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Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts - Paperback | Diverse Reads

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

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Most people find proposal writing to be tedious and time-consuming—and their documents show it, but proposal writing is about more than checking off boxes on a list of requirements.

Writing a winning proposal is vital to getting a ‘yes’ on your next bid. That’s why Tom Sant, a proposal consultant for Global 500 companies and the creator of widely used proposal automation systems, has spent his career providing hands-on guidance for crafting powerful proposals and RFPs.

In Persuasive Business Proposals, he shares the same insights with you—teaching you what a good proposal is not and explaining the value of a proposal as an important and effective sales tool for driving business. You’ll learn how to:

  • attract prospects’ attention and speak to their needs;
  • ask essential questions for qualifying opportunities;
  • “power up” cover letters and executive summaries;
  • overcome “value paranoia”;
  • incorporate proof into a proposal;
  • and write winning renewal contracts.

With clear instructions as well as before-and-after samples, the third edition of Persuasive Business Proposals takes you step-by-step through a highly effective process for writing customized packages that capture new business.

ISBN-13: 9780814417850

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: AMACOM

Publication Date: 04-30-2012

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

Age Range: 18 Years

TOM SANT is a renowned proposal consultant, whose clients range from small entrepreneurial operations to Global 500 companies, including General Electric, Microsoft, Lucent, and Accenture. He is the creator of the world's most widely used proposal automation systems, ProposalMaster and RFPMaster.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

This edition of Persuasive Business Proposals has been thoroughly revised to reflect changes in the world of work that affect proposal writing and, more important, to incorporate lessons I have learned from working with some wonderful clients.

The basic principles of persuasion have remained consistent from the first edition onward, but thanks to insightful client feedback I have developed more effective ways to explain those principles. For example, the NOSE pattern that I present in Chapter 5 is an important instance of finding a simpler, more memorable way to communicate the key concept of persuasive structure. Likewise, the characterization of bad writing into the four categories of Fluff, Guff, Geek, and Weasel—an idea that I first presented in The Language of Success—has proved so popular in workshops and speeches that I decided to bring it to Persuasive Business Proposals, too.

The use of technology has exploded, moving us from the local area network to the cloud, and by collaborating with clients who are themselves at the forefront of information management I have learned how to use that technology to make the proposal writing task easier. I feel extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to work with proposal experts at Microsoft, Cisco, CIBER, Booz Allen, Thomson Reuters, Qvidian, and other leading high-tech firms. Technology can transform the way we work, as evidenced by the rise of virtual proposal operations on a global scale in recent years. But technology can also exert new pressures on the bidding process and the proposal writer, too. I have tried to address these new realities in this edition.

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Excerpted from PERSUASIVE BUSINESS PROPOSALS, 3rd Edition by Tom Sant. Copyright © 2012 by Tom Sant. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission.

All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.

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Selected by Choice magazine for the annual Outstanding Academic Titles award list for 2004

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface

Section One: Seven Deadly Sins

1: A Good Proposal Is Hard to Find…But It’s Worth Looking

2: Recognizing Reality

3: Rushing to the Exit

Section Two: A Primer on Persuasion

4: Understanding Persuasion

5: Winning by a NOSE: The Structure of Persuasion

6: Seven Magic Questions: How To Develop a Client-Centered Message

7: Why the Inuit Hunt Whales and Other Secrets of Customer Behavior

8: The Cicero Principle:How to Avoid Talking to Yourself in Print

9: Fluff, Guff, Geek, and Weasel: The Art of Saying What You Mean

10: Weaving Your Web: How to Pull It All Together Right from the Start

Section Three: The Art of the Part: Where to Put Your Effort

11: Letter Proposals

12: The Structure and Key Elements of Formal Proposals

13: Writing the Business Case

14: Recommending and Substantiating Your Solution

15: Persuasive Answers to RFP Questions

16: Presenting Evidence and Proving Your Points

17: Gathering and Tailoring Reusable Content

Section Four: How to Manage the Process Without Losing Your Sanity

18: Deal or No Deal?:Qualifying the Opportunity

19: An Overview of the Proposal Development Process

20: The Pursuit of Perfection: Editing Your Proposal

21: The Packaging Is Part of the Product

22: Presenting Your Proposal

23: Tracking Your Success

24: Creating a Proposal Center of Excellence

25: Special Challenges

Index