Million Dollar Consulting Proposals How to Write a Proposal That's Accepted Every Time

Introduction.

Acknowledgments.

Dedication.

Chapter 1 Business Vows.

What is a proposal and why is it necessary?

What they can do and what they can't do.

Their place in your business model.

Why you don't provide proposals for just anyone.

The role of conceptual agreement.

The concept of value (not time and materials).

Chapter 2 Five Steps Toward Great Leaps.

How to prepare yourself and the client.

Determining the economic buyer.

Developing trusting relationships.

Establishing outcome-based business objectives.

Establishing metrics for progress and success.

Establishing value and impact.

Chapter 3 Avoiding Gatekeepers, Intermediaries, and Goblins.

Accepting rejection and rejecting acceptance.

Utilizing mutual, enlightened self-interest.

Using guile and other forms of art.

Using explosives.

Avoiding delegation.

Ensuring support.

Chapter 4 The Architecture of Successful Proposals.

The Million Dollar Consulting® Proposal Structure.

The nine key components.

Chapter 5 One Dozen Golden Rules for Presenting Proposals.

Steak and sizzle are hard to beat.

Speed and responsiveness.

Accurate recreations.

Counterintuitive: no pitch or promotion.

To be or not to be (in person).

Definitive dates and times.

Chapter 6 Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Who Wait.

Moving mountains.

How and when to follow up.

What to anticipate and how to cope.

Overcoming last-minute objections.

Overcoming legitimate obstacles.

Creating a signature (or something else).

Chapter 7 First, Let's Kill All the Lawyers.

Shakespeare really meant that we needed them.

Dealing with the legal department.

How to avoid the legal department.

Utilizing your own attorney.

Effective and ineffective compromise.

The golden handshake.

Chapter 8 The Dreaded RFP (Request for Proposals).

Why fill out the truly boring in triplicate?

The beauties of being a sole-source provider.

How to massage RFPs so that they look like you.

How to offer additional value.

How to use public meetings for leverage.

When to run for the hills.

Chapter 9 Retainers Are To Projects As Montrechet Is To Thunderbird.

The wonder of access to your smarts.

The three variables of a retainer.

The need to control scope creep and scope seep.

How to assertively pursue renewals.

How to stimulate more retainers.

Chapter 10 In the Unlikely Event You Need Oxygen.

We don't anticipate a crash, but there are some things you ought to know.

What to do with requests for delays based on time and money.

What to do if rejected.

How to improve your proposals constantly.

How to maximize your successes and fees.

When to stop writing proposals.

Alan Weiss, PhD, is a consultant, speaker, and bestselling author. He has the strongest independent consulting brand in the world and his firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, and more than 500 other leading organizations. His prolific publishing career includes forty-five books, some of which have been on university curricula and translated into nine languages. The New York Post calls him "one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America."