Top Tips to Avoid Ten Proposal Mistakes

Like an iceberg’s tip, non-compliance signifies a flawed approach towards tenders and proposals.
When it comes to tenders, the rules are written in stone. Failure to comply with them will lead to instant disqualification in most instances. This is especially true for legal requirements such as tender specifications, bid bonds, and financial capacity.

Non-compliance with tender requirements can take many forms:

• Not providing the pricing information as requested
• Non-adherence to Legal, Social, or Environmental Policies
• Providing incomplete or incorrect documentation, such as financial statements, business certifications
• The proposed solution doesn’t meet the technical or service specifications as outlined in the tender.

Best practice

To ensure compliance with evaluation criteria, adopt a systematic approach to preparing your tender response. The following steps can serve as a baseline when devising your strategy:

• Thoroughly read the tender document: Read the entire tender document carefully several times. This helps you understand the evaluation criteria, requirements, and expectations while familiarising yourself with all relevant aspects of the tender
• Seek clarification: If you encounter any ambiguity or uncertainty about the evaluation criteria or other tender requirements, don’t hesitate to contact the client for clarification. Addressing any unclear points early in the process allows you to align your response better with the client’s expectations
• Early preparation: Start preparing your response well in advance, giving yourself ample time to craft a well-structured, compliant, comprehensive, and persuasive proposal. Allocating sufficient time ensures that you can adequately address each evaluation criterion and reduce the risk of submitting an incomplete or sub-standard response
• Utilise a checklist: Create a checklist based on the tender document and the evaluation criteria. The checklist should include critical elements such as required documentation, key points to address, and mandatory specifications. Using a list helps ensure you comply with all requirements and don’t overlook any essential aspects
• Cross-reference your proposal against the client’s criteria: As you prepare your proposal, cross-reference each section against the evaluation criteria to verify that you have addressed all points. This ensures that your response aligns with the client’s expectations and enables you to highlight your unique advantages and benefits in the context of their requirements. It also guides you to ensure you receive as many points as possible in the evaluation process.

Optimising your response against the evaluation criteria goes beyond merely complying with the requirements outlined in a Request for Proposal (RFP).

Instead, it involves a strategic and thoughtful approach to showcasing your advantages, benefits, and unique selling propositions in a way that directly aligns with the evaluation criteria, making your proposal more persuasive and competitive.

Optimising your response means thoroughly understanding these evaluation criteria and then consciously crafting your proposal to demonstrate how your offering meets and exceeds them. It entails highlighting your unique strengths, innovative solutions and demonstrated successes in a way that directly correlates with the client’s needs.

Moreover, strategic optimisation involves anticipating the potential concerns and questions from the evaluation committee and addressing those proactively in your proposal. Also, it highlights areas where your offering excels and can bring additional value that has not explicitly been asked for but is certainly appreciated.
In other words, while meeting the evaluation criteria is crucial, optimising your response requires an extra level of strategy, insight, and persuasion. It ensures you meet the minimum requirements and lets you differentiate your proposal from the competition, enhancing your chances of winning the tender or bid.

Best practice

Optimising your response against evaluation criteria is a powerful way to significantly improve your chances of winning proposals.

It starts with understanding the evaluation criteria outlined in the request for proposal (RFP) or tender; these pinpoint the decision-maker’s exact expectations. When you tailor your proposal to meet these criteria, you directly address the client’s needs, showing that your solution is designed to meet and exceed these expectations. It also shows you’ve listened!

Another advantage of crafting your proposal based on the evaluation criteria, is its emphasis on the relevance of your offering, ensuring it matches what the evaluators consider essential. It showcases that your solution directly aligns with the client’s needs, making it highly relevant.

A proposal following the evaluation criteria displays your comprehensive understanding and thoughtful analysis of the client’s needs. It creates an impression of attentiveness, proactivity, and customer-centricity, appealing to the evaluators on a cognitive level.

Tailoring your proposal around these evaluation criteria can provide a competitive edge. By paying thorough attention to these important details, you can outperform competitors and make your proposal stand out, amplifying your chances of winning.

Finally, optimising your response enhances proactive problem-solving. It equips you with the foresight to anticipate potential challenges during the proposal’s evaluation. You can strengthen weak areas in your offering and assure you that you will secure the highest score possible, maximising your chances of proposal acceptance.

You need to ensure that your customers can understand the value of what you offer them. The best way to do this is by ensuring that every statement in your proposal passes the “so what?” test.

Each sentence in the proposal needs to translate the features of our offering into benefits for the potential customer. Otherwise, we risk being seen as just another provider instead of a uniquely beneficial partner.

If they read, “We are pleased to submit” or “Our company was founded in 19xx,” will they say, “So what?” Look at everything you have written, and ask whether you would care if you were the customer reading it. If not, rewrite it so that it matters.

Best practice

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all template to determine if a statement passes the “so what?” test, you can use a simple formula to evaluate if your statements are convincing, relevant, and value-driven.

This two-step formula can be a very effective and direct way to ensure your statements pass the “so what?” test. Here is an example:

Statement: We have a team of highly experienced graphic designers.

Step One (Add “So”): So,

Step Two (Describe the Benefit): You can be assured of innovative and engaging designs that will capture your target audience’s attention and elevate your brand’s image.

The revised statement will be:

“We have a team of highly experienced graphic designers, so you can be assured of innovative and engaging designs that will capture your target audience’s attention and elevate your brand’s image.”

One of the biggest mistakes one can make is not focusing on customer needs.

You must understand the customers’ problems, vision, gaps and challenges. Does what you have written articulate why the customer should select you? When describing your offering, are you merely fulfilling tender requirements or providing them with something better than the competition? Are you giving them a reason to want your product/service over another solution on the market?

In addition, if selecting your offering will be better for the customer in some way (e.g., cost savings), then explain why this would occur and how much it would save them per year/month/week, etc.

Best practice

Here are some tips to ensure customer centricity:

• Understand the client’s needs and goals: Begin by deeply understanding the client’s requirements, problems, and objectives. This can be achieved by carefully reviewing the client’s organisation, their tender document, any available public documents, and possibly interaction with the client before proposal writing.
• Craft a tailored solution: Design your solution to address the client’s specific challenges and objectives based on your understanding. Highlight how your solution adds value and show that you’ve given thought to the uniqueness of their situation rather than offering a cookie-cutter approach.
• Structure your proposal around client’s needs: The structure of your proposal should revolve around meeting the client’s needs. Each section should address an issue or requirement, propose your strategies or solutions, and highlight the benefits.
• Use client’s language: Demonstrate your understanding of the client and their industry using their language and terminology. This makes the proposal personalised and shows you’ve done your homework.
• Provide evidence of your claims: Strengthen your proposal by providing quantifiable evidence, such as statistics, case studies, or testimonials, which underscore the effectiveness of your offering, specifically in the context of the client’s needs.
• Offer superior client support: Mention your commitment to continuous support and the resources available for the client. This reassures clients that they will be taken care of beyond the sale.

If your proposal doesn’t have distinct factors that separate it from the competition’s, it can be difficult for customers to see your unique value. This lack of differentiation might lead customers to make decisions based on other factors such as price, convenience, or familiarity, which can put your business at a disadvantage.

Moreover, a lack of differentiation makes it harder to justify why customers should choose you over others. If they don’t see any key differences or unique benefits that your solution provides, they might not be convinced to select your proposal over your competitors.

Best practice

To make your proposal stand out from the competition, there are several best practices to consider:

Firstly, establish a solid value proposition. This should detail the unique facets of your product or service that particularly cater to the client’s specific problems and requirements. Understand the client’s pain points, formulate a solution directly addressing them, and communicate this in your proposal.

The other crucial step is embracing a client-centred approach. Gain a thorough understanding of their objectives, hurdles, and expectations, which you should use to shape a solution that aligns with their unique needs.

Don’t overlook your company’s strengths either. Highlighting your company’s specific expertise, background, and resources in your proposal can effectively demonstrate your business’s capabilities and capacity to meet the desired objectives.

To build credibility, include case studies and client testimonials in your proposal. This not only gives a factual backup of your claims but also sends a strong message about your product’s effectiveness and builds trust.
Comparing your offering directly with the competition is another recommended strategy. Identify the areas where your product or service has an advantage and put these differentiators in a context that the client can easily understand and appreciate.

Finally, focus on relationship differentiation. Your company’s personnel can create a uniquely compelling experience. A skilled, friendly, and responsive team can make a significant difference, fostering trust and a strong customer rapport.

In summary, successful differentiation hinges on showcasing your unique offerings and expressing their significance and value to potential clients.

When your proposal and tender responses are unclear, inconsistent, or challenging to understand, it can adversely affect your business.

First, unclear or complex language can make it difficult for clients to understand your offering. This might lead to misunderstandings and prevent them from fully recognising the value and benefits of your product or service. A lack of clarity can also make your business appear unprofessional and unreliable, negatively affecting your credibility with potential clients.

Furthermore, when a document is not easy to follow, clients may lose interest and not invest the time needed to understand your proposal. This frustration may lead them to choose a competitor’s proposal that is more straightforward to understand.

Unclear or inconsistent proposals can also increase the considered risk factor for clients. If they don’t understand what they agree to, they may see your proposal as too risky and opt for a competitor with a more precise, more consistent proposal. These factors can lead to prospective clients disregarding your proposal, ultimately resulting in lost business opportunities.

In summary, ensuring that your proposals are clear, consistent, and easy to understand is vital for the success of your business. Effective proposal communication helps you engage, appeal to, and persuade potential clients so that they favour your offerings over your competitors.

Best Practice

You must ensure that all stakeholders understand what you are proposing and how it fits in with the other parts of your response. You must also consistently describe what is offered and who will do what by when. Finally, don’t leave anything open for doubt; be specific about everything from timelines through pricing models so there aren’t any surprises later on down the road when something goes wrong (and it will).

In short, keep things simple with everyday language; use bullet points instead of paragraphs; keep track of who does what by when so nothing gets overlooked or forgotten. Plan your content, maintain consistency in writing style, and clarify propositions effectively.

Best practice

Make sure the company info you use in your proposals is correct and up-to-date.

Regularly Review Company Information: Make a habit of reviewing and updating your company information on a regular schedule. This way, you can avoid using outdated or wrong details.

Get Info from Reliable Sources: Always collect your company information from reliable sources. This includes internal documents, approved websites, and verified contacts within the organisation.

Check with Different Departments: Every department in your company might have unique updates or changes. Make sure you’re talking to them and getting the latest company info.

Use a Document Management System: This can help you track changes and updates made to company info. It’ll also alert you when outdated information is about to be used.

Double-Check Before Sending: Before sending a proposal, take a final look at all the company details to ensure they’re correct. It might take some extra time, but getting it right at the start saves much hassle later.
Remember, keeping your info up-to-date is key in making your proposals and bids as effective as possible.

Using wrong or out-of-date information in your proposals and bids can do some real damage to your business.

First, it makes you look like you’re not on top of things. If you’re dishing out stale or just wrong info, it can make clients think twice about your professionalism and whether or not your business is reliable.

On top of that, using wrong or outdated info can spark misunderstandings or mix-ups between you and potential clients. They might expect one thing based on the wrong information and feel let down or fooled when they discover what’s what. This can dent your reputation, shake trust, and sometimes even land you in legal hot water.

And let’s not forget about your competition. If clients are sizing up proposals and your rivals are rocking up-to-date, correct info while you’re lagging, you will likely be left in the dust.

Best practice

Ensuring your proposals and tender responses are well-designed and structured begins with a clear and concise outline. A logical flow, starting with an executive summary and ending with a conclusion, lays a strong foundation for your proposal. Guiding the reader through your document is easier with the strategic use of headings and subheadings, effectively communicating your ideas.

Consistency is king when it comes to fonts and formatting. Adopting a clean, professional font and maintaining uniformity throughout the document lend themselves to a more coherent overall design. Avoid overusing bold, italic, or underlined text to support this coherence.

Proper use of white space is a key tactic for making your document easy to read. Ample white space between paragraphs and around images prevents visual clutter and helps the reader focus on the content. Similarly, using bullet points and numbered lists can break up large chunks of text, making it easier for the reader to digest.

Highlights in the document, such as critical points or crucial details, should be emphasised. Consider using bold or italic fonts, underlining important terms, or text boxes to draw the reader’s attention. Along the same line, relevant and high-quality visuals, like charts, graphs, or images, can support your points and effectively illustrate complex ideas.

Any document should be thoroughly proofread and edited to avoid grammatical errors, typos, and inconsistencies in formatting. For particularly lengthy proposals, include a table of contents to help the reader navigate the document. As a starting point, consider using professionally designed templates to ensure your submission is well-structured and visually appealing.

Poor design frustrates evaluators, making your proposal hard to assess.

A significant issue is that poor design leads to misunderstandings, which can have serious implications. If a document’s design is chaotic or unorganised, it hampers its readability and comprehensibility. This could go as far as causing readers to misinterpret the contents.

Bad document design can also harm your brand’s image. It might come off as unprofessional or sloppy, and potential clients may lose trust or develop a negative perception of your company.

Furthermore, poorly designed documents could lead to productivity loss. If the document is not intuitive, it can waste people’s time as they try to navigate and understand it. It’s also worth mentioning that security breaches and costly document errors are common problems without proper document management.

Best Practice

The first and most important step is extensive research on your client. Develop a deep understanding of their industry, requirements, and broad challenges.

The next crucial step is to identify the client’s specific pain points. Communicate that you understand these.

Make it clear in your proposal how your product or service can ease these particular issues and how this will contribute to their overall success. In short, explain how your offering will benefit this specific customer in the context of their needs.

Avoid using large amounts of generic and all-encompassing content, like claims and solutions that are broadly applicable but not especially relevant for this particular client.

Express clearly what outcomes (results) you hope to achieve, noting how these will be measured. Provide quantifiable metrics, timelines, and projections to win the client’s confidence.

When presenting your accomplishments:

• Highlight your experience that relates directly to the client’s needs. This assures the client that you have successfully tackled similar challenges before and can deliver.
• Avoid merely listing qualifications or capabilities. You can be strategic and put the client at the centre. When you mention a qualification, ability/or area of expertise, say how this benefits / provides value to the client.
• Finally, consider including testimonials or case studies from previous satisfied clients. This lets your past work speak for you. It is evidence that you can deliver on what you offer and has great persuasive power.

Focusing too much on yourself in proposals and tenders is common. It is also a potential pitfall –proven to significantly lessen your chances of winning. Instead, base your proposal around the clients themselves. What are their needs? How do your offerings align with their objectives? This approach compels and persuades the reader.

The primary goal of a proposal should be to address the needs and requirements of the customer and demonstrate how your products or services are the right solutions for them. There are a few potential negative consequences of overemphasising your achievements, qualities, history, etc.

• Risk alienating your audience and projecting an arrogant image.
• Overemphasising your own company can make it harder for you to switch to considering the customer’s perspective – their concerns, desires, and expectations.

This is very normal. But switching to the client’s perspective is what proposes – and a proposal writer – great. Your proposal should identify and empathise with the client’s pain points, demonstrating that you have a deep understanding of their challenges and can offer practical, customised solutions. Ignoring this aspect contributes to the risk of coming across as out-of-touch and self-centred.

It can also give the customer the impression that you may not be capable of prioritising their needs or personalising services, which could discourage them from awarding you the work.

Focussing your proposal writing process around the customer’s needs is pivotal for creating winning proposals. This sets you apart from competitors, makes the client feel fully understood, and frames your offerings as considered, customised solutions to their specific needs and challenges. All of this adds up to successful persuasion and wins your business.

As you refine your proposal crafting technique, continue focusing on the benefits you offer, streamlining processes, and enhancing your skills. With a well-honed strategy, your business can unlock new opportunities and continually inspire success, one exceptional proposal at a time.

If you are not in it, you can’t win it. When you miss the submission deadline, you are not in it. Need we say more?

Best Practice.

Don’t be late. Ever.