Rules to Better Proposals - 13 Rules
Ensure your proposals stand out with these key rules. From using client-focused design elements to maintaining consistency in format and branding, these tips will help you create professional and personalized proposals that leave a lasting impression.
Add a photo of the client on your proposal cover to make your proposal memorable.
Search for the client photo in Google Images or Facebook:
- "Tom Northwind" Australia
- "Tom Northwind" Facebook
Figure: Remember to add a photo of the client A strong header and footer will make the client sure that document is from your company in any page he is looking at.
Make sure your document contains:
- Header - The company logo and contact information
- Footer - The filename (hyperlinked with the URL) and the version number
Bad example - The link is too long and messy 
Good example - The header and footer are consistent, using the branding colours and all the useful information A proposal Word template means that anyone in the company will be able to easily create a new proposal for a client following the standards. It can literally cut the time of proposal development in half.
When creating the template, remember to add instructions to the user in yellow (things to be edited/deleted) and check you are following Rules to Better Proposals.
Warning: ⚠️ Templates can be harmful. Don’t treat them as law - don't be afraid to delete irrelevant sections. Let your colleagues know which bits you deleted.
"Commercial in Confidence" information is to be made known to anyone that the proposal in a confidential document. Competing companies are never to be given another company's information in regard to performance specifications or any aspects of pricing, quotation, tender, bid, nor any other commercial or proprietary information.
Before any document goes to a client a test please for the document is to be completed. The first test is the technical test please. When that is passed the Design test please is to be completed.
The necessary amount of time should be allocated. If there is a time limitation, the manager will inform which parts should be checked in prior.
Technical Test
- Document Body
- Check all spelling mistakes
- Check all calculations and cost in the document
- Make sure all customised technical sections are technically correct
Design Test
- Cover page
- Check the client details are correct
- Company name
- Company Champion name
- Company champion email
- Company champion position
- Confirm date the proposal is sent
- Confirm version Number
- Check project name
- Check author
Headers
The header of every page should contain a field from the document properties section which is the name of the document. Selecting all and pressing F9 won’t update this. It has to be done manually.
Document Body
- Make the correct company name is being used
- Check all spelling mistakes
- Make sure the resource details correct in the "Resources" section:
- Name
- Rates
- Image
- Make sure the images relate to the content and the captions are related to the images
- Make sure the document is formatted correctly to the SSW standard
- Headers
- Bullet points
- Fonts
- Images
- Spacing
- Tables
- Last thing to complete
- Update all fields before final save
At SSW, our proposals are to be divided into 3 parts:
- The white section: This is the document information.
- The yellow section: The actual proposal, where all the information for the client can be found
- The red section: This is the SSW section and contains a brief presentation of our company and appendices. Please note that this section is not as relevant to client and therefore comes last
Figure: Relevant information comes first on our proposals It's very important to make clear which part of your proposal is relevant for the client or not. Adding the client logo in the pages related to their company is a good way to do this.
The use of many different fonts in the same document is unprofessional. At SSW, we use Open Sans as the standard font.
Also ensure that titles, subtitles and content are consistent. You can create this by using document styles.
It is important that the documents you provide are branded appropriately. This is not just the document's formatting, but the Title of the document and the File Name as well.
At SSW our proposals Title and File Name are always prefixed with SSW. This allows for clients to easily recognise a proposal provided by us before even opening the document, it also immedietly identifies our documents to anyone else who may read them in the future.
When providing a proposal to a client it should be in PDF format. Reasons for this are:
- PDFs cannot be edited without leaving a digital footprint
- PDF is a universal file format across different OS'
- File Size is decreased
- Reading is free and is now built into browser, requring no unique software to view
Include photos of the project manager and others involved in running the project not just names and rates. A photo helps the client see inside the company, making the relationship more personal.
It is also valid and important when talking about a case study to visually show which employee was responsible for that piece of work.
Figure: Use photos of your employees to make the document more personal An image tells a thousand words. Using screenshots and pictures can help selling your ideas and add confidence to your proposals by giving visual examples of similar projects you have done.
Figure: Add a screenshot of a related project
