Proposal Planning and Writing for an RFP© Ugur Akinci Proposal planning and writing for an RFP (Request For Proposal) is the path that leads to lucrative U.S. government contracts. Here we used the phrase “the path that leads to” deliberately since there are other factors that play a role in winning business contracts. However, a proposal researched and written in direct response to an RFP is one of the central factors. Learning how to write one can propel your career as a writer, and ratchet your career to a new orbit as a project manager. Where should you begin if and when you decide to write such a proposal? Assuming that you carry both a writer’s and a manager’s hat, you should of course start with assessing whether the RFP in question is suitable for you or not. Believe it or not, the only thing worse than losing a contract that you wouldn’t be able to deliver is to win it. Why? The U.S. federal government’s conditions and stipulations are so specific you may end up your shirt if you do not have the resources to see the project to the end. Thus before doing anything else, you should gather your project team and do an extensive analysis of your resources to see if you can actually deliver what the RFP is asking for. Next comes putting your RFP team together. If you’re not a manager and if you are hired by one, by default you join one such team in place. As a writer your most important two responsibilities would be to research and plan the proposal in accordance with the RFP specs, and then sit down and actually write it. A business proposal written in response to an RFP must contain certain components like a cover sheet, TOC, Executive Summary, etc. But the truth is, no two RFPs are exactly alike. So you will most likely have special sections and chapters in your proposal, or diagrams and graphs, to present a convincing case. Usually such a proposal goes through at least two or three drafts, depending on the size and nature of the business organization you’re working for. The larger the contract, the longer it’ll take to complete the proposal. At a minimum you should brace yourself to work six months on a proposal and don’t be surprised if the writing stretches out to a whole year or more. If you are an independent freelancer working on the project, either make sure that you are paid in installments throughout the project, or you another sources of income to support you until the delivery of the final proposal. As a writer or manager it is also important that you know how to take care of first things first (like registering your company with all the prerequisite government agencies). Thus it is important to have a good list of federal and state procurement web sites at your web sites. Such a list will save you a lot of time and effort. There are many web resources on proposal writing but when you research them you’ll find out that most of them address GRANT proposals. Writing for government RFPs is a for-profit enterprise and has nothing to do with grant writing. Thus, in order to help you at a level which we cannot go into here, we have this 51-page (8.5” x 11”) special report, Proposal Planning and Writing for RFPs, written by Gary Karbon which answers almost every question under the sun about how to write plan and write and successful response to an RFP.
Just one look at the TOC is enough to see how comprehensive this no-fluff 51-page PDF report is: 1] Introduction and Terminology This volume not only includes a step-by-step process for project teams to produce such a proposal (Chap 12) but also a list of 140 U.S. federal and state/local procurement web sites. Just that list alone is perhaps worth the modest price of this must-have handbook. Please keep in mind that this only an information product and of course in no shape or form guarantees or promises any success when responding to a government RFP. But it sure is one heck of resource to put you ahead of the competition whether you’re a writer or a proposal manager. Only $ 9.95 (PDF file)
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P.S. You might also be interested in How to Write a Quality Control Plan (QCP) Return from "Proposal Planning and Writing for an RFP" to WRITING BUSINESS PLAN page Return from "Proposal Planning and Writing for an RFP" to HOW TO WRITE ANYTHING home page page Have a Great Tip, Photo or Comment About This Topic?Do you have a great tip or photo about this? Something that you believe we should read or see? Contribute and share it today! |
