How to Respond to Commercial RFPs™ is an online, open enrollment proposal training seminar--an online webinar--that teaches students how to respond to RFPs so their proposals are persuasive, compelling, and differentiate their solution from competing solutions.

• Location. This is an online proposal training webinar. An onsite program is also available. 
• Scope. Focus is on responding to RFPs issued by commercial organizations or by state and local governments. This webinar does not deal with federal procurements.
• Duration. The online webinar is approximately six to seven hours depending on student involvement and interaction.
• Fee. The fee for this course is $279 per attendee.
• What's included. Each student receives a comprehensive workbook, in Adobe Acrobat, that includes all the relevant slides presented in the seminar, in-depth explanations, and examples.

Proposal Training Seminar Overview

The primary objective of the seminar is to teach students how to structure and write proposals so they are persuasive, compelling, and differentiate your solution from competing solutions. Listed here are some of the major topics that are discussed.

• Measuring RFP Program Effectiveness. Explores how to evaluate the effectiveness of your RFP response effort, both from quantitative (success ratios) and qualitative (analysis) perspectives.

• Understanding persuasion. Writing a proposal is not a writing project, it is a sales process, and it needs to be treated like one. Therefore, the proposals we write must be persuasive and compelling. This part of the class teaches students how to write persuasively.

• The pre-RFP sales effort. Explores the important steps you have to take long before the RFP is ever issued.

• Analyzing RFPs. Do you understand what the customer is looking for? Really? This section teaches students how to analyze an RFP to more fully understand what the customer is looking for.

• Developing a response strategy and message. Most people sit down and start writing long before they ever take the time to figure out their strategy and message. It is important to figure out what you want to say before you start saying it. This section shows you how. 

• Writing your proposal. Explores how to write the various sections of your proposal, from the cover letter and executive introduction to answering questions and submitting references.

• Post RFP interview. Discusses how to follow up each procurement with a comprehensive interview aimed at learning what the customer thinks of your proposal.
• Drafting a presentation. Once you make it to the short list, is your presentation consistent with your proposal? We show you how.

If you would like to be notified when future classes are scheduled, please click here.

If you would like to speak with someone about this class, please call us at 513-598-4647.