5 Books to Help You Write Proposals
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Writing is a skill that requires constant work and improvement. Like any skill, sometimes you need a bit of outside help and guidance to continue to improve. There’s no better place to get help than a good book, and the resources on this list are the perfect place to get started. So if you’re ready to take your proposals to another level and curl up with a good writing book, read on!
Shipley Proposal Guide by Larry Newman
Shipley is recognized as the leading proposal process for complex proposal opportunities in the industry. This guide covers everything from how to write your sales letter to how to incorporate graphics to how to conduct color team reviews. The Shipley process is the foundation for many federal proposal teams, and it can also be applied across almost any industry. If you’re hoping to up your proposal game and follow the process used at many of the largest companies, this is the place to start.
Shipley also has books on business development and contract capture to help you at all stages of the sales process.
Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts by Tom Sant
Published in 2004, Tom Sant’s guide to proposals still has plenty of useful information that you can apply today. He covers how to better understand the customer and incorporate those insights into your proposals. Then he dives into managing your process so you can effectively create proposals without all of the headaches. The last part of the book touches on some common writing techniques and a few frequent mistakes that you should avoid.
Some of his technology references are a bit out of date since the book is decades old, but this is a great primer on writing many types of proposals and how you can improve yours.
Power Sales Writing: Using Communication to Turn Prospects Into Clients by Sue Kershkowitz-Coore
This book is focused on sales writing rather than proposals, and many of its strategies can be applied to proposals as well. While the bulk of the most recent edition is focused on sales writing over email, her points, such as being brief, choosing your words carefully, and focusing on the customer, are all important for proposals.
Power Sales Writing is a great book if you want to learn how to improve your sales writing on all fronts, not just in proposals. If you find that you’re doing a lot of selling over email, it’s a perfect place to start.
Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
Building a StoryBrand is written for marketers, but the strategies in it directly align with proposals. Within the book, Miller covers seven storytelling elements and how they should be incorporated into marketing to better engage and convert customers. These techniques are a perfect way to make your proposals more persuasive and personal for buyers. From establishing a hero to providing them a plan to the final success, these storytelling techniques will take your proposal from a routine step in the process to one that sells for you.
If you align these techniques across your marketing and sales process as well as within your proposals, your company will likely see better engaged customers. Definitely worth a read!
Writing to Persuade by Trish Hall
Written by the former editor of the New York Times Op-Ed page, this book is part biography, part writing guide. It opens with Hall’s journey to becoming an editor and provides many anecdotes from her time working with writers. Throughout the book, she shares insights into the techniques that help to persuade readers to your point of view and even goes into detail on some writing styles that will make your writing more persuasive.
While this book isn’t specific to proposals, it will give you plenty of insight into what it takes to persuade someone to your side.
