How to Automate Proposals and Influence People

As proposal professionals we all appreciate the power of a client-centric value proposition in our proposals. But how can we drive the persuasive paradigm beyond the confines of the proposal centre and into everyday sales communications?

Crafting compelling proposals at scale with quality can be achieved through automation

The answer is deceptively simple: automate the creation of proactive proposals to exponentially improve the quality, consistency, speed and throughput of proposals and increase the sales pipeline. The practical implementation, however, is more challenging. It requires the right combination of people, process and technology to spread proposal best practice through mass production.

“What you are describing sounds like Proposal Nirvana!”

I presented this topic at the APMP's 13th Annual UK Conference with Darrell Woodward and received excellent feedback from our audience – it’s not quite proposal nirvana, but it is certainly enlightening! We know that a number of the delegates are benefiting from our insights and ideas to help them prepare their business case to initiate proposal automation projects within their own businesses. Here are a few of the key elements that we believe are critical to success.

Translating a marketeer’s go-to-market strategy into persuasive proposal content

Apply the distinctive skills and experience of a qualified proposal team to achieve the right context. Sales reps aren't necessarily the best proposal writers and neither are the marketing team. Marketing materials must be adapted for the weird world of bids and proposals.

It takes the distinctive skills and experience of a qualified proposal team to translate marketing messaging into compelling propositions that can be intelligently blended to build personalised and persuasively structured proposals. The result is a force multiplication of proposal excellence that delivers fast, efficient and persuasive proposals that drive more opportunities and help win business.

Using key proposal themes to create dynamic, personalised propositions

Create a broad range of proposal themes that are applicable in an variety of sales situations. To do this efficiently, it is important that we do our research, harvest and deconstruct the appropriate source materials – marketing slicks, service descriptions, sales presentations, etc. – and spend time re-structuring and tuning the content to increase client-focus and optimise it for use in proposals.

“A handful of client issues combined with dozens of desired outcomes matched with hundreds of products and tuned by sales context delivers thousands of possible propositions”

Automating the persuasive paradigm

Consider carefully the build vs. buy argument when deploying proposal automation software. Through innovative use of proposal automation technology, the resulting proposal themes are embedded into the flow of the document at key points such as the Cover Letter, Title Page, Executive Summary, and thesis statements. Implementing this creative approach to high-volume proposal development results in personalised and persuasively structured proposals that can be created in under three minutes.

Force multiplication of proposal excellence

Drive the persuasive paradigm beyond the confines of the proposal centre. By harnessing the power of people, process and technology we transformed the way we create and deliver business proposals to customers. The end result is that sales reps can quickly and easily combine customer industry themes with common business issues and desired outcomes to dynamically create client-focused proactive proposals. As one conference attendee commented: “Nice to see that the perfect bid environment exists!”

In summary: How to Automate Proposals and Influence People

So when you set about how to automate proposals and influence people in your organisation for your customers, consider the following:

• Apply the distinctive skills and experience of a qualified proposal team to achieve the right context.

• Create a broad range of proposal themes that are applicable in an variety of sales situations.

• Consider carefully the "build vs. buy" argument if deploying proposal automation software.

• Drive the persuasive paradigm beyond the confines of the proposal centre.