Proposals and Awards

A proposal and an award entry are both pieces of writing that have to work without you in the room.

Proposals

Whoever reads a proposal has usually never met the firm, and is reading several in a row.

Not all of them are for new work. A partner rings me because the firm has acted for a client for years, the client’s structure has changed, and the work now has to be competed for. They will very likely keep it. The submission still has to stand up, because people who have never met them are part of the decision now.

That is a different job from bidding cold. The relationship helps and it cannot do the arguing. Everything the firm has earned over years of good service has to appear on paper, in a form a stranger can assess.

The usual instinct is to take the last one, rewrite the opening and check the pricing. Parts of an old proposal are worth keeping, often a great many of them. The argument is the part that cannot carry over. That has to be built for this prospect, for what they have actually asked, and for the people who will read it.

I write these from scratch. Firms usually come to me saying they do not know where to start with it.

When it goes to formal tender

A tender is the same job with more rules attached. Set questions, word counts, scoring, a portal and a date that does not move.

Public bodies and state agencies work this way, and plenty of large corporates do too. The writing still has to persuade a person, inside a structure that was not designed to let you.

Awards

The award is not really about the night. A shortlisting is something you can tell clients about, and so is the photograph. Then the announcement, the coverage, and the note to clients afterwards.

It gives a firm a legitimate reason to share good news about itself, which is otherwise hard to do without it sounding like boasting. For a client, it is a quiet reminder that they are with the right firm.

That also answers the question of whether entering is worth it. The run of communications happens either way.

Some awards shortlist widely. Others are genuinely competitive, and partners know which is which. Part of the job is choosing the ones where being on the list means something.

For firms I work with regularly, proposals and awards are part of the Marketing Leadership relationship rather than separate pieces of work.

Awards for the firm, and awards for a person

Some entries are for the firm. Some are for an individual, which is a different kind of writing and often the harder one.

A partner’s own award raises profile in a way a firm award cannot, and it travels with her.

I write entries for the Irish Accountancy Awards, the Irish Law Awards, the IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year Awards and others, and have done so for years. Some have won. Some have been shortlisted in categories where the shortlist was the achievement.

If you have one coming up

Proposals and award entries both live or die on the deadline. Send me the brief and the date, and I will tell you whether it is worth doing and what I would do with it.