Writing Business Bids and Proposals For Dummies

Chapter 15

Making Each Proposal Better than the Last

IN THIS CHAPTER

Learning from everyone involved

Gathering, storing, and reusing proposal content

Expanding your skills with training and professional development

In Chapter 13, we talk a lot about tools and systems that can help you develop your proposals more efficiently and effectively. Although tools are great, they’re no substitute for knowing how to develop proposals the right way so you can create them regardless of the number of tools or amount of support you have at your disposal. This chapter is all about strategies and techniques to improve your processes and proposals every time you write a new one.

Most of our recommendations come from the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) — that group of proposal “nerds” (and we mean that in the most respectful way) that we found early in our proposal careers. They’re the gurus who trained us, the hard-headed traditionalists who argued with us, the eggheads who humbled us, the mentors who coached us, the sponsors who persuaded us, and the giants who let us stand on their shoulders so we could make great livings developing proposals and then distill all that experience into this book. You could say that we’re saving the best for last, because making each proposal better than the last is the mark of the true proposal professional.

Improving with Every Opportunity

In Chapter 12, we encourage you to build in periodic reviews along your project timeline to ...