The need for good proposals - the business kind, not the marriage kind - struck me again a couple of days ago, when I received a poor proposal. I had talked on the phone with a sales rep, and then she followed up with a proposal.

You know what? Her proposal was even worse than her live sales pitch. It was a completely canned message, which wasted her time and mine. With that, some thoughts on creating effective proposals.

Let's start by dividing them into two categories: commodities proposals and differentiated (or value-added) proposals.

If you sell commodities, your proposals will be relatively straightforward, as you compete on issues like price, delivery, and product characteristics. The buyer makes a relatively objective decision, and all other things being equal, he takes the best offer.

That likely makes clarity your best proposal writing strategy. For example, if you have a significant advantage in one area, you might create a matrix showing the information in a table format for easy comparison.

Turning our attention to proposals for differentiated or value-added products, we immediately notice an important distinction. There are no easy comparisons among vendors, as there are with commodity sellers.

The buyer has to compare intangibles, which means subjective judgments. He can't compare one marketing consultant with another, for example, unless he hires both, which he's unlikely to do.

Since we're dealing with subjective judgments, it's good to ask, "What goes on in the minds of buyers?" Solving a problem or exploiting an opportunity probably tops the list for most buyers. While the solution may not be immediately obvious,

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