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Proposal Writing - Identify Your Competitor's Main Weakness

Winning government contracts such as bidding on Request For Proposals, reminds me of when I played sports in college.

In addition to the effort you put in during training, the more you studied your competitors, the greater the likelihood you’d out-wit them on the playing field. Let’s see if you can apply this to the area of grant applications and submitting business proposals.

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Proposal Development - Identify Your Competitors Strengths

Stage one is to make a list of where your Competitor is strongest, for example:

  • Track record

  • Awards

  • Endorsements

  • Incumbent

  • Patent technologies

  • Influence

  • Size

  • Partnerships

I use a set of Microsoft Excel templates to do track these. Then I use them to build a SWOT analysis starting with the strengths and moving into the weaknesses.

Proposal Development - Identify Your Competitors Weaknesses

One way to start this process is to:

Identify each strength, for example size and see:

Where this can be flipped around so that it becomes a disadvantage.

For example, size can imply inflexibility and red-tape. You can highlight your nimble work force and the speed of response.

You can then work through all of the strengths and write your bid so that:

Each ‘strength’ is identified - but the risks are flagged next to it.
You then show how you would resolve these and build trust in the proposal assessor’s mind.

Each ‘strength’ is identified - but the issues are discussed next to it.
You then show how issues may arise if the grant provider chooses a larger firm and why selecting your firm may be a safer option.
 

Proposal Manager Toolkit - Clarifications

Conclusion

The key point here is that you need to reduce whatever anxiety the agency has with your firm. Go through each objection they may have and show how you are a safer bet and are more likely to deliver the goods, ahead of schedule.

When I assess bids for government agencies one ‘unknown’ that we factor in is how comfortable our team (the gov agency) will be working with you (the bidder).

If we get the nice warm feeling that you understand our problem, then we’re on your side.

And, if you help us see where we could go wrong with other clients, then that helps us reduce the number of applicants.

Write to reduce the assessor’s anxiety. Once you tailor your material in this way, your success rate will increase dramatically.



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