Serial entrepreneur Scott Wilson recently suggested that there should be an iPhone app for writing proposals.  If you’ve ever had to put together a written sales proposal or  slogged through an RFP (Request for Proposal) response, you understand his pain.
Writing proposals is a necessary part of the business-to-business sales process, and it can be time consuming. While there aren’t any quick-and-dirty iPhone apps that I’m aware of, there are software programs that can help companies create effective proposals by automating parts of the process.
Typically they work by allowing users to take a proposal template and populate it with information from a library of standard boilerplate material, then add custom elements to tailor the proposal to suit each customer opportunity. Â The more sophisticated programs will actually take a customer’s RFP document, break it into its component questions, and use keywords to automatically match answers in the boilerplate database.
It sounds simple, but even with these semi-automated programs, there can be drawbacks, and there is always more effort involved:
First, the proposals spit out from these software tools are only as good as the company templates and boilerplate material that got loaded in to the program’s database to begin with. It takes work at the front end to create, collect, and organize boilerplate language and set up relevant keywords. You also need to develop a document template with formatting to make it easy for the program to generate consistent and professional-looking proposals.
Second, once the template and the library of written material is set up, someone also has to take responsibility for updating it regularly as your products, company, and markets evolve. Â Any newly-written proposal material generated for one customer that could be applicable to other opportunities needs to be added into the database.
Most importantly, users need to understand that you can’t sell on boilerplate alone. Compelling proposals will include a mix of standard language (e.g., company history, product specifications) and material that speaks clearly and directly to the needs and objectives of the customer. (I’ll talk more about proposal writing best practices in later posts.)
Software programs can help provide some shortcuts, but ultimately there is no substitute for taking the time and care to write good proposal material, organize it to be easily reusable, and then customize it for each opportunity.