Email Etiquette and the Proposal Process

When it comes to building relationships with potential clients, the proposal writing process often comes on the back end of a long drawn out process. It’s only after developing relationships and staying in constant communication that many businesses will accept a proposal from a potential partner. With that being said, companies need to focus on how they build relationships in a business world that often values email over face-to-face communication.

The Trouble with Email

Email is fantastic. It’s quick, easy, and convenient. If you want to tell someone something without investing a lot of time, you simply email them and avoid getting stuck in long conversations. Email is also widespread – meaning everyone has an email address. However, for all of the benefits associated with email, there are also some major disadvantages.

“On e-mail, people aren’t quite themselves,” Will Schwalbe and David Shipley, authors of the book Send, wrote in 2008. “They are angrier, less sympathetic, less aware, more easily wounded, even more gossipy and duplicitous.”

When you’re face-to-face with someone, conversation doesn’t just involve dialogue. There are non-verbal cues, tone, inflection, and rhythm to the conversation. In email, all of this is lost. Humor is easily misinterpreted, anger is exacerbated, and sarcasm is perceived much differently.

As such, it’s imperative that you’re as clear as possible. Email is certainly valuable – nobody is arguing this – but you must know the rules if you want to avoid confusion, gaffes, and misinterpretation.

5 Email Etiquette Rules to Follow

When it comes to proposal writing – or the process leading up to proposal writing – there are certain etiquette rules you need to follow in order to enjoy optimal results.

Use a Clear Subject Line

The subject line of an email is the first thing the recipient will see. You have a duty to yourself and the recipient to make sure this subject line is clear and appropriate for the content of the email. After reading the subject line alone, they should have a pretty good guess as to what the email is about.

For example, let’s say you’re emailing a colleague to confirm that your meeting about a certain proposal is still on. A poorly crafted subject would read something like, “Meeting to Discuss Proposal.” In this case, the recipient doesn’t know if you’re emailing to cancel, confirm, or change the meeting. Sure, they’ll know when they open up the email, but you’re setting the wrong tone from the start. A much more appropriate subject line would be, “Confirming 1:30 Meeting to Discuss Proposal.”

Go Easy on the “Reply All”

The “reply all” feature has its value, but is widely considered an annoying feature. People often reply to everyone when it’s only necessary to reply to the original sender. Not only can this get you in trouble (if the information is only intended for the original sender), but it’s inadvertently disrespectful to the other recipients. Unless there’s a clear instruction to reply to everyone – or you can gather that it’s necessary based on the context – it’s typically best to limit your response to the sender.

Never Use a Pre-canned Template

When reaching out to someone for the first time – particularly when requesting the opportunity to send a proposal – avoid using canned templates. While it’s easy to use a framework and paste in names, titles, and a few additional words for context, you’ll see extremely low response rates.

Business professionals in positions of leadership receive dozens of requests per day. They can easily spot genuine emails from those that are pre-canned. Take the time to write a few sentences that apply directly to the recipient and the situation. This doesn’t guarantee a response, but it does show respect for the individual’s time. If nothing else, the email will actually get read (as opposed to immediately being designated to the trash folder).

Avoid Humor

Nobody wants to be viewed as cold and impersonal, but email is not the best place to let your humorous side show. Sure, there are times when humor is okay in email – such as when you’re emailing friends – but resist the urge to inject humor into business emails.

The trouble with humor is that it’s often mistranslated. If someone has never met you in person, it can be very easy for them to misconstrue what you meant. If you ever feel like you should include a “JK” or “just kidding” after something you write, go ahead and hold down the delete button. Only stick to the necessary information. Let your humor shine through in face-to-face meetings.

Always Proofread

When you have 10 or 15 emails to send out, it’s tempting to quickly whip one up, send it, and move on to the next one. Resist this temptation. You should always proofread prior to hitting the send button. Nothing is more unprofessional (especially in a proposal situation) than sending an email filled with errors.

A good way to ensure you proofread all of your emails is to require confirmation before sending. Configure your email inbox in a way that forces you to confirm that you really want to send an email before sending it. This extra step will remind you to go back and check for issues.

Use iQuoteXpress to Enhance Your Proposals

At iQuoteXpress, we believe our customers need and deserve access to proposal tools that enhance sales team productivity and streamline the quotation process. When this aspect of the proposal process is handled, it becomes exponentially easier to confidently take action and enjoy a healthy return on your investment.

If you’re interested in learning more about our proprietary quoting software, which automates up to 75 percent of proposals and generates accurate quotes, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. We would be happy to set you up with a free no-obligation online demo.

6 Characteristics to Look for in a Good Proposal Writer

Whether you’re selecting an individual from inside your organization or hiring an outside contractor, choosing the best writer for your proposal is a crucial part of the process. And in order to ensure you hone in on the right individual, you need to understand exactly what you need.

What Do You Want From Your Writer?

Start by thinking about what you really want from your writer. You can’t expect to find a writer that fits your proposal needs unless you’ve already clearly defined what these needs are.

Based on your needs, you should be able to determine whether the writer needs to be brought in from the outside or whether the position can be filled internally by using a writer that’s already on your team.

Perhaps the biggest thing to consider is the technical side of your proposal. How much of the proposal is based on information that’s specific to your organization? And how complex and technical is this information? If you bring in an outside writer, it could take days or weeks for that individual to fully understand what your business does, what voice it uses, and where the proposal fits into the picture.

An individual within your organization already has a very good feel for what your business does and the voice it possesses. However, they may not have the same writing skills as someone you’re able to bring in from outside.

When searching for a proposal writer, make sure you know exactly what you want from the writer. There will always be tradeoffs and it’s up to you to determine what’s most important to you.

The 6 Characteristics Your Proposal Writer Needs

While certain elements are optional, there are also a number of attributes a proposal writer must possess in order to be successful.

Ability to Follow Directions

While a good writer is able to work independently and perform well without constant “babysitting” (and we’ll discuss this later), he also must possess the ability to digest instructions without deviating from precise directions.

Proposal writing is very different from standard content writing. It requires careful attention to detail and the final product is heavily influenced by a predetermined structure. In other words, the writer has less room for personalization. The goal is to develop a quality and engaging proposal that meets pre-established stipulations. A proficient proposal writer prioritizes adherence to guidelines.

Clear Communication

Communication is of paramount importance. This is especially true if you’re contracting with a proposal writer who doesn’t actually work in your office. You shouldn’t have to be the one always sending out emails requesting updates. A good proposal writer will initiate communication and provide regular feedback.

Along these same lines, a good proposal writer is easy to get in touch with. While they may not always pick up the phone when you call – nobody likes distractions when in a “writing zone” – they will call you back as soon as possible. Writers may be more effective at writing than verbally communicating, but the best writers understand the importance of the latter and work hard to facilitate regular conversation.

Dependability and Promptness

Reliability is a big thing. There are a lot of talented writers in the industry, but only a small percentage of them are reliable enough to handle something as important as writing a proposal.

When comparing different writers, try to determine their dependability. Can you count on them to consistently meet deadlines, follow the rules, and give you the time necessary to produce a quality proposal that resonates with the target? Sometimes you have to take a gamble on this, but an individual’s references and past work typically provide you with some insight into future work.

Creativity

“In many ways writing in a business setting is less demanding than other kinds of writing,” says Brian Wasko, entrepreneur and content writer. “There is little pressure to be creative or particularly original. You are not creating art, after all; you are using the written word for its most basic purpose: to communicate information.”

While proposal writing and creativity aren’t always connected, you should look for a certain amount of imagination and originality in the proposal writers you work with.

In proposal writing, creativity often shines through in different ways. It may involve taking a different angle or highlighting one piece of data over another. You can’t teach creativity, so don’t underestimate the value of ingenuity when you find it.

Personality

Why does a writer need to be personable, you may ask? Well, assuming you choose a good writer and end up working with them over and over again, it’s likely that you’ll be spending a lot of time communicating with them.

It’s much more enjoyable to communicate with someone who has an attractive personality. Your proposal writer doesn’t have to be your best friend, but you should be able to have easy and comfortable conversations with them. The right personality goes a long way.

Ability to Thrive Independently

Finally, proposal writers must be able to thrive independently. While there will be times where you need to sit down and meet with the writer, there will also be large chunks of time – hours or even days – where the writer is left alone to work. During these periods, time management and discipline are critically important.

Try iQuoteXpress Today

In order to get the most out of your proposal writers, you need to supply them with the right tools and resources – one of which is the iQuoteXpress CPQ software. This proprietary solution delivers tremendous value and immediately enhances sales effectiveness by increasing deal-size and establishing scalable accuracy.

iQuoteXpress is specifically tailored to sales teams who are looking to efficiently craft accurate and comprehensive proposals that resonate with targets and produce positive returns. If you feel like your proposal writing team could use a progressive solution like this, then don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d be happy to set you up with a free no-obligation online demo at your earliest convenience. 

Hello, World!

Presidential Campaign Strategies applied to Business.

This year’s Presidential campaign season has already been full of surprises and twists, and it’s bound to get even more intense as the months roll on. It’s very early, yet candidates are trying their hardest to prove that they’re the best, most experienced, most appropriate leaders for the nation – and, regardless of your political affiliations or personal investments in the outcome of the election, you have to be impressed with the tactics they use to promote themselves.

While the analogy isn’t obvious at first glance, this process of political positioning has a lot to teach us about the best way to structure and write a proposal in a professional environment. Think about your goals as a proposal writer: you’re competing against a group of peers, you have to convince the reviewer that you’re the most authoritative and valuable candidate, and you only get a finite amount of space to pack in all of your persuasive arguments.

Let’s dig into the specifics of how political tactics can help you shape better proposals:

Have a Slogan

Politics and marketing have a lot in common. Perhaps most importantly, you need to be able to communicate large amounts of meaning in a targeted, effective way. This is best demonstrated by the political slogan, a short snippet of text designed to “stick” in a voter’s mind and accurately, concisely sum up the entirety of a candidate’s political platform. For politicians, this might be a value statement or a snappy rebuttal to an opponent’s vision for the future of the country.

For you, this is an opening statement or summary page, where you’ll boil down your main points to only those that are most relevant. If you’re successful here, your arguments are going to “stick” in your readers’ minds, and long after they’ve given the proposals a once-over, yours is the one that’s going to come to mind first. It also serves as an effective summary page: since it’s rare that companies will review entire proposals multiple times over, your summary statements are the best tool that you have to earn bonus points during further reviews.

Create a Plan

There’s something to be said for the value of rational appeal, and there’s no greater rational appeal than a point-by-point plan. For politicians, this means turning a general statement like “improve education” into a series of realistic, actionable items (which is often easier said than done). This must be grounded and convincing, or else nobody will find the plan persuasive.

Proposal writing is no different, except that you have different general statements to flesh out, and you’ll be in complete control of how you eventually execute the steps to get there. For example, you might have a statement like, “We’ll help you to increase your marketing ROI,” but that doesn’t say much unless you have a well-researched, well-documented plan on how you’re going to pull that off. It’s important to back up your plans with research and insights; otherwise, your plan steps will seem as hollow or unimpressive as your general statements. Be specific here!

Ask for Help

It’s almost impossible to create and manage a political campaign on your own. Most modern political candidates have entire teams of people behind the scenes, posting on their behalf on social media, answering press inquiries, scheduling events, and getting them ready for significant turns. The politician may be a visionary for the campaign, but the grunt work is done by, well, grunts.

As a proposal writer, you may have access to your own team, but sometimes even that isn’t enough to get your proposal written in time (or in a proper format). That’s why tools like iQuoteXpress exist – too help you get your proposals written faster and easier without sacrificing the quality of your finished piece. Think of your proposal writing software as a campaign manager, helping you keep everything in order.

Prove That You’re More Than Just Empty Promises

One of the biggest problems politicians face in the modern era is earning voter trust. All of their plans may sound good, and their rhetoric may be persuasive, but what does that actually mean? It doesn’t matter that you have a four-year plan to improve healthcare coverage if, when you get into office, you immediately abandon that plan. Accordingly, politicians are forced to prove that they’re more than just empty promises.

You’ve guessed it already: you do too. Most proposal submitters will talk a big game, so to differentiate yourself, you have to prove that you can back up those words. Some of the most effective ways to do this are through case studies and former client testimonials; show that you’ve done it before! Otherwise, you can show off measurable metrics and your company history (including team member expertise) to close the deal.

Be Unique

To many voters, all candidates look alike. The frontrunners are the ones who’ve managed to stand out from the crowd. In this year’s election, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – candidates on both sides of the aisle – have emerged as major contenders because of their unconventional approaches (and, in the former’s case, debatable aptitude). This isn’t to say that standing out instantly makes you a better candidate, but it does get you more attention – and attention is always the first step. Put this to good use in your proposal writing endeavors by including a unique format or position. Break away from the norm!

If you can use these tactics effectively for your proposal, you’ll have a far better chance at standing out among the crowd. Remember, one of the most important elements to successful integration is subtlety: if a voter suspects a politician of being subversive or manipulative, the politician will lose his/her vote. Similarly, if you try too hard to manipulate your readers, your proposal will come off as sales-y and impersonal. Instead, strive to incorporate these means of persuasion without losing the human approachability of your voice. 

How to Respond Effectively to a Request for Proposal.

For some businesses or independent contractors, a request for a proposal (RFP) is what keeps them in business. It’s a promise of work if yours is accepted, but that’ll only happen if your response is high quality and timely. It must beat out your competitors if you want a chance to render your services, and that can be a challenge.

To improve your chances of having the RFP accepted, you’ll want to draft a timely response. There’s more of an advantage to a speedy response time with your RFP than many people realize. It’s like getting a 10-second head start in a race. It may not be much, but it could mean the difference between your proposal being accepted and it being thrown out. Having your proposal take the first place in the queue ensures that the requester will read yours with a fresh set of eyes without comparing its weaknesses to other proposals. It’s the advantage that you may need in order to be chosen.

Unfortunately, the average response time for a proposal leaves something to be desired. Though the average time differs for every project, it can take several days or even weeks to send a proposal following an RFP. Such a long wait time is not always the most favorable of options.

However, thanks to Configure Price Quote (CPQ) software and modern technology, those sending out for proposals are expecting a higher standard. They’re looking to reward those who use their resources to their fullest extent in order to bring about a speedy response time without sacrificing the quality of work. If you’re looking to get that head start on a high quality proposal, there are a few things that you should try.

Use CPQ Software

First and foremost, be sure that you’re using the right tools. CPQ software is the best way to define accurately the price of goods for the purposes of your proposal. It applies dynamic pricing schemes to regular templates in order to deliver a more accurate reading.

CPQ software can also reduce the time needed to define pricing for a specific proposal format. CPQ software, like that from iQuoteXpress, is designed to make complex analysis and variables look simple on the page. That way, it’ll not only be speedy to make, but it’ll also be simple to read, highlighting important factors like excellent products, service charges, and configuring compatibility.

Understand the Process from the Beginning

You can’t expect to begin the RFP process flying blindly and come out with a speedy, high quality proposal. You must know the ins and outs of creating a good document. This involves clearly laying out the needs and questions of the customer in a single document that’ll compete against a series of other documents.

As a part of this process, recognize the time constraints. You want to get the product out quickly in order to beat competitors, but some projects are much larger than others and have many more components. The larger the project, the more time that it’ll take. You can speed up the process with CPQ software, but be sure that you don’t sacrifice the quality by moving too fast.

Be Ready for Last Minute Requests

You might be staring down a tight deadline to finish your proposal and still be faced with last minute requests that you’ll need to fit into your proposal in order to meet the requester’s needs. The more complex the project is, the more difficult it is to pull such a document together.

It’s always a good idea to consider all of the variables before writing your proposal. That way, when a last minute request comes in, you’ll have plenty of material to work with before submitting the proposal. If you’re prepared, your proposal is guaranteed to come in faster and at a higher quality.

Plan Your Time

Time management is something that most people struggle with in business. It’s difficult to balance multiple projects and devote the necessary quality. However, if you want a quick proposal turnaround, good time management is essential.

Begin the project by setting a deadline for yourself. If you want a good head start over your competitors, it’s recommended that you set a deadline that’s significantly shorter than the one presented by the requester. Then, meet with your team to discuss some doable benchmarks in getting the proposal finished early. With this kind of strategy, you could cut the response time down from days to hours.

Use Templates

Though you want there to be an original quality about the proposals you write and present, there’s no shame in using templates as the backbone in order to expedite the process and make it easier on you. You’ll obviously change the content to match the needs of the presenter, but using a template as the outline is an excellent strategy.

If you’re handy with your preferred proposal development program, you might choose to make the proposals from scratch. If not, using a few versions of a proposal template is a good place to start. You can customize it to meet your needs and the needs of the client while saving yourself a lot of time and efforts.

Have a Signature Statement

You’ll want something that can stand out from your competitors and brand the proposal as distinctly you. In general, a signature statement can achieve this, and it can be prefabricated in order to save time. You can simply slap your signature statement into the introduction or conclusion, and it will be easy to pick your proposal out of the piles of others.

Get Accurate and Time-Saving CPQ Software with iQuoteXpress

At iQuoteXpress, we’re hoping to make your RFP response as quick and painless as possible. Our CPQ software accelerates the proposal writing process with high accuracy and quality. If you’re interested in a customized solution that can cut away hours of work, contact us today! 

7 Deadly Mistakes Businesses Make When Writing Business.

While it may seem like a straightforward process to an outsider, writing a business proposal is actually a very nuanced task with tons of different rules and requirements. If you want to experience success and increase the chances of your proposals getting accepted and read, then you need to avoid the following deadly mistakes that often set businesses back.

1. Not Doing Your Due Diligence

The biggest mistake you can make is not doing enough due diligence on the prospective client. Before sending any proposal – no matter how big or small – you should know the business like the back of your hand. You should be able to recite their mission statement, rattle off core values, name their clients and customers, and identify key decision makers.

The problem a lot of businesses have when writing a proposal is that they feel like it’s only important to understand which products or services the prospect sells. While this is certainly a component of understanding the prospective client, you need to dig much deeper. What are their work ethics? Which philosophies drive growth? What does the company depend on to meet year-end goals and objectives?

In order to understand all of this, you’re going to have to do more than run a couple of Google searches. You’ll need to do some investigative work and talk with current and former employees and clients. If you know anyone in the same industry as the prospect, speak with them, too. If you can’t talk about the company for more than three or four minutes straight, then you don’t know enough.

2. Writing a Lazy Executive Summary

Few components of a proposal are as important as the executive summary. Since many companies receive dozens of responses to RFPs – many exceeding 10 or 15 pages in length – they often rely on executive summaries to weed out the good proposals from the bad. If your executive summary is an afterthought, your proposal will essentially be an afterthought in the eyes of the recipient.

What does a bad executive summary look like, you may ask? Well, it’s long, dense, and vague. An effective summary is concise, digestible, and to-the-point. Don’t delay in getting to the main point: why you’re the right choice. This should be evident within the first couple of sentences.

3. Focusing on Price Over Value

While price is definitely an important component of a business proposal – it’s not the only component. If you’re spending too much time discussing dollars and cents, you’re obviously not spending enough time talking about value. News flash: the latter is more important than the former to most companies. Certainly mention price, but focus the majority of your proposal on value.

If you enter into discussions with the company, there will be time to flesh out pricing details. When trying to convince a company to work with you, though, value is what’s most important. How are you going to make them better? What do you do that no other competitor can do? Why are you right for the job? The answers to these questions are most important.

4. Making Grammatical Errors

Writing isn’t everyone’s strong suit, but unfortunately, it needs to be. In order to be looked upon with respect, you must be capable of stringing together coherent sentences without making grammatical errors.

According to Emphasis Training, a UK-based business-writing consultancy, careless mistakes tell prospects, “This person can’t write” or, “This person doesn’t care enough to check what they’ve written.” While it may not seem like a big deal, a proposal filled with typos is destined for the trash.

Never submit a proposal without having at least two other sets of eyes review it. Ideally, you should have a professional copywriter take a look, but this isn’t always possible. Just make sure the proposal’s writer isn’t the only one checking for errors.

5. Not Paying Attention to the Deadline

Deadline proposals exist for two primary reasons. First, businesses need to collect all proposals by a certain cutoff date in order to have time to sort through them and make a decision. Second, businesses use deadlines to weed out responsible vendors from irresponsible ones. After all, if you can’t meet a proposal deadline, who’s to say you’ll ever meet a project deadline?

In order to meet proposal deadlines, you need to avoid procrastinating. Start well in advance and keep the process moving. As the deadline approaches, anxiety and stress will set in – which seriously inhibits your ability to concentrate and produce. By knocking the proposal out well in advance, you don’t have to deal with these same problems.

6. Leaving Out Social Proof

Any proposal can make a claim. However, very few proposals have the factual information and data to back up these claims. If you want your proposal to stand out against the myriad of other competitors, then you must find a way to incorporate elements of social proof into it.

In order to avoid making your proposal’s copy too dense, include these items at the end. Attach things like spreadsheets, survey results, and referrals. The more factual proof you can provide, the more professional you’ll look.

7. Ignoring the RFP’s Requests

Companies send out RFPs for a reason. They want to receive highly targeted responses that satisfy their particular demands. They aren’t looking for generic proposals. Always review an RFP very carefully before responding. You should address each and every question/concern/issue they bring up. If they didn’t want to know something, they wouldn’t have mentioned it. Keep this in mind and be thorough with your responses.

Contact iQuoteXpress Today

iQuoteXpress is a web-based SaaS application that’s been strategically designed to enable businesses – such as your own – to automate and streamline the proposal process. Our proprietary solution lets you securely store contact and proposal information online, accelerate the writing process, and gain a competitive advantage.

If you’re interested in learning more about iQuoteXpress, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. We’d be happy to provide you with a free, no-obligation online demo of our advanced software platform to show you what it can do for your business.