What is a proposal?
A business, grant, or project proposal is a document where a team or organization makes a detailed, persuasive argument for why it should be chosen by the readers. A business proposal, for exmaple, should convince a prospective customer to purchase a product or service. A grant proposal should persuade a foundation or group to invest in the proposal's authors.
Proposals represent a highly specialized form of writing that differ substantially from more common types of writing. They must be powerfully persuasive yet easily readable, and they must make deft arguments while vividly explaining the benefit of the proposed solution.
For these reasons, it can be particularly difficult for technical personnel to write a good proposal. That’s because their writing is often instructional or scholarly in nature, so they adopt an objective, even-handed tone. With proposals, they suddenly find themselves working on a document that must convey excitement through goal-driven rhetoric. It can be an uncomfortable shift to make.
Yet, learning how to write a winning proposal is often crucial to obtain the funding and other support they need to carry out their desired activities. Sometimes, they're even the lynchpin of new project or customer acquisition. Thankfully, we have extensive experience in proposal writing skills and this guide to help you strengthen your proposals.
How to write a good business proposal: 3 key strategies
1: Target your readers.
Most proposals fail to focus on the reader's problem. Instead, the focus falls on "we do this and that" without considering how the solution helps the reader. A Texas A&M International University analysis comparing academic writing to proposal writing says, "As one of our university's consistently successful grant writers put it: 'My epiphany came when I realized that grant programs do not exist to make me successful, but rather my job is to make those programs successful.'"In other words, your proposal isn't really about you. It's about the reader. That's the single most important step in how to write a good business proposal: orient everything it says around the reader.
2: Emphasize benefits and successful outcomes.
This tip follows directly from the first. A classic error in sales and marketing writing is to discuss features rather than benefits, but it's key to remember that you're selling the outcome or result of your product or service, not the product or service itself. Diet foods don't sel because they're low calorie, they sell because fewer calories mean people lose weight and thus look or feel better.
Now think about what it is you're proposing and how it benefits the reader. Then, spell it out in the proposal.
3: Use user-friendly language.
Far too many business proposals use jargon and/or assume that the reader knows what they’re talking about. “Jargon masks real meaning,” Jennifer Chatman, management professor at the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, tells Forbes. “People use it as a substitute for thinking hard and clearly about their goals and the direction that they want to give others.”
Instead, speak plainly, avoiding clichés and overused catchphrases and be specific rather than generic.
Proposals don't have to be hard to write and, fortunately, proposal writers have ample options to improve their skills. You can take a course to get first-hand experience in honoring your proposal writing skills.
Take a writing course with Hurley Write to learn how to write a readable, persuasive proposal to generate results.