First, keep the number of topics in your library tiny. Not just small, but tiny. Edit them for reuse and maintain them well. Don’t attempt to have everything that might be useful in your reuse library. Only keep the most common topics.
Preparing proposal content for reuse starts with understanding the context
A well-written proposal is written for a context that is unique to that customer, offering, and competitive environment. Every sentence reflects what matters to that customer in that circumstance. Even though the proposal contains some of the same topics as all of your other proposals, almost every sentence has been placed into a specific context. If you reuse it “as is” it will reflect the wrong context. It will work against you. Instead of reuse improving your proposal, it will result in a proposal that is worse than one written from scratch.
If you are going to build a reuse library, you have to solve this problem as well. If every proposal contains a different offering to a customer with a different set of needs in a competitive environment with new players and positioning, this would be a good time to reconsider whether you should even attempt a reuse library. But if each RFP contains the same organization, the same requirements, and the same evaluation criteria, you might be able to pull it off.
The trick is to separate the context from your response to the requirements. But be forwarned — if you don’t do this extremely well, it will result in less effective proposal copy. To separate the context you need to address your win strategies and themes in distinct places. It helps if you have extremely good layout skills, because you need to visually communicate what matters well, so that when the customer reads the narrative they still think it’s speaking directly to them.
To repurpose your previous proposals, start by identifying the context they were written for. Look specifically for where they addressed the previous:
Evaluation criteria Points of emphasis Win strategies and themes Then remove that text, leaving behind a narrative that doesn't attempt to address what really matters to any given customer. Instead, insert placeholders so that the future proposal can add what matters to the specific customer to the details from your reuse library.
Placeholders, variables, and flags
To make sure that people update the variable parts of the narrative, you will need to insert placeholders for search and replace, and flags to draw attention to items that need consideration. So take your previous proposal and identify:
Names (your company, team, customer, etc.) Locations Products Any other variable items Then replace those with variable names. Use special characters (for example: “[*Customer*]”) so that you can globally search for the labels and replace them with the new names or values.
Then you need to flag certain items that need to be reconsidered with each submission:
Flag dates and numbers that may need updating in the future Flag examples that may not be relevant to future proposals Flag any assumptions made in the past proposal that will need to be confirmed in any future proposals Separate or flag anything included in the proposal just to achieve RFP compliance Again, you can use special characters to draw attention to them. Just make sure that before you send the proposal to the customer you do a final search for the special characters to ensure that all placeholders, variables, and flags have been updated.
Getting results from proposal reuse
When you are done, you will have files that are safe for reuse. The placeholders, variables, and flags are not there for automation — they are there to make sure that the proposal is updated to reflect the new context. If you find that converting a previously written proposal into one that is ready for reuse is a major effort, it may be an indication that the type of proposals you do aren’t suitable for reuse.
The problem is that similar is not the same. All of your proposals may be similar — they may address the same topics. But that does not make them the same. Sometimes the effort to extensively edit something that is similar ends up being more than it would be to write the proposal from scratch. If you fall into this category, then maybe it’s not reuse text that you need, but just inspiration to help writers know what to include in their responses without trying to give them all the words to use.
Organization
If your proposal is organized according to outline instructions provided in the RFP, it may not be structured properly to address the next RFP. If the requirements provided in the Statement of Work are different, then the topics addressed and the level of detail will be wrong.
If the RFP does not specify an outline, or if it only does so at the highest level, then you can organize your proposal for reuse. The best way to approach this is to break it down into topics or responses to questions that have broad applicability. Details that are specific to a given customer reflect options that do not apply to every proposal, or are not broadly applicable should be put under separate headings.
Files, fragments, software, databases, or what?
Until you have hundreds of topics, you may not need specialized software to manage your reuse library. With less than a dozen folders, each with less than a dozen documents, containing up to a few dozen related topics you can quickly get to a lot of reuse material. Then, because of the way you have organized it, you can quickly copy and paste it to where you need it.
The real challenge isn’t search and retrieval. The challenge is setup and maintenance. By the time you get to the end of this article you’ll probably realize that you can’t just store your past proposals “as is” and expect to be able to conveniently reuse them. The steps below describe what you need to do make your previous proposals ready for reuse. It won’t take a lot of effort, but it will take some.
Maintenance is the real problem. Every proposal reuse project that I have ever seen undertaken by anyone anywhere suffers from maintenance issues. The problem is, how do you capture new information created on future proposals and use it to update the documents in your reuse library? Most people don’t. Some try, but it’s difficult to do at all, let alone well. At best most attempt a quarterly or annual refresh. That doesn’t capture all the new information, but at least it captures some.
Maintenance is the reason that most companies just give up and create a library of previously written proposals that can be keyword searched and leave it at that (even though it will do more to harm future proposals than to help them). How do you get out of this Catch-22? First, keep the number of topics in your library tiny. Not just small, but tiny. Edit them for reuse and maintain them well. Don’t attempt to have everything that might be useful in your reuse library. Only keep the most common topics.
Preparing proposal content for reuse starts with understanding the context
A well-written proposal is written for a context that is unique to that customer, offering, and competitive environment. Every sentence reflects what matters to that customer in that circumstance. Even though the proposal contains some of the same topics as all of your other proposals, almost every sentence has been placed into a specific context. If you reuse it “as is” it will reflect the wrong context. It will work against you. Instead of reuse improving your proposal, it will result in a proposal that is worse than one written from scratch.
If you are going to build a reuse library, you have to solve this problem as well. If every proposal contains a different offering to a customer with a different set of needs in a competitive environment with new players and positioning, this would be a good time to reconsider whether you should even attempt a reuse library. But if each RFP contains the same organization, the same requirements, and the same evaluation criteria, you might be able to pull it off.
The trick is to separate the context from your response to the requirements. But be forwarned — if you don’t do this extremely well, it will result in less effective proposal copy. To separate the context you need to address your win strategies and themes in distinct places. It helps if you have extremely good layout skills, because you need to visually communicate what matters well, so that when the customer reads the narrative they still think it’s speaking directly to them.
To repurpose your previous proposals, start by identifying the context they were written for. Look specifically for where they addressed the previous:
Evaluation criteria Points of emphasis Win strategies and themes Then remove that text, leaving behind a narrative that doesn't attempt to address what really matters to any given customer. Instead, insert placeholders so that the future proposal can add what matters to the specific customer to the details from your reuse library.
Placeholders, variables, and flags
To make sure that people update the variable parts of the narrative, you will need to insert placeholders for search and replace, and flags to draw attention to items that need consideration. So take your previous proposal and identify:
Names (your company, team, customer, etc.) Locations Products Any other variable items Then replace those with variable names. Use special characters (for example: “[*Customer*]”) so that you can globally search for the labels and replace them with the new names or values.
Then you need to flag certain items that need to be reconsidered with each submission:
Flag dates and numbers that may need updating in the future Flag examples that may not be relevant to future proposals Flag any assumptions made in the past proposal that will need to be confirmed in any future proposals Separate or flag anything included in the proposal just to achieve RFP compliance Again, you can use special characters to draw attention to them. Just make sure that before you send the proposal to the customer you do a final search for the special characters to ensure that all placeholders, variables, and flags have been updated.
Getting results from proposal reuse
When you are done, you will have files that are safe for reuse. The placeholders, variables, and flags are not there for automation — they are there to make sure that the proposal is updated to reflect the new context. If you find that converting a previously written proposal into one that is ready for reuse is a major effort, it may be an indication that the type of proposals you do aren’t suitable for reuse.
The problem is that similar is not the same. All of your proposals may be similar — they may address the same topics. But that does not make them the same. Sometimes the effort to extensively edit something that is similar ends up being more than it would be to write the proposal from scratch. If you fall into this category, then maybe it’s not reuse text that you need, but just inspiration to help writers know what to include in their responses without trying to give them all the words to use.
Boilerplate Alternative - Proposal Cookbooks People often assume that because the topic of a proposal is similar to an earlier proposal, that earlier proposal can be easily recycled just by "changing a few words." This is hardly ever true.
We call pre-written ready to re-use proposal sections “boilerplate.” Working from boilerplate is supposed to save you time because editing is assumed to be easier than writing. But unfortunately, the level of effort required to transform the focus, goals, win strategies, themes, results, keywords, and points of emphasis into another document can easily exceed what it would have taken to write it the way you need it.
The danger with boilerplate is that the writer won’t bother to review and rewrite everything they should, and will instead just update any numbers or key details. The goal should not be to finish quickly; it should be to win the proposal. Boilerplate that is not edited properly can cost you the bid.
So what do you do when your users are complaining that they have to start from scratch writing something that “must have already been written” before? First, you need to understand the real reasons why people crave boilerplate:
They don’t want to do their proposal assignment If they have to do it, they’d like to finish quickly They don’t know what to say What this really boils down to is a cry for help — “Help me do the proposal faster” and “Help me figure out what to write.” There are better ways to speed things up and inspire proposal writers.
What is a Proposal Cookbook?
Our first alternative is something we call a Proposal Cookbook. A Proposal Cookbook contains topics that proposal writers typically need to write about. For each topic they provide a recipe consisting of:
Questions to answer. This is simply a list of questions for the author to answer in their section. With the right questions you lead them to the best response while ensure that it's tailored for this bid. Topics to write about. Sometimes it is easier to give the authors a list, table of contents, or outline than to put everything in the form of a question. Just keep in mind that outlines imply a particular sequence, and a hierarchy that may change from proposal to proposal. A list of topics avoids this problem. Strategies and approaches. The selection of topics and the way that questions are answered depend heavily on your win strategies and themes. For example, when you are the incumbent, you will write about staffing very differently than when you are not. However, you may be able to anticipate strategies to suggest when you are the incumbent (or not the incumbent). Examples. You can give examples for items that are always the same from proposal to proposal, or when you are describing a topic that is difficult to visualize. It can be a page, a paragraph, or even a sentence. Sometimes an example is all the writer needs to get started. The idea is to help the author without exposing the proposal to the risks that come with using boilerplate. One big advantage to using Proposal Cookbooks is that you don’t have to worry about giving the writers too many topics or addressing contingencies that aren’t relevant. The writer gets to pick and choose from the list of questions and topics to write about, and can select the ones that are most relevant or fit the page limit. However, by providing the Cookbook, you help the writer make sure they don’t overlook any possible topics.
A Proposal Cookbook can adjust to the idiosyncrasies of RFPs in ways that boilerplate can’t. With a Proposal Cookbook, you get a speed boost and a quality boost, without exposing the proposal to the risks of using boilerplate.
We call pre-written ready to re-use proposal sections “boilerplate.” Working from boilerplate is supposed to save you time because editing is assumed to be easier than writing. But unfortunately, the level of effort required to transform the focus, goals, win strategies, themes, results, keywords, and points of emphasis into another document can easily exceed what it would have taken to write it the way you need it.
The danger with boilerplate is that the writer won’t bother to review and rewrite everything they should, and will instead just update any numbers or key details. The goal should not be to finish quickly; it should be to win the proposal. Boilerplate that is not edited properly can cost you the bid.
So what do you do when your users are complaining that they have to start from scratch writing something that “must have already been written” before? First, you need to understand the real reasons why people crave boilerplate:
They don’t want to do their proposal assignment If they have to do it, they’d like to finish quickly They don’t know what to say What this really boils down to is a cry for help — “Help me do the proposal faster” and “Help me figure out what to write.” There are better ways to speed things up and inspire proposal writers.
What is a Proposal Cookbook?
Our first alternative is something we call a Proposal Cookbook. A Proposal Cookbook contains topics that proposal writers typically need to write about. For each topic they provide a recipe consisting of:
Questions to answer. This is simply a list of questions for the author to answer in their section. With the right questions you lead them to the best response while ensure that it's tailored for this bid. Topics to write about. Sometimes it is easier to give the authors a list, table of contents, or outline than to put everything in the form of a question. Just keep in mind that outlines imply a particular sequence, and a hierarchy that may change from proposal to proposal. A list of topics avoids this problem. Strategies and approaches. The selection of topics and the way that questions are answered depend heavily on your win strategies and themes. For example, when you are the incumbent, you will write about staffing very differently than when you are not. However, you may be able to anticipate strategies to suggest when you are the incumbent (or not the incumbent). Examples. You can give examples for items that are always the same from proposal to proposal, or when you are describing a topic that is difficult to visualize. It can be a page, a paragraph, or even a sentence. Sometimes an example is all the writer needs to get started. The idea is to help the author without exposing the proposal to the risks that come with using boilerplate. One big advantage to using Proposal Cookbooks is that you don’t have to worry about giving the writers too many topics or addressing contingencies that aren’t relevant. The writer gets to pick and choose from the list of questions and topics to write about, and can select the ones that are most relevant or fit the page limit. However, by providing the Cookbook, you help the writer make sure they don’t overlook any possible topics.
A Proposal Cookbook can adjust to the idiosyncrasies of RFPs in ways that boilerplate can’t. With a Proposal Cookbook, you get a speed boost and a quality boost, without exposing the proposal to the risks of using boilerplate.
Faster Than a Proposal Template and More Powerful Than a Proposal Sample Why Do People Have Such a Strong Desire for Proposal Templates and Samples?
People are visual. When they don’t know how to do something, they often seek a model they can emulate. But the real reasons people instinctively seek boilerplate at the start of their proposals are:
They don’t want to write a proposal if they can just “change a few details” in something already written If they have to do a proposal, they’d like to finish quickly so they can get back to their real job They don’t know what to say People who are looking for a boilerplate solution to their proposal needs are balancing their desire to win against their desire to save time. For many, the idea that boilerplate will save time is just an excuse. The truth is they don’t know what to say and rationalize that boilerplate will help them figure it out quicker, thus saving time. A lot of people have a fear of writing, don’t know how to get started, and are afraid of getting stuck. But rather than say they need help figuring out what to say, it’s safer to say that they want boilerplate to speed things up.
If you want to win your proposals, then instead of maintaining a boilerplate library you should focus on providing inspiration regarding what to write. This is different from providing something already written. You can also tune your proposal process so that it helps people figure out what to write far faster than they could on their own. There are things you can do that will meet the needs of your proposal writers for inspiration and speed better than boilerplate can.
Better Inspiration
If people are seeking boilerplate because they don’t know what to say, then instead of push-button paragraphs that are difficult to customize, what they really need are topics. They need to know what to address on a range of subjects that might be relevant to a particular proposal. A list of questions to answer in each proposal can suffice. That is why our 509 Questions to Answer in Your Proposals is so handy. Instead of attempting to provide all of the right words in the right order in the right context, it provides a list of questions that a customer might have on topics that must be addressed in most proposals. All the writer has to do is pick the questions that are relevant to their proposal and then answer them.
Using this approach is a lot like providing a cookbook --- it identifies the ingredients and tells people how to assemble them into a meal. You can create “Cookbooks” that identify what topics to address, discuss different strategies, and even provide examples. Here is a link to an article we wrote on creating cookbook-style recipes for your proposal as an alternative to using boilerplate.
Faster Proposal Writing
Instead of leaving authors on their own to figure out how to figure out what to write, you can help them by giving them a process. Most proposal processes focus on the proposal quality reviews and production. Your process should also focus on helping your proposal writers figure out what to say.
To do this you need to focus on:
Information flow. In order to know what to say, writers needs answers to certain questions. The answers to those questions need to be obtained before the writing starts. You must identify those questions and implement action items to deliver the information needed before the start of writing if you want to accelerate the writing. The CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process, addresses this need through Readiness Reviews that ensure the right information gets collected and carried forward, and is delivered to the proposal writers in a form they can use. Organization of the writing. Writers need more than just an outline. Many considerations go into creating a winning proposal section. Your process should first identify all the ingredients of the winning proposal, and then deliver the list to the proposal writers in a form that makes it easier to organize and address them. The Content Planning methodology in the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process is designed to do just that. The secret is to make this process appear effortless to the proposal writers. When they need it, the information should be there. When they start, they should have all the ingredients they need, all the topics identified, and all the guidance they need. When the actual writing starts, it should be merely a small step to complete the process.
Unfortunately, the way many proposals play out, proposal writers are asked to make a giant leap. All they get is the headings from an outline. They must figure out what the ingredients should be, where to get them from, how they should be assembled, and then do all the cooking themselves. With this approach, things get left out or misinterpreted, and what finally gets produced may or may not be what you actually need to win. Boilerplate won’t solve this problem, but the right process can.
People are visual. When they don’t know how to do something, they often seek a model they can emulate. But the real reasons people instinctively seek boilerplate at the start of their proposals are:
They don’t want to write a proposal if they can just “change a few details” in something already written If they have to do a proposal, they’d like to finish quickly so they can get back to their real job They don’t know what to say People who are looking for a boilerplate solution to their proposal needs are balancing their desire to win against their desire to save time. For many, the idea that boilerplate will save time is just an excuse. The truth is they don’t know what to say and rationalize that boilerplate will help them figure it out quicker, thus saving time. A lot of people have a fear of writing, don’t know how to get started, and are afraid of getting stuck. But rather than say they need help figuring out what to say, it’s safer to say that they want boilerplate to speed things up.
If you want to win your proposals, then instead of maintaining a boilerplate library you should focus on providing inspiration regarding what to write. This is different from providing something already written. You can also tune your proposal process so that it helps people figure out what to write far faster than they could on their own. There are things you can do that will meet the needs of your proposal writers for inspiration and speed better than boilerplate can.
Better Inspiration
If people are seeking boilerplate because they don’t know what to say, then instead of push-button paragraphs that are difficult to customize, what they really need are topics. They need to know what to address on a range of subjects that might be relevant to a particular proposal. A list of questions to answer in each proposal can suffice. That is why our 509 Questions to Answer in Your Proposals is so handy. Instead of attempting to provide all of the right words in the right order in the right context, it provides a list of questions that a customer might have on topics that must be addressed in most proposals. All the writer has to do is pick the questions that are relevant to their proposal and then answer them.
Using this approach is a lot like providing a cookbook --- it identifies the ingredients and tells people how to assemble them into a meal. You can create “Cookbooks” that identify what topics to address, discuss different strategies, and even provide examples. Here is a link to an article we wrote on creating cookbook-style recipes for your proposal as an alternative to using boilerplate.
Faster Proposal Writing
Instead of leaving authors on their own to figure out how to figure out what to write, you can help them by giving them a process. Most proposal processes focus on the proposal quality reviews and production. Your process should also focus on helping your proposal writers figure out what to say.
To do this you need to focus on:
Information flow. In order to know what to say, writers needs answers to certain questions. The answers to those questions need to be obtained before the writing starts. You must identify those questions and implement action items to deliver the information needed before the start of writing if you want to accelerate the writing. The CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process, addresses this need through Readiness Reviews that ensure the right information gets collected and carried forward, and is delivered to the proposal writers in a form they can use. Organization of the writing. Writers need more than just an outline. Many considerations go into creating a winning proposal section. Your process should first identify all the ingredients of the winning proposal, and then deliver the list to the proposal writers in a form that makes it easier to organize and address them. The Content Planning methodology in the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process is designed to do just that. The secret is to make this process appear effortless to the proposal writers. When they need it, the information should be there. When they start, they should have all the ingredients they need, all the topics identified, and all the guidance they need. When the actual writing starts, it should be merely a small step to complete the process.
Unfortunately, the way many proposals play out, proposal writers are asked to make a giant leap. All they get is the headings from an outline. They must figure out what the ingredients should be, where to get them from, how they should be assembled, and then do all the cooking themselves. With this approach, things get left out or misinterpreted, and what finally gets produced may or may not be what you actually need to win. Boilerplate won’t solve this problem, but the right process can.