persuasive business proposals: writing to win more customers, clients, and contracts

Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts
by�Tom Sant�	ISBN:0814471536
AMACOM � 2004 (248 pages)
This resource provides tools for maximizing the clarity of your writing, editing your proposal for optimal impact, and avoiding the six traps that can undermine even the strongest proposals.

Table of Contents
	Persuasive Business Proposals—Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts
	Preface
	Section 1 - Why You Need this Book
	Chapter 1	-	The Challenges You Face
	Chapter 2	-	A Good Proposal is Hard to Find
	Section 2 - A Primer on Persuasion
	Chapter 3	-	Why the Inuit Hunt Whales and Other Secrets of Customer Behavior
	Chapter 4	-	The Structure of Persuasion
	Chapter 5	-	Developing a Client-Centered Message Every Time You Write
	Chapter 6	-	Understanding the Customer: The Cicero Principle
	Chapter 7	-	Establishing Your Credibility
	Section 3 - How to Manage the Process and Keep Your Sanity
	Chapter 8	-	An Overview of the Proposal Development Process
	Chapter 9	-	Writing From the Right Brain: Getting Your Ideas Organized
	Chapter 10	-	Presenting a Winning Value Proposition
	Chapter 11	-	The Structure of the Letter Proposal
	Chapter 12	-	The Structure of the Formal Proposal
	Chapter 13	-	Writing Research Proposals and Proposals for Grants
	Chapter 14	-	What to do after You Submit
	Chapter 15	-	Writing in the Midst of a Storm: How to Deal with Bad News and Negative Publicity
	Chapter 16	-	Creating a Proposal Center of Excellence
	Chapter 17	-	Proposal Metrics: How to Measure Your Success
	Section 4 - Writing to Win
	Chapter 18	-	Give the Reader a KISS!
	Chapter 19	-	Word Choice: Six Traps to Avoid
	Chapter 20	-	Sentence Structure: Maximizing Your Clarity
	Chapter 21	-	Editing Your Proposal
	Index
	List of Figures
	List of Sample Proposals
	List of Sidebars

Back Cover

With over 40,000 copies sold, the first edition of Persuasive Business Proposals helped many readers construct dynamic, effective proposals. Now in paperback, this fully-revised second edition still gives readers simple, effective techniques for organizing, writing, and delivering proposals while updating the author’s winning strategies for today’s global business environment.

By cutting through the confusion, and providing dozens of real-world examples, this updated version provides step-by-step instructions for crafting value-centered, recipient-specific proposal packages, with all-new discussions on:

How to increase business using new communication channels from e-mail and electronic submissions to PDF, HTML, and others
The Seven Worst Proposal Mistakes illustrated with real-world examples

This is an essential book for anyone seeking to win contracts and sell projects.

About the Author

Tom Sant is a world-renowned proposal consultant whose clients range from small entrepreneurial operations to Global 500 companies including General Electric, Microsoft, Lucent, and Accenture. He is the creator of the world’s most widely used proposal automation systems: ProposalMaster and RFPMaster.

Persuasive Business Proposals—Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts

Tom Sant

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sant, Tom.
       Persuasive business proposals : writing to win more customers,
  clients, and contracts / Tom Sant.
          p.  cm.
     Includes index.

ISBN 0-8144-7153-6

1. Proposal writing in business. 2. Persuasion (Rhetoric) I. Title.

HF5718.5.S26 2004

658.15224—dc22

2003018709

Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in whole or in part,
in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of AMACOM,
a division of American Management Association,
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Persuasive Business Proposals—Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts