Benefits are oriented around your customer and explain the value of your program, services, or solution.  They answer the big question:  so what?

Too many proposals are strong on features and weak on benefits.  You must put your benefits front and center in your narrative or else reviewers will not understand the value of what you propose to do.  As Gregory W. Pease, a Managing Partner of Tenzing Consulting, points out, there are techniques you can use in proposal development to make your proposals strong on the benefits side.

Here are four techniques that Pease recommends.

Train and communicate benefits

Most proposal efforts begin with a kick-off meeting and a training/orientation session for team members.  Provide training that does the following:

• Helps team members differentiate between features and benefits.
• Identifies major benefits.
• Helps team members identify additional benefits.
• Provides examples about how you would incorporate benefits into your narrative.

Design benefits into the first draft

Too many proposal efforts begin and end with features.  Identify your benefits at the beginning of the development process and help the team incorporate them into the proposal narrative.  Use your color reviews to add benefits to the narrative.  As you develop your proposal, benefits should become more prominent in your prose.  If they do not, your proposal is not likely to be competitive.

Start with benefits

Answer the So What? question early.  The Executive Summary should emphasize your benefits.  Proposal sections should include the benefit or benefits in the first paragraph.  Use the benefits to organize your prose.

Assign someone to plug the benefits

Too many proposal teams get enveloped in the details and lose sight of the importance of benefits.  On your team, assign someone to help the team incorporate benefits into the proposal.  They should keep incessantly asking two questions: (1) so what?; and (2) how will this benefit the customer?

Think about benefits early and often and incorporate them into your proposal from the kick-off meeting onward.  The result will be a customer-oriented and more competitive proposal.

Benefits are oriented around your customer and explain the value of your program, or services.  They answer the big question:  so what?

Too many grant proposals are strong on features and weak on benefits.  You must put your benefits front and center in your narrative or else reviewers will not understand the value of what you propose to do.  As Gregory W. Pease, a Managing Partner of Tenzing Consulting, points out, there are techniques you can use in proposal development to make your proposals strong on the benefits side.  Although his recommendations are directed at companies, they apply to nonprofit organizations too.

Here are four techniques that Pease recommends.

Train and communicate benefits

Most grant proposal efforts begin with a kick-off meeting and a training/orientation session for team members.  Provide training that does the following:

• Helps team members differentiate between features and benefits.
• Identifies major benefits.
• Helps team members identify additional benefits.
• Provides examples about how you would incorporate benefits into your narrative.

Design benefits into the first draft

Too many grant proposal efforts begin and end with features.  Identify your benefits at the beginning of the development process and help the team incorporate them into the proposal narrative.  Use your reviews to add benefits to the narrative.  As you develop your proposal, benefits should become more prominent in your prose.  If they do not, your proposal is not likely to be competitive.

Start with benefits

Answer the So What? question early.  The Executive Summary or Introduction should emphasize your benefits.  Proposal sections should include the benefit or benefits in the first paragraph.  Use the benefits to organize your prose.

Assign someone to plug the benefits

Too many proposal teams get enveloped in the details and lose sight of the importance of benefits.  On your team, assign someone to help the team incorporate benefits into the proposal.  They should keep incessantly asking two questions: (1) so what?; and (2) how will this benefit the funder?

Think about benefits early and often and incorporate them into your proposal from the kick-off meeting onward.  The result will be a customer-oriented and more competitive proposal.

Organize and Orient at the Beginning

To get the proposal effort off to a good start, Proposal Managers should do this first:

• Establish a schedule.
• Develop an official template.
• Develop a compliance matrix.
• Develop a detailed outline or storyboard for your proposal.
• Distribute a writing and collaboration guide that sets standards and ground rules.
• Orient team members to these documents.

Providing a solid framework for team members will promote trust and a common understanding while it builds the cohesiveness of the team.

Use Clear Communication

Practicing effective communication is very important, especially because many proposals are virtual efforts with team members scattered across the country or the world.  To foster good communication, the Proposal Manager should:

• Hold frequent meetings, by phone or face-to-face, to review proposal progress.
• Update the calendar.
• Use frequent e-mails and telephone calls with team members.
• Hold one-on-one sessions to address and resolve problems.
• Provide an updated contact list so everyone can communicate efficiently with each other.

Build a Team

Everyone on the proposal, no matter what their responsibilities, is part of the team.  Involve everyone in discussions and make your expectations clear.  There always will be a few reluctant members of any team.  Find ways to use their time efficiently and get the most out of them.

Respect and Trust your Team

As the Proposal Manager, act respectfully toward your team and treat them like adults and professionals.  If some underperform, help them complete their tasks well.  Pick someone on the team to be your personal sounding board so that you can double-check your decisions.  Creating a comfortable and supportive proposal environment may be one of the Proposal Manager’s most important and underrated tasks.

A Proposal Manager has many responsibilities.  However, if you can do these four things well, your proposal effort is likely to be successful.

Organize and Orient at the Beginning

To get the proposal effort off to a good start, Proposal Managers should do this first:

• Establish a schedule.
• Develop an official template.
• Develop a compliance matrix.
• Develop a detailed outline or storyboard for your grant proposal.
• Distribute a writing and collaboration guide that sets standards and ground rules.
• Orient team members to these documents.

Providing a solid framework for team members will promote trust and a common understanding while it builds the cohesiveness of the team.

Use Clear Communication

Practicing effective communication is very important, especially because many grant proposals are virtual efforts with team members scattered across the country.  To foster good communication, the Proposal Manager should:

• Hold frequent meetings, by phone or face-to-face, to review proposal progress.
• Update the calendar.
• Use frequent e-mails and telephone calls with team members.
• Hold one-on-one sessions to address and resolve problems.
• Provide an updated contact list so everyone can communicate efficiently with each other.

Build a Team

Everyone on the grant proposal, no matter what their responsibilities, is part of the team.  Involve everyone in discussions and make your expectations clear.  There always will be a few reluctant members of any team.  Find ways to use their time efficiently and get the most out of them.

Respect and Trust your Team

As the Proposal Manager, act respectfully toward your team and treat them like adults and professionals.  If some underperform, help them complete their tasks well.  Pick someone on the team to be your personal sounding board so that you can double-check your decisions.  Creating a comfortable and supportive proposal environment may be one of the Proposal Manager’s most important and underrated tasks.

A Proposal Manager has many responsibilities.  However, if you can do these four things well, your grant proposal effort is likely to be successful.

This is odd because the people who put proposals together are often highly intelligent.  Perhaps because they are so focused on the content, they ignore the obvious need to make their proposals readable. 

We know a great deal about what makes proposals visually appealing.  There are ways to avoid giant blocks of plain text without a great deal of effort.  Bryant Freeland has some simple, practical suggestions that we can all follow to visually help separate our proposals from the others:

• Every page should have a graphic, table, or color to get the reader’s attention.  A good page template with your company logo and headers and footers can help make each page more inviting. Even text-oriented readers need visual cues.  Good graphics, tables, and color increase interest and understanding, especially when they are well-integrated with the text.
• Create heading styles that easily show sections and subsections.  Chucks of text should be broken down into manageable sizes for readers.
• Use page breaks and binder tabs to show where sections begin and end.
• Use different font sizes, bold text, and color to highlight important points.
• Use plenty of indented bulleted and numbered lists to display information and emphasize major points.

These are simple tips, but they will make a big different in how your proposal appeals to evaluators.

As Colleen Jolly of the 24 Hour Company points out, keep in mind that color in your proposal must be carefully coordinated.  Colors can be placed on a color wheel, a circle divided into 12 equal parts showing the interrelationship among colors.  Primary colors are blue, red, and yellow.  Violet, orange, and green are secondary colors because they derive from the mixture of primary colors.  Tertiary colors such as orange are a blend of secondary colors with primary colors.

Use complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel) – such as yellow and violet – to create graphics that stand out.  But overusing complimentary colors can be visually jarring over too many pages, so use them with care.

However, do not value style of substance.  Good proposals, regardless of how they look, must demonstrate an understanding of the client’s problem, emphasize features and benefits, and present a superior solution to the problem identified in the Request for Proposal (RFP). 

If you can do this and make your proposal visually appealing, you are likely to have a highly competitive application.

This is odd because the people who put grant proposals together are often highly intelligent.  Perhaps because they are so focused on the content, they ignore the obvious need to make their proposals readable. 

We know a great deal about what makes proposals visually appealing.  There are ways to avoid giant blocks of plain text without a great deal of effort.  Bryant Freeland has some simple, practical suggestions that we can all follow to visually help separate our proposals from the others:

• Every page should have a graphic, table, or color to get the reader’s attention.  A good page template with your organization’s logo and headers and footers can help make each page more inviting. Even text-oriented readers need visual cues.  Good graphics, tables, and color increase interest and understanding, especially when they are well-integrated with the text
• Create heading styles that easily show sections and subsections.  Chucks of text should be broken down into manageable sizes for readers.
• Use page breaks and binder tabs to show where sections begin and end.
• Use different font sizes, bold text, and color to highlight important points.
• Use plenty of indented bulleted and numbered lists to display information and emphasize major points.

These are simple tips, but they will make a big different in how your grant proposal appeals to evaluators.

As Colleen Jolly of the 24 Hour Company points out, keep in mind that color in your proposal must be carefully coordinated.  Colors can be placed on a color wheel, a circle divided into 12 equal parts showing the interrelationship among colors.  Primary colors are blue, red, and yellow. 

Violet, orange, and green are secondary colors because they derive from the mixture of primary colors.  Tertiary colors such as orange are a blend of secondary colors with primary colors.

Use complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel) – such as yellow and violet – to create graphics that stand out.  But overusing complimentary colors can be visually jarring over too many pages, so use them with care.

However, do not value style of substance.  Good grant proposals, regardless of how they look, must demonstrate an understanding of the funder’s problem, emphasize features and benefits, and present a superior solution to the problem identified in the grant guidelines. 

If you can do this and make your grant proposal visually appealing, you are likely to have a highly competitive application.

 I will list some favorites along with summaries of the author’s frequently humorous reasons for avoiding them.  There are good reasons not to use clichés if you want to convince evaluators that you are best qualified to execute the contract.

Best of breed

If you are not selling puppies, why claim that you solution is the “best of breed?” The phrase comes from the world of show dogs.

Across the globe

Because the globe is round (unless you are a flat-earther), you go around rather than across it.  Perhaps “worldwide” is a better word to use.

Utilize

Sports announcers frequently use the word “utilize.”  This is a compelling reason to drop it.

Well-seasoned

Managers who are “well-seasoned” probably have been consuming too much pepper and nutmeg.

Hit the ground running

Are you training for the Olympics or trying to get a contract?

Leverage, world class, uniquely qualified

These are the kinds of words you write an hour before the deadline.  Quite simply, they are meaningless.

These words and phrases, which could be multiplied forever, are examples of verbosity, a lack of precision, and the inability to discuss topics of substance.  When you write a proposal, you should studiously avoid imprecise language that makes you appear unfocused and inept.  These are the kinds of words that companies frequently use to cover up problems, difficulties, or a lack of qualifications.

Instead, follow these simple rules to avoid using deadening clichés in your proposal prose:

• Be concise.
• Write in the active voice.
• Focus on the customer, not your company.
• When you make claims, prove them.
• When you edit, your prose should shrink as you eliminate unnecessary words and phrases that detract from your argument.

 I will list some favorites along with summaries of the author’s frequently humorous reasons for avoiding them.  There are good reasons not to use clichés if you want to convince evaluators that your organization is best qualified to execute the contract.

Best of breed

If you are not selling puppies, why claim that you solution is the “best of breed?” The phrase comes from the world of show dogs.

Across the globe

Because the globe is round (unless you are a flat-earther), you go around rather than across it.  Perhaps “worldwide” is a better word to use.

Utilize

Sports announcers frequently use the word “utilize.”  This is a compelling reason to drop it.

Well-seasoned

Managers who are “well-seasoned” probably have been consuming too much pepper and nutmeg.

Hit the ground running

Are you training for the Olympics or trying to get a contract?

Leverage, world class, uniquely qualified

These are the kinds of words you write an hour before the deadline.  Quite simply, they are meaningless.

These words and phrases, which could be multiplied forever, are examples of verbosity, a lack of precision, and the inability to discuss topics of substance.  When you write a grant proposal, you should studiously avoid imprecise language that makes you appear unfocused and inept.  These are the kinds of words that organizations frequently use to cover up problems, difficulties, or a lack of qualifications.

Instead, follow these simple rules to avoid using deadening clichés in your grant proposal prose:

• Be concise.
• Write in the active voice.
• Focus on the customer, not your organization.
• When you make claims, prove them.
• When you edit, your prose should shrink as you eliminate unnecessary words and phrases that detract from your argument.

We always are listing the positive steps that Proposal Managers should take to succeed.  Now let us turn these kinds of lists inside out and discuss what five bad habits lead to failure, with a nod to Dr. Finkelstein and my own observations and experience in the field.

Bad Habit #1:  They identify so completely with their work that there is no clear boundary between their personal lives and their jobs.

Of course we want Proposal Managers who are deeply committed to their companies, but we do not need them to treat their employers as extensions of themselves.  Despite the relentless demands of proposal development, Proposal Managers need to carve out personal time for themselves and their families to remain fresh and effective.

Bad Habit #2:  They think they have all the answers.

We admire leaders who make dozens of quick decisions each day.  But Proposal Managers who address serious problems rapidly often do not consider other points of view except their own.  Despite the relentless demand to make fast decisions, Proposal Managers need to frequently consult with others.  This takes time and going outside yourself.

Bad Habit #3:  They ignore people who disagree with them.

As William Blake said, without contraries there is no progression.  If a Proposal Manager cannot learn to consider the perspectives and advice of others, he or she is likely to create a very stifling atmosphere and unproductive work environment.

Bad Habit #4:  They underestimate obstacles.

Proposal Managers, like everyone else, often underestimate the obstacles in front of them.  A more successful approach might involve re-evaluating a course of action or a decision.  Proposal Managers should create an environment where expectations are realistic and where actions can be modified or reversed.

Bad Habit #5:  They stubbornly refer to and rely on what worked in the past.

Proposal Managers sometimes are the victims of past successes.  No business model is static.  Good Proposal Managers have a dynamic view of the work environment and are ready to consider a range of options that fit the new circumstances. 

Proposal Managers and their colleagues should take these five bad habits as early warning signs of impending failure.  If you exhibit any of these traits, now would be a good time to start eliminating them from your management skills.

We always are listing the positive steps that grant Proposal Managers should take to succeed.  Now let us turn these kinds of lists inside out and discuss what five bad habits lead to failure, with a nod to Dr. Finkelstein and my own observations and experience in the field.

Bad Habit #1:  They identify so completely with their work that there is no clear boundary between their personal lives and their jobs.

Of course we want grant Proposal Managers who are deeply committed to their companies, but we do not need them to treat their organizations as extensions of themselves.  Despite the relentless demands of proposal development, Proposal Managers need to carve out personal time for themselves and their families to remain fresh and effective.

Bad Habit #2:  They think they have all the answers.

We admire leaders who make dozens of quick decisions each day.  But grant Proposal Managers who address serious problems rapidly often do not consider other points of view except their own.  Despite the relentless demand to make fast decisions, Proposal Managers need to frequently consult with others.  This takes time and going outside yourself.

Bad Habit #3:  They ignore people who disagree with them.

As William Blake said, without contraries there is no progression.  If a grant Proposal Manager cannot learn to consider the perspectives and advice of others, he or she is likely to create a very stifling atmosphere and unproductive work environment.

Bad Habit #4:  They underestimate obstacles.

Proposal Managers, like everyone else, often underestimate the obstacles in front of them.  A more successful approach might involve re-evaluating a course of action or a decision.  Grant Proposal Managers should create an environment where expectations are realistic and where actions can be modified or reversed.

Bad Habit #5:  They stubbornly refer to and rely on what worked in the past.

Grant Proposal Managers sometimes are the victims of past successes.  No organizational model is static.  Good Proposal Managers have a dynamic view of the work environment and are ready to consider a range of options that fit the new circumstances. 

Grant Proposal Managers and their colleagues should take these five bad habits as early warning signs of impending failure.  If you exhibit any of these traits, now would be a good time to start eliminating them from your management skills.