Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Benjamin Brandall
June 2, 2020
Business Processes, Checklists, Project Management, Writing
✅ Bonus material: Simple Proposal Format Template + Checklist to help you get started
ASAP!
A proposal has a lot of different purposes, but there’s only one good way to write one: the way
that pulls together all of the information in a concise and persuasive way and helps you get what
you want … whether that’s a whole new software system, or just a tweak to your marketing
strategy.
This Process Street article isn’t about a business proposal — also known as a quote — but
instead about the document required when formally pitching an idea for action and
execution by managers or department heads.
To explain how to write a proposal document and get what you want, we’ll go through the
following:
There are more templates, like this one, further down in this post, so stick around.
If it’s an idea you need to ask permission to execute, or to get action on, it needs a proposal.
They’re also a chance for you to make a structured, logical argument and lay down everything in
favor of your idea. A well-written proposal shows your manager you care about the cause, and
it’s not just a mid-meeting whim you blurted out.
To write a top proposal you need to scrutinize it before you present it. Check out this episode of
our podcast Tech Out Loud to learn Hiten Shah’s key takeaways for asking the right questions,
every time:
Tech Out Loud is the only podcast that brings you the most impactful blog posts from the biggest
names in tech, straight to your ears.
You can also listen to this podcast on other platforms. Click to see the full list! If you enjoyed
this podcast, subscribe for a new episode each week.
Examples of proposals
It’s a broad topic, but it’s best explained with examples.
Just like with any kind of persuasion, it helps if you understand how to appeal to your audience.
Who will be reading your proposal and deciding if it’s accepted or rejected? What do they care
about? What kind of language and benefits would resonate with them? This is the first step
because it’s an important thing to keep in mind as you go along and as information that informs
the way you write from here on.
What: What’s the reason for you to write the proposal in the first place? Explain the current
situation and the problems that come with it.
How: How are you going to solve the problem? Explain step-by-step in detail.
Who: Identify the personnel you need, along with their prior experience to add persuasion to the
proposal
Costs: Break down the projected costs involved for different elements of the project
Benefits: Break down the benefits to the organization, monetary and non-monetary, to persuade
the reader there’ll be a return on investment
Contact information: Where can the reader get in touch with you? Make sure to be crystal clear
to make the details easily discoverable.
Although jargon is popular in the business world, not everyone shares the equal love for it. It’s
terms like right-size, blue sky (verb), turn-key, and synergize. They might mean something to
you, or make you feel intelligent, but there are simpler alternatives that will help people
understand what you mean!
“The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (such as Our troops
defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence with passive voice (e.g. The enemy was
defeated by our troops).”.
It’s a long-winded way of expressing something that could be expressed in simple terms:
The passive voice sounds distant and even deceptive, and, since the reader might even just be
skimming your proposal, you don’t want to add extra words to cloud your point.
Install a tool like Grammarly and check the proposal in an online text editor. Grammarly will
manage to pick up on anything that is grammatically incorrect and sometimes even flags
up stylistically poor phrases. Poor spelling and grammar will only discredit the value of what
you’re saying and could be a problem that leads to your proposal being rejected.
This proposal template is a checklist that should be used alongside the proposal document you
are planning to submit. Use it to make sure that all the elements have been considered, that the
proposal contains everything it needs to and that it meets all set requirements.
Whether your business proposal is solicited or unsolicited, use this business proposal template
checklist to ensure you include all the required information in your proposal and cover key areas
such as these the problem the organization is facing, the proposed solution, the budget, and a key
CTA.
Use this template to make sure your grant proposal includes all the relevant information, that it
contains everything it needs to, and that it meets all stated RFP requirements.
Use this template to convince others that you have a worthwhile research project and that you
have the competence and the work-plan to complete it.
Use this template, alongside the proposal document you are planning to submit, to set the project
vision, define the project requirements, describe the deliverables, and specify the deadlines.
Process Street is super-powered checklists. We are a super-charged, state of the art BPM SaaS
platform which allows you to create templates and run individual checklists from these. You can
check tasks off as you work through them, set deadlines, request approvals, assign various tasks,
and work through your proposal workflows with ease.
Watch this to get an idea about who we are and what we do:
To help you customize your proposal writing template, and make your proposal wriitng easier,
you can use all these different types of Process Street features:
Stop tasks
Dynamic due dates
Task permissions
Conditional logic
Approval tasks
Embed widget
Role assignments
You can also connect your templates to thousands of apps through Zapier, webhooks, or API
access to automate your proposal processes and workflows.
If you’re unfamiliar with process automation, what it means, and the benefits it can bring to your
business, watch this Process Street webinar on automation:
Remember, if you want to get access to any of our proposal writing checklists, just click the links
above and they will be added to your Process Street account where you can use them over and
over again. Or, if you haven’t yet signed up for a Process Street account, click here and start your
free trial.
Has this guide helped you out? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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