Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts

Recommending and Substantiating Your Solution

Of the thousands of proposals I read each year, the majority do not recommend anything. Most of them merely describe a product or service in neutral, informative prose. Descriptions are nice, but they can come across as evasive in a proposal. It may appear to the customer that you don’t really believe in what you are saying. In addition, descriptions typically consist of undifferentiated verbiage that provides a general understanding of the product or service, plus lots of features, usually presented as bullet points. That’s not very effective. A solution links specific features of the product or service back to the customer’s needs and outcomes, constantly answering the question, “So what?” In a ...