The document provides tips for writing effective business proposals. It recommends including 11 key elements: clarity, communicating rather than impressing, being error-free, professional printing and binding, effective layout, visual elements, a title page, political correctness, writing for global audiences, avoiding jargon, and explaining technology simply. Additional tips include writing succinctly, making a strong argument and addressing counterpoints, showing personality, using graphics judiciously, avoiding hyperbole, preventing boilerplate text, and focusing on benefits. Effective proposals also include scope of work, project approach, past experience, team details, timeline and milestones, progress reports, client resources needed, assumptions, and cost/payment details.

1. Tips for Writing a Business Proposal
Business today means fierce competition, aggressive marketing and strategic alliances. The extent
to which a business succeeds or fails often depends upon that business's ability to be awarded
contracts or to attract other businesses into Joint Ventures or Strategic Alliances. To accomplish
either one usually requires two key items: good ideas and the ability to present those good ideas
in a superbly developed business proposal.
Business proposals are developed for one of two possible reasons.
(1) A business entity has called for tenders or has invited you to submit a RFP (Request for
Proposal). In this case, your goal is to be "short listed," meaning that you will be one of the three
or four bidders who is awarded an interview. Your proposal must stand among possibly dozens of
submissions.
(2) You have an idea, concept or project that you want to propose to someone with the goal of
gaining support, funding or an alliance. In this case, there is no competitive bidding process.
However, your proposal must make a favourable impression and must explain all aspects of your
proposed concept clearly and quickly. A document that is vaguely written, difficult to understand
or that presents more questions than answers will likely be discarded promptly.
The following eleven tips are guidelines that should help you achieve your goal:
1. Clarity.
Before you begin to write the proposal, summarize the concept in 2-3 sentences, then,
show it to a lay person and check for understanding. If they don't grasp the basic idea,
rewrite until they do. Until you can do this, you are not ready to start writing the
proposal.
How many times have you received a document that you had to read over and over before
you comprehended the meaning? When this happens, it may be because your
comprehension skills are under- developed, but it's more likely that the writer substituted
clarity of thought and good document structure with sloppy thinking, wordy, rambling
explanations, vague descriptions and heavy reliance on buzzwords and jargon. It's worth
saying once again: If you can't summarize it in 2-3 sentences, you are not ready to start
writing.
2. Strive to communicate, not to impress.
If you have a good idea and you communicate that idea clearly and effectively, the recipients will
be impressed. If you try to baffle them with your brilliance, you'll lose ground.
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

2. 3. Error Free:
Your proposal will be competing with proposals prepared by professional writers, graphic
designers and desktop publishers. You may not have those resources at your disposal, but you can
be fastidious about checking for typing, spelling and grammatical errors. Spell checkers can only
go so far; the rest is up to you. Ask someone else to check your document for errors before you
submit it, or wait a few days before rereading it. If you have worked on a document intensely,
you will "learn" to interpret errors as being correct. It takes a fresh eye to spot the typos.
4. Print and Bind:
Print your document on good quality, heavy- bond paper, using either a laser printer or a good-
quality bubble jet. Take it to an office service for backing and binding. For less than $10, you can
produce a nicely done, professionally presented package.
5. Layout:
When laying out your document, format it so the body of the text appears in the right two-thirds
of the page. The one-third of the page to the left contains titles and white space. The white space
to the left allows the reader to make notes. This sounds like a trivial matter, but it elicits positive
reactions from recipients.
6. Visual Elements:
Include visual elements sporadically throughout your document. Logos, clip art, graphs, charts,
tables and other elements greatly enhance the visual appeal of your document and make it easier
for many people to read and comprehend. Pages of pure text are tiring to the eye and a challenge
to the attention span. Additionally, many people are visually oriented, meaning the preferred
method of learning is through imagery and not text.
7. Title Page.
Begin with a Title Page that includes images (graphics, pictures, etc.), the name of the proposal
recipient, the name of the project, your company name and address, the date, and your copyright
symbol.
8. Be Politically Correct.
Whether you support political correctness or whether you don't, the issue here is to avoid
offending the people who will receive your proposal document. Avoid any language that can be
construed as offensive to any group of people - including women, men, persons with disabilities,
persons belonging to visible minorities, senior citizens, and so on. If you're not certain of correct
terminology, consult with someone knowledgeable before submitting your proposal.
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

3. 9. Write for Global Audiences:
Emerging technologies, immigration policies and agreements like NAFTA have produced a
global marketplace. Documents nowadays should be written with the understanding that they may
be evaluated by persons living in other countries or by persons for whom English is a second
language. Even if you are submitting your proposal to a local business, they may well have joint
ventures with international companies, and these companies may be asked to peruse your
document. Unless your proposal is local to a specific geographic area, avoid references that
would not be understood by persons living in other areas (or explain these references if you must
use them). Also, avoid the use of slang or expressions from pop culture. When persons from other
cultures study the English language, they are taught to speak formal, correct English. They are
often unfamiliar with the use of slang terms.
10. Jargon Free:
Every industry has its own particular "language" - words, terms and expressions that are common
to that industry but foreign to people from other industries. Avoid the use of jargon, or if you
must use it, explain it. For example, expressions like "branding," "turnkey solution," "E-
commerce" are not necessarily understood by everyone who is doing business. Also remember
that your proposal may go to a committee that is comprised of people from various walks of life.
Make sure they understand what you are talking about.
11. Technology.
What was just said about jargon goes double for technology. If your proposed project involves
the use of technologies, be very careful with your explanation. The persons reading the document
may have little or no technological background. Therefore, in the body of the proposal, it's
usually recommended that you explain your technology in terms of what it will do - i.e. "A data
base that members can use to search for information about your products." There is a place for
detailed information about the technology that you are proposing - and that spot is the appendix.
In many cases, a non-technically oriented business will engage a technology consultant to review
your proposed technology. This person can use the detailed explanations that you include in the
appendix while other readers will be able understand the proposal itself.
Keep these guidelines in mind and you will be off to a good start with your next business
proposal
Some more Tips for Creating a Great Business Proposal:
1. Write Clearly and Succinctly: There is a tendency in business writing generally, and in
business proposals specifically, to try and show how smart you are by using excess
verbiage, jargon, and run-on sentences. Don't do it. Be succinct. Make your point and
move on.
Remember: When people begin reading the proposal, they have little or no idea what you
are proposing, so you have to walk them through the process. You do so by starting at the
beginning and clearly, simply, and logically moving forward by making your points one
at a time.
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

4. Start with the big picture and drill down as you go along.
2. Make a Good Argument and Counter Possible Obstacles: A great proposal is,
essentially, a sales brochure, disguised. In it, you put your best foot forward, put your
company in the best light, and make yourself irresistible to the reader.
How do you do that?
The best way is to marshal the top facts and arguments in your favor. Have a theme and
reinforce it again and again. Take the reader down a path that leads but to one conclusion
— that hiring you makes the most sense for them.
3. You also have to put yourself in the readers' position, think of what counter arguments
they may be considering, and deal with those potential obstacles honestly. That makes
you trustworthy.
4. Show your Personality: Far too often, business proposals are devoid of life, as if the
person writing it is some Robot, programmed to say nothing, be boring, and not offend.
I say, let your personality come through. Of course this is business and you have to
follow some business conventions, but as you do, also let the reader see who you are.
Share your enthusiasm for your business, their business, the idea, something.
5. Use Graphics Intelligently: Don't make the mistake of bogging down a perfectly fine
proposal with excess graphics. Yes, of course you need graphics; they can clarify an idea,
and liven up a proposal and allow readers to focus on something other than words. That's
smart. Just don't get carried away. Whether you use a program like Publisher or
PowerPoint, just be sure that the graphics reinforce the sale rather than distracting from
the point.
6. Don't Oversell: Avoid hyperbole. As soon as you cross the line from understandable
pride to obnoxious overstatement, you lose credibility. Once readers think you're not
shooting straight with them, they may question the truthfulness of everything in your
proposal—all that they read so far, and all that is still to come.
You avoid this unenviable fate by staying on the safe side of overstatement.
7. Avoid Boilerplate Language and Catch Typos: Another sure way to lose readers is to
have them think that your proposal is a cut-and-paste job, consisting of boilerplate data
and text. Certainly you can reuse persuasive information from elsewhere, but try to keep
it to a minimum and don't make it obvious. Your proposal should read as if it were
created especially for this particular client or customer. And while you're personalizing
the proposal, triple-check for typos.
If it is clear that you didn't give the proposal your best effort, why would your readers
think you would give their project your best effort?
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

5. 8. Always Keep the Reader in Mind: A proposal is a marketing tool, and as such,
remember Marketing 101: Stress benefits, benefits, benefits.
Finally, while price is important and must be discussed, do so only after you have wowed
readers with your crisp writing, powerful arguments, supporting graphics, and a plethora
of potential benefits. Then you can go in for the sale.
Request for Proposal (RPF)
Here's the situation: a potential client asks you for a proposal for services or products in response
to a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quote (RFQ), but where do you start? If you have
never written a business proposal before, this can be a daunting task. However, by using a logical
document format, you can develop a quality proposal that will maximise the chances of it being
accepted. Then you'll discover that you can repeat the same formula for any subsequent
proposals.
Usually, a RFP specially in the case of Tenders, has a given format in which the proposal has to
be written. In which case you need to simply put in all the facts in the sequence and manner in
which it is required.
In case, there is no formal document structure requested by your client - so it is for you to decide
on the form of the proposal.
In this case, the following points should be considered to help you design a good proposal
Your Aim
Before you start writing any proposal, you must consider your aim - to make a sale of your goods
and or services. Two of the major issues considered by your client in deciding whether to accept
your proposal are whether, in their opinion, you understand their business needs; and that you can
deliver what you promise. You must continually refer to these two fundamental questions when
you write your proposal. Referring back to these issues also helps you with developing the
content of your proposal.
Proposal Contents
Any business proposal should contain the following areas:
• Scope of Work - this requires you to provide an overview of your services or
products that will meet their business needs. The client's needs are obtained from a
Brief that may range from a formal written document through to a verbal
conversation. You need to provide the client with the confidence that you understand
their business needs and demonstrate how your products or services meet them.
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

6. • Project Approach - in this section, you need to provide some explanation about how
you are going to approach the work. This builds more confidence for your client, as
they read what you are doing (Scope of Work), along with evidence that you have
actually thought about and planned the work.
• Past Experience - you should provide details of previous engagements in which you
have delivered similar products or services. It is also helpful to include personal
references, should the client wish to verify them. The purpose of this is to give the
client some measure of how mature and experienced you are in delivering the
services or products you are offering.
• Project Team - you should always detail the specific people you intend to use
during the engagement, along with their background, skills and experience. It is also
useful to include a resumé or CV for each person. You should also mention who will
be the main point of contact in your organisation for this project.
• Timeline and Milestones - this section should illustrate the tasks or products to be
provided, each with a corresponding planned delivery date. For larger engagements,
milestones can be used to serve as control checkpoints for the client or payment
points for you (further discussed below). The timeline can be presented in tabular
form, or if more complex, you can use a Gantt chart.
• Progress Reports and Meetings - to foster good communications and to maintain a
healthy relationship with the client, you should suggest the forms and frequency of
progress reports and meetings. Examples of this could include providing weekly
email updates, formal written reports, or monthly face-to-face meetings.
• Resources and Materials Provided by the Client - if you need the client to provide
you with any facilities or resources for your use or access, you need to state them
here. Examples could be provision of a computer workstation or access to their
computer systems whilst you are working on their site, or access to the client's key
staff at certain points of the engagement.
• Assumptions - if there are any other assumptions that you have made in preparing
your proposal, you should include them here. The point of this is to minimise any
misunderstandings you may have with the client after they give you the approval to
proceed with the engagement. For example, you will not be happy if your client asks
for a task that you assumed was outside the scope of the project, but never stated.
• Cost and Payment Schedule - the cost of your proposal can be expressed either in a
lump sum or on a time and materials basis. You will need to provide visibility of
your hourly rates if you are charging on a time and materials basis. If it is
appropriate, or if the client desires, you can suggest to be paid according to certain
project deliverables that are stated in the Timelines and Milestones section. In this
case, you can align the relevant Milestones against appropriate payment amounts. If
the engagement is on a time and materials basis, then you can align payments with
deliverables or request that payments be made periodically such as fortnightly or
monthly.
• Terms of Agreement - if you have any contract terms that you wish to apply to the
agreement, they should be included here. These could include anything from
ownership of IP through to payment terms. You can use the services of a lawyer to
help you develop these terms if required.
The above areas are the recommended minimum contents of any business proposal in response to
a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quote (RFQ). Used systematically, this can guide
can help you to develop and refine the format of your proposals. It allows you to breakdown the
task of proposal writing into relevant sections, allowing you to focus on the all-important
technical content.
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

7. When writing a proposal, always remember that you are trying to provide a prospective client
with the confidence that you know your products and services, and are experienced in delivering
them. Writing your proposals using this format will help you to develop quality proposals and
maximise the chances of them being accepted.
Brochures
A brochure or pamphlet is a leaflet advertisement. Brochures may advertise locations, events,
hotels, products, services, etc. They are usually succinct in language and eye-catching in design.
Direct mail and trade shows are common ways to distribute brochures to introduce a product or
service. In hotels and other places that tourists frequently visit, brochure racks or stands may
suggest visits to amusement parks and other points of interest. The two most common brochure
styles are single sheet, and booklet (folded leaflets) forms.
The most common types of single-sheet brochures are the bi-fold (a single sheet printed on both
sides and folded into halves) and the tri-fold (the same, but folded into thirds). A bi-fold brochure
results in four panels (two panels on each side), while a tri-fold results in six panels (three panels
on each side).
Other folder arrangements are possible: the accordion or "Z-fold" method, the "C-fold" method,
etc. Larger sheets, such as those with detailed maps or expansive photo spreads, are folded into
four, five, or six panels.
Booklet brochures are made of multiple sheets most often saddle stitched (stapled on the creased
edge) or "perfect bound" like a paperback book, and result in eight panels or more.
Brochures are often printed using four color process on thick gloss paper to give an initial
impression of quality. Businesses may turn out small quantities of brochures on a computer
printer or on a digital printer, but offset printing turns out higher quantities for less cost.
Compared with a flyer or a handbill, a brochure usually uses higher-quality paper, more color,
and is folded.
Qualities of Well-Designed Brochures
A good brochure can contribute to a marketing programme, but it is not a keystone of a total
marketing effort. It can be powerful and effective as an adjunct to a marketing plan. In
conjunction with other marketing tools, brochures:
• Disseminate knowledge on a specific area;
• Are principal bases for communication;
• Are motivators to arouse interest;
• Are tangible, with staying power;
• Can add to anything you say about your firm and capabilities;
• Describe a firm’s capabilities, facilities, expertise, or point of view , all in best light;
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon

8. • Act as devices to influence a target group;
• Act as follow-ups for specific target groups;
• Can supply valuable information and benefits of product
• give visual dimension to a firm
• give legitimacy to a new facility or service.
Brochures can also be effectively used as supplements in oral presentations, they:
• give a detailed explanation of ideas highlighted in oral presentations;
• are devices to direct listeners to specific segments at intervals;
• are follow-ups for the listeners in an oral presentation.
A Few Tips…
• Clarify the objective.
• Have a plan before you start to write the brochure.
• Know before hand you your audience is to be.
• Limit the brochure to a single purpose – a service or a facility.
• Demonstrate what you do and how you do it differently.
• Get the reader’s attention by giving an important point or explaining an unusual concept.
• Select appropriate graphs and charts to give an overall idea.
• Content must be correct, well-organised and up-to-date, but do not overwhelm with too
many details.
• Use dot or bullet points because these points often get interspersed amongst short
traditional paragraphs. They will communicate maximum information in minimal space
and make your message easy and quicker to read.
• Use a catchy heading and sub-headings to highlight particular aspects of your message to
attract the reader’s attention.
• Use simple language that is understood by everyone. Avoid Jargon, clichés, ambiguous
words and long winding phrases.
• The tone should be intelligent, competent, friendly, persuasive and inviting.
• Do not use`I’, because you should be promoting your company as a team and not as a
person. Use the collective first person i.e. refer to `us’, `we’, `our’ etc to make people
realize your whole organization has the same goals.
• Use persuasive language to persuade people towards a certain action. Use `action verbs’
to motivate your reader to do something. Some action verbs are: `try us’, `contact us’,
`take action now!’. `do not miss it!’ etc. etc.
• Some adjectives also useful in describing your product or services are: `the best’,
` outstanding’ modern, accountable, professional, dynamic, flexible, tailor-made,
progressive, efficient, effective, competent, eminent etc. etc..
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Zarina Bazliel, Soft Skills Lab 1, Class of 2013, IBS Gurgaon