How to Create Great Proposal Themes Part 3: Use Discriminators to Support Your Claims
By Chris Simmons, founder and principal member of Rainmakerz Consulting
In Part 2 of this series we discussed the two primary components of winning proposal themes (features and benefits) and how they are effectively used to create compliant and compelling themes. Part 3 describes how to get the most out of your themes by providing discriminating proof for the features and benefits that truly set you apart from the competition.
Great proposal themes highlight the important and relevant elements of your solution. They are found throughout proposals—most notably in theme statements, action captions, and feature/benefit tables. Highlighting themes in high-profile locations is the most effective way to avoid the common practice of burying important ‘golden nuggets’ in proposal nooks and crannies where they are sure to be overlooked. Well placed themes make the evaluator’s job easier by providing clear and compelling reasons to select your company and eliminate the need to read the proposal from cover to cover (most evaluators don’t do this anyway).
Use discriminators to substantiate your claims
Although theme development and placement is an important first step, most proposal teams fail to develop compelling themes with sufficient discriminating proof points to support their claims. This typically happens for a number of reasons:
- Many writers don’t know enough about the sections and topics they are assigned;
- The solutions haven’t evolved sufficiently to identify the discriminators and proof, or;
- The team relies too heavily on generic boilerplate previously used for other customer requirements and solutions.
The predictable result is a proposal draft filled with fluff and unsubstantiated claims. These are two of the most frequent deficiencies found in proposal reviews and can render proposal themes virtually useless.
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