The RFP Firm LLC

To help persuade clients, proposals should be visually appealing. Consider doing any or all of these to add graphics and splashes of color: incorporate your company logo, use colored borders on your pages, or select custom bullet points and fonts that match your business style. Because you are providing educational training, your proposal must be flawless. Carefully proofread and spell-check all the pages, and get someone who is unfamiliar with your proposal do the final proofreading pass, because it's easy to overlook mistakes in your own work. Finally, save your proposal and deliver it to your potential client. The best delivery method will depend on your business and your relationship with your potential client. Emailing PDF files to clients is a common practice; however, consider that a nicely printed, signed and hand-delivered proposal might impress the client more by showing you value that client enough to put in the extra personal effort. These days, too m...

Depending on how large the proposed scope of work is, you may or may not need to precede the detailed pages with a brief summary. For a complex project or variable scope of work that needs a summary, this summary section (often just a page or two) is normally called an Executive Summary for corporate clients, or a Client Summary for a less formal project. In the pages of this client-centered section, describe the needs of the specific prospective client and demonstrate your understanding of that client's requirements, goals, and desires. For example, you might outline how outdated their office software systems are and the need for new products and training to bring them up to date. You might point out new developments in the client's field, such as new regulations or security concerns that require educating their employees. Or you might be involved in retraining laid-off workers in a new field and discuss how the client's business can benefit from your p...