In some ways, developing a good proposal is the most important part of the sales process, especially for cross-media publishing solutions that involve several client departments. Unlike conventional print estimates, the cross-media proposal will often be read by audiences and decision makers who you are not aware will be reading it. The following theoretical example is a good rule of thumb to determine if you have a good proposal or not:

You are competing for a three-year contract that is worth $5 million a year. You have been invited to the corporate headquarters in New York City and are allowed one hour to outline your proposal. As you are sitting in the meeting room with the slides ready and all your thoughts in order, the CEO’s assistant comes in and states that she is sorry but the CEO has been called away to Antarctica for a very important meeting, and he will make his decisions based solely on the written proposals.

The question you should ask yourself is this: Does my proposal do as good a job as I would in personally explaining the features, benefits, and outline of our proposed solution? If the answer is no, fix the proposal. If the answer is yes, stop writing.