iPad Estimates and Proposal Writing using Proposal Kit

Would you like a more lightweight, faster booting and portable proposal and estimate writing solution? Leave behind the bulky laptop computer – the iPad now has word processing and spreadsheet apps that turn the iPad into an effective business tool.

This article will show you how to use your iPad with Proposal Kit products to efficiently create your job estimates and write your client proposals and immediately deliver them as PDF documents while out in the field.

As a free bonus, we are including copies of the customized spreadsheets and editable proposal documents created for this article with the purchase of any Proposal Pack or Proposal Kit Professional. (all 18 proposal and spreadsheet files in Word, Excel, Pages and Numbers formats)

Often the key to closing the deal and landing a new client is the ability to immediately finalize all the details while the lead is hot and there is no time to waste.

Get Proposal Kit / Proposal Pack on your PC or Mac

The iPad does not stand alone in your proposal and estimate writing system. You still need an office computer where you will perform your heavy editing and store your proposal archives.

First, you want to get your Proposal Pack or Proposal Kit Professional documents installed on your office Windows or Mac computer. This step is as simple as placing an order for one of the products, then downloading and installing it on your computer.

Now you have all of your starting documents on your office computer, ready to assemble, edit and prepare for your iPad.

You might ask, "Why don't you just have an iPad proposal and estimate app?" There are a handful of "job estimate apps" out there, but they are not proposal writing applications. A simple job estimate with a bottom line price is not really a proposal. A business proposal includes elements such as a cover letter, sections that show your clients that you understand their problems, sections that describe your proposed solutions (your services, products, project, etc.), and include your recommendations and a call to action. There are no iPad apps that can do this, and you really do not need a dedicated app. All you need is a word processor and spreadsheet – which already exist on the iPad.

Assemble and edit your documents and get them ready for your iPad

Now that you have your proposal documents and estimate spreadsheets on your computer, it's time to edit them and get them ready for your iPad. While the iPad has word processing and spreadsheet capabilities, it is still a fairly basic office software platform. For the initial setup of your proposal and estimate spreadsheet, it's more efficient to do your major editing on your Windows or Mac computer. This also ensures all your original work is archived.

The number of potential types of proposals that can be written using Proposal Packs is unlimited. And there is no limitation on the types of proposals or business sectors that can benefit from this platform. For practical purposes, the people who will see the most benefit are those who need to assemble one or more master proposal templates that will be used to quickly and efficiently create multiple client proposals in the field. If you are creating a one-off complex proposal such as a government grant or detailed business plan funding proposal, you might be better off doing your work on your primary PC or Mac computer.

The first step in getting your proposal ready for the iPad is to assemble your master proposal. This is done using Proposal Packs and the optional Proposal Pack Wizard software to select and assemble a collection of templates that cover all the topics you need to discuss in your proposals. This collection will be different for everyone; this is one of the reasons the Proposal Packs include so much material. Most everyone will follow a similar high level structure, such as starting with a cover letter and title page, then, for a more personal touch, adding some topics that specifically talk about the potential client's needs and your understanding of them, and then adding some topics that describe your products or services and prices, then finishing with credentials, recommendations and a call to action. The Proposal Packs include templates for hundreds of topics that will cover everything you will need to say to your prospective client.

Our examples use three different industries that are turning more and more to the iPad as it can be used in the field not only to create estimates and proposals, but also to showcase work to clients via photo slideshows and video presentations.

We include the editable versions (the 18 cutomized PC/Mac and iPad documents) of the following three samples created for this article as a free bonus in every Proposal Pack or Proposal Kit Professional.

For Event Planners (parties, corporate events, weddings, catering, etc.):

Our first example is for an event planning company using Proposal Pack Events #2. The event planner example uses a proposal assembled from these Proposal Pack templates: Cover Letter, Title Page, Services Provided, Samples, Services Cost Summary and Company History. We will also create a custom estimate spreadsheet using Proposal Pack's Services Cost Summary Calculator spreadsheet.

For Real Estate (home sales, general contractors, painters, lawn care, etc.):

Our second example is for a general contractor using Proposal Pack Construction #3. The contractor example uses a proposal assembled from these Proposal Pack templates: Cover Letter, Title Page, Table of Contents, Cost Summary, Production Schedule, Permits and Licenses and Testimonials. We will also create a custom estimate spreadsheet using Proposal Pack's Services Cost Summary Calculator spreadsheet.

For IT Companies (networking, software, web design, telecom, hardware, etc.):

Our third example is for a networking company using Proposal Pack Networks #2. The networking example uses a proposal assembled from these Proposal Pack templates: Cover Letter, Title Page, Table of Contents, Client Summary, Estimate, Installation Schedule, Permits and Licenses, Qualifications, References and Contract and Terms. We will also create a custom estimate spreadsheet using Proposal Pack's Estimate Calculator spreadsheet.

For illustration purposes, we will use the same methods for all three industries to show that the only differences are in the actual content of the text you will write. The apps, templates, spreadsheets and techniques will work across all business sectors and business specialties.

On our PC or Mac, we open our ServicesCostSummaryCalculator.xls spreadsheet. The stock spreadsheet is general purpose and has fill-in-the-blank cells for any business. For each example, we create a version of the services calculator with line items, prices and taxes for the various services (or products) we have available. (Note that there are many different calculator spreadsheets in Proposal Pack; this is only one of them.)

The stock estimate spreadsheet is great for creating your financial estimates and price quotes, but it's not in a visually pretty format that you would want to put as-is into your proposal. Generally speaking, in proposals you want to include only the major highlights and totals, not all the fine details of your calculations. Because the iPad spreadsheet and word processor apps are not integrated (as of the time of this writing), you need to set up the iPad versions of the spreadsheets in a way that makes it fast and efficient to paste a visually appealing version of your calculations into your proposal.

The stock spreadsheets have been modified for iPad use by creating a second version of the estimate that includes only the details in the way we want them visually formatted and displayed to the client. The calculations are still only done once and both the standard spreadsheet and the custom version for pasting into our proposals are updated simultaneously. You will see how this works when you open the actual spreadsheets for these examples. If you look at the screenshot above you can see the more visually appealing version in blue. This is the section that will be copied and pasted right into the proposal after the calculations in the top are completed.

Next, you create your master proposals that will be reused for multiple clients on the iPad. The same process is used to create master proposals on the iPad as is used to create proposals on the PC or Mac, so you get the benefit of being able to create client proposals on all your computers.

For your master proposals, you select your proposal templates (as outlined in the examples above) and fill in all the details that will stay the same (or mostly the same) across all your client proposals. Leave in tags to be replaced later with client specific information. We used our standard Proposal Pack convention of putting anything that needs to be replaced in bracketed tags << something to replace here >>. This would include client contact information, client company names, and details about each specific client's projects and needs. Some templates will have no tags and will stay the same for every proposal (such as the Company History and other templates that describe your company). Some templates will require more custom edits for each client proposal (such as the Cover Letter and Cost Summaries and Estimates). For our master proposal, we removed the table for the product/service/estimate costs. This will be replaced by pasting in the table directly from the iPad's Numbers spreadsheet app.

After you have assembled and filled out the selected templates, added your custom logos and added your tags to make it easy to locate items to be replaced on each proposal, you are ready to move your documents onto your iPad. Note that the iPad Pages word processor app can open Word files and the iPad Numbers spreadsheet app can open Excel spreadsheets, so go ahead and save them in the native format of your Windows or Mac office software. Our examples were created using Microsoft Word and Excel files saved as .DOC and .XLS files.

Install your third-party iPad office apps

For purposes of this article, we will focus on two iPad office apps that work well together.

• Pages – This app will handle the bulk of your in-the-field word processing needs.
• Numbers – This app will handle the bulk of your calculating needs for estimates.

You may also want to use a Bluetooth keyboard. An external keyboard will be more efficient for word processing than the iPad's virtual keyboard.

Move your proposals and spreadsheets onto your iPad

There are a number of ways to get your documents from your computer to your iPad. It's beyond the scope of this article to outline every possible option in every iPad app, and app features change over time, but we'll suggest a couple of easy methods here.

One easy way is to simply email the documents to the email address you have set up on your iPad. Then all you have to do is open the attachment and you will have access to the document in your iPad word processor or spreadsheet app.

Another easy way we've found to move documents is to use iTunes to sync files. The iTunes sync option is supported by the iPad Pages and Numbers apps, so that's the method we'll discuss here.

Plug in your iPad and open iTunes. Click your iPad device and then click the Apps window. If you have purchased and installed Pages and Numbers, you will see those apps in the File Sharing list here.

This is where you add your own .DOC and .XLS files from your hard drive. Click the Add button for the Pages app, browse to where you saved your edited master proposals and then add them. Do the same to add your .XLS files to the Numbers app.

When you have added all your custom documents, you can sync your iPad. All your custom documents will now be on your iPad and accessible by your iPad apps.

If you make changes to your PC or Mac versions, you will need to repeat this process to add the new versions and sync your iPad again.

Final iPad editing adjustments

You may have to make some final minor modifications after importing your documents to the iPad. Because the iPad Pages word processor has limited capabilities, it is possible that not all of your document's features will import perfectly. For example, if you are using a Proposal Pack graphic skinned set of templates, the imported iPad version might lose the custom colored page border, custom-designed bullet points may be replaced with standard circle bullet points, and the accent graphic in your page footers might disappear. If you used custom fonts in your body text, they might need to be changed. Some of these things you can manually fix, such as adding back our accent graphic (which requires you to sync the graphic to your iPad Photo Album and manually re-insert it using the Pages Document Setup screen).

TIP: If the font is different than your document's default text when you start editing change the font by clicking the Pages information button, scroll down the options list to the Text Options and change the font to match. One thing you want to avoid is mismatched text fonts and font sizes in your final proposal.

After you have double-checked and fixed any formatting changes, you are ready to write your client proposals on your iPad.

Create client estimates and proposals on your iPad

For a new client estimate, first open the iPad Numbers app, click the My Spreadsheets button, then click the down arrow button at the bottom of the iPad screen, and finally click the Copy from iTunes button. This will give you access to your custom spreadsheet. Now, for each new client, click the plus sign (+) icon next to the arrow and then click the Duplicate Spreadsheet button to create a copy of the spreadsheet to use for this new client (and leave your original spreadsheet untouched for future estimates).

TIP: If you click the spreadsheet title, you can rename it. It helps to assign a name specific to each new client so you can easily locate estimates for individual clients as you add more and more in the future.

Open the spreadsheet and fill in the prices and quantities for the new estimate. You will see your more visually appealing version updated at the same time. After you have completed the estimate, you are ready to create your proposal for this client. Highlight the section of the spreadsheet designed for pasting into the proposal (the blue section of the spreadsheet shown in the photo), and then click the Copy button.

Now open your iPad Pages app. You will go through the same process here to load and open your master proposal. Click the My Documents button, then click the down arrow button at the bottom of the iPad screen, and finally click the Copy from iTunes button. This will give you access to your custom master proposal. Now for each new client, click the plus sign (+) icon next to the arrow and then click the Duplicate Document button to create a copy of the master proposal to use for this new client (and leave your original master proposal untouched for future proposals).

TIP: One reason for reusing a master proposal template like this (and not copying a completed proposal that was written for a different client) is that it helps ensure you do not make the all-too-common mistake of sending a proposal to a new client that includes details from another client because you forgot to double-check your work and remove all of the other client's information.
Click the document title and rename it, using a name specific to this new client so you can easily locate proposals for individual clients as you add more and more in the future.

Open the new document and fill in the tags with the details for this client (such as the client's contact information, company name, project details, needs you identified, and so on). If you look at the examples we created for this article, you will see how we wrote a custom cover letter for each type of business, but left in tags that will allow us to quickly and efficiently customize the master proposal for each new client. To the clients, it appears that we wrote each proposal just for them.

The iPad Pages app lets you search for text, making it very easy to locate all of the tags that need to be replaced if you remember to use our << something to replace here >> tag naming convention. All you have to do is search for "<<" and you will locate all the tags you need to replace. You can also search and replace if you use repeating tags throughout the master proposal template.

The last thing you need to do is drop in your custom estimate. Because the iPad Pages and Numbers apps are not integrated together, you do not want to have to manually copy and paste individual line items and cells from your estimates into your more visually appealing proposal. This would be very inefficient and prone to errors.

Now go to the Services Cost Summary or Estimate page of the master proposal and put your cursor above the disclaimer (this is where we previously removed the estimate table when we created the master proposal). Click the page to bring up the Paste button and paste in the section of the spreadsheet copied from the Numbers app. You will now see the entire nicely formatted spreadsheet copied right into your proposal in one click.

Take a final pass through the completed client proposal to ensure there are no spelling errors, all tags have been filled in, and there are no grammatical or other mistakes.

Now your final client proposal complete with custom estimate is ready to deliver. Using the iPad, you can click the My Documents button, then click the Send button and then email a copy to the client as a PDF document. If you have a Bluetooth printer, you could even print a copy right on the spot.

When you return to the office, you can sync your iPad and then copy all your new client proposals and spreadsheets to your computer.

iPad Example #1

Click here for an example of a completed and delivered Event Planner Proposal created using Proposal Pack Events #2, Numbers and Pages on the iPad.


This is just one of hundreds of Proposal Pack skins that can be used on your iPad.


All of the editable files used in this article to create this client proposal and estimate on the iPad are included free with the purchase of ANY Proposal Pack.

iPad Example #2

Click here for an example of a completed and delivered Contracting Proposal created using Proposal Pack Construction #3, Numbers and Pages on the iPad.


This is just one of hundreds of Proposal Pack skins that can be used on your iPad.


All of the editable files used in this article to create this client proposal and estimate on the iPad are included free with the purchase of ANY Proposal Pack.

iPad Example #3

Click here for an example of a completed and delivered Networking Proposal created using Proposal Pack Networks #2, Numbers and Pages on the iPad.


This is just one of hundreds of Proposal Pack skins that can be used on your iPad.


All of the editable files used in this article to create this client proposal and estimate on the iPad are included free with the purchase of ANY Proposal Pack.

Move your proposals and estimates securely back to your PC or Mac

At the end of the day, you still need to move your client proposals and estimates from your iPad and save them back on your office computer. This is a basic safety precaution. If you ever lost your iPad, you want to make sure you can retrieve all your past work.

If you ever needed to have someone back at your office help finish a proposal due to time constraints or resources you lack in the field, you can email the editable version back to your office for completion, then have the finished proposal emailed back to your iPad for final proofing, edits and delivery.

There are many options for designing a proposal and estimate writing and delivery system for your business. This article outlines just one possible solution that can be modified in many different ways.

You can see how the iPad can be a very effective proposal and estimate writing tool for professionals in the field. By combining a few low-cost iPad apps with a Proposal Kit proposal template collection, you can create a cost-effective mobile proposal management solution for your business.

These Proposal Kit products include proposals and estimates that work for any business ready to edit for use on your iPad:

• Proposal Kit Professional
• Proposal Packs

iPad Contract Management Using Proposal Kit

Tired of lugging around stacks of paper contracts while out in the field? Wouldn't you like a better way to edit your documents, get signatures and digitally organize your contracts? This article will show you how to use your iPad with Proposal Kit products to create an efficient and streamlined digital contract management system.

More and more businesses (real estate agents, contractors, photographers and anyone else who deals with clients in the field) are streamlining their processes and using smart devices such as the iPad to replace old paper systems. Often the key to closing the deal and getting the contract is the ability to immediately finalize all the details. By following the steps explained below, you could have a digital contract system set up within a couple of hours at a very affordable cost.

Get Proposal Kit / Contract Pack on your PC or Mac

The iPad does not stand alone in your contract management system. You still need an office computer where you will perform your heavy editing and store your contract archives.

First, you want to get your Proposal Pack, Proposal Kit Professional or Contract Pack documents installed on your office Windows or Mac computer. This step is as simple as placing an order for one of the products, then downloading and installing it on your computer.

Now you have all of your contracts on your office computer, ready to edit and prepare for your iPad.

You might ask, "Why don't you just have an iPad contract app?" There are a handful of "contract apps" out there, but they all suffer from serious deficiencies. Some don't allow editing (which makes boilerplate contracts almost useless); others don't allow you to move your edits off your iPad to archive them or transfer them to another device. In some cases, the app doesn't include any actual contract documents, or the app makes you purchase one document at a time from within the app. We believe in using the best tools for the job, and the iPad now has some great word processing and signing applications that can be used with the highly detailed documents from Proposal Kit. So let's get set up to do just that.

Edit your contracts and get them ready for your iPad

Now that you have your contracts on your computer, it's time to edit them and get them ready for your iPad. While the iPad has word processing capabilities, it is still a very basic word processing platform. So for your initial contract setup, it's more efficient to do your major editing on your Windows or Mac computer. This also ensures all your original work is archived.

For our examples, we'll use the Contractor Work Order contract, which is found in Proposal Kit Professional and Contractors Contract Pack, and the Model Release found in Proposal Kit Professional and Photographers Contract Pack. These are good examples of contracts that would be used in the field.

 

For Contractors:

Find the GeneralContractorWorkOrder.doc file, copy it to a new folder on your hard drive and open it in your word processor.

 

For Photographers:

Find the ModelRelease.doc file, copy it to a new folder on your hard drive and open it in your word processor.


Now replace all the tags related to your company (such as <<Company>>, <<Address1>>, <<Address2>>, <<City>>, <<State>>, <<PostalCode>>, <<WorkPhone>>, <<Days>>) with your information. Change the terms and other details as needed to customize your standard contract. You can also add your own company logo to the agreement.

Next, use blanks to replace all the client tags and other labels with empty spaces that you will fill in for each new contract. You'll fill in these blanks later by typing the text on your iPad.

If you are using any Proposal Kit contracts that include payment term and specifications exhibits, you might want to append those to your iPad contracts so all the pages you need are contained within a single document.

After you have completed your major edits, save your Word .DOC file and also save a PDF version. It is easier to fill out and sign your contracts in PDF format, but if you need to make text edits to your contracts in the field, you will want to have your Word .DOC versions on your iPad as well.

If your contracts require financial calculations such as summing up line items for multiple products and services, figuring taxes, etc., you should also create a spreadsheet that you can sync to your iPad to determine the figures you will input into the contract. If your contract needs only a signature, your use of the iPad will be much simpler.

Install third-party iPad apps

There are many iPad apps that could be used for editing and signing documents. For purposes of this article, we will focus on three apps that work well together as a system. Depending on the complexity of your contracts, you will need at least an app for signing documents, and perhaps a word processor app and a spreadsheet app as well.

• iAnnotate – This app is a must-have for digitally signing your contracts.
• Pages – This app will handle the bulk of your in-the-field word processing needs.
• Numbers – This app will handle the bulk of your calculating needs for quotes and invoices.

You will also want a stylus. Many different rubber-tipped iPad styluses are available; any of these will make signing the screen easier. A stylus is not required, but using one is more precise than using your fingers, and won't grease up your display with fingerprints.

Install at least the iAnnotate app on your iPad, so that you can use it to sync your contracts to your iPad with iTunes in the next step.

Move your contracts onto your iPad

There are a number of ways to get your documents from your computer to your iPad. It’s beyond the scope of this article to outline every possible option in every iPad app, and app features change over time, but we'll suggest a few methods here.

One easy way is to simply email the documents to the email address you have set up on your iPad. Then all you have to do is open the attachment and you will have access to the document in your iPad word processor or contract signing application.

Keep in mind that while there are many options for designing a workflow process, not all options are supported by all iPad apps. So you will have to set up your document syncing based on the specific iPad apps and workflow process you choose for yourself. For example, you can use the DropBox app with the iAnnotate contract signing app, but the Pages word processor app doesn't have DropBox support (at the time of this writing). There are options for syncing documents using third-party applications you install on your computer, and so on.

One of the easiest ways we've found to move documents is to use iTunes to sync files. The iTunes sync option is supported by the iPad apps we will use to edit and sign our contracts, so that's the method we'll discuss here.

After you have your standard contract edited and saved in both .DOC and PDF format, it's time to sync them to your iPad.

Plug in your iPad and open iTunes. Click your iPad device and then click the Apps window. All three of our suggested apps (iAnnotate, Pages, and Numbers) support iTunes file sharing, so you will see whichever apps you have installed in the File Sharing list here.

Now click the iAnnotate app. You will see some PDF documents and folders in the list. This is where you add your own PDF and .DOC files from your hard drive. Click the Add button, browse to where you saved your edited contracts and add them to this list.

If you also installed the Pages and/or Numbers apps, repeat this process to add your .DOC and .XLS files to those apps.

When you have added all your custom documents, you can sync your iPad. All your custom documents will now be on your iPad and accessible by your iPad apps.

Fill out and sign your documents on your iPad

The amount of custom word processing and financial calculations you do for each client contract will determine which apps you use and in which order.

The most complex scenario would be someone like a general contractor who has to enter a lot of client data, such as dates, work orders, addresses, names, descriptions and line items with financial calculations for multiple products, service and taxes. If this is your situation, you may be using all three of the Pages, Numbers and iAnnotate apps.

A simple scenario would be a photographer who needs basic name/address information and signatures on model releases. In this case, you may be using only iAnnotate.

Let's consider our more complex case: the complicated contracts with lots of data to input. To make life easier, you could have your office staff create the contracts for your day's work with all the quotes and calculations already done, then sync all those files your iPad before you leave the office. Then all you'd need to do is get the client's signature and save the signed PDF to sync back at the office later.

However, sometimes you might wind up needing to edit work orders and do calculations in the field with the Pages and Numbers apps. You would open Pages, locate your .DOC version of your contract and perform the detailed word processing needed for that client (it is possible to fill out a detailed contract in iAnnotate, but it's a more time consuming process). If you need to do line item calculations, open your custom contracting spreadsheet in Numbers preloaded with your company’s line items, prices, taxes and other calculations. Input the numbers for the job and get the totals. Jot these down, then pop back over to your Pages app and input the totals into the contract. When done, save the edited contract as a PDF document. Now, this is where you need to get a little tricky to get your iPad-edited contract back over to the iAnnotate app. A quick trick is to email your edited Pages .DOC file to yourself at your iPad email address. Open the email, click (and hold down your finger) on the attachment, which is your edited PDF contract. This will bring up the “Open With” option. Open the PDF file with iAnnotate, and your contract is ready to sign.

If you do not need to edit your contracts on the iPad, all you have to do is open the iAnnotate app, enter the document library and select one of the PDF contract files you have synced from your iTunes. Once the contract is open, it's ready to sign.

If you need multiple versions for multiple clients, use the feature in the Document Library to make a Duplicate copy and then open the duplicate copy.

iAnnotate includes quite a few useful features for signing and annotating your contracts. Not only can you use a stylus (or your finger) to sign on the dotted line, you can also type actual text over the top of your contract (this is useful for adding titles, phone numbers, dates and addresses). You can add notes, highlight important sentences and even add "rubber stamps" for a wide variety of common situations.

After you have filled in details and the parties have signed the document, that’s it! Save the signed contract on your iPad.

Signed Example

Click here for an example of a completed, signed and annotated PDF created using iAnnotate on the iPad then synced back to the back office computer.

This Model Release is just one of over 330 contract documents available in Proposal Kit. Proposal Kit contracts cover many specialties such as web development, graphic design, IT, software and hardware services, photography, media, human resources, general contracting, advertising and marketing.

Move your signed documents securely back to your PC or Mac

At the end of the day, you still need to get your signed contracts off your iPad and securely saved back on your office computer. This is a basic safety precaution. If you ever lost your iPad, you want to make sure you can retrieve all your past work.

If you need to quickly get a signed contract back to the office, you can simply email the signed and annotated PDF version. Any of the iPad apps mentioned here allow you to email edited documents right from the app.

When you return to the office, you can sync your iPad and then copy all your newly signed and annotated contracts to your computer. Before heading out to finalize your first contract with your new system, test your process to be sure you have all the app features set up correctly. If you don't see your annotations and signatures, that means you did not set up the application correctly to send or save the annotated versions.

For simplicity's sake, we've discussed only a few apps and methods here, but we know there are a multitude of options available to customize your contract editing and signing workflow.
You can see how the iPad can be a very effective contract editing, signing and management tool for professionals in the field. By combining a few low-cost iPad apps with a Proposal Kit contract collection, you can create a quick and cost-effective mobile contract management solution for your business.

These Proposal Kit products include contracts ready to use on your iPad:

• Proposal Kit Professional
• Contract Packs
• Proposal Packs

Overcome Writers Block with Proposal Kit

These days, like so many businesses, my company is asking all its employees to take on more tasks. I write catalog descriptions and the company newsletter and the occasional help topic for the product support guys, so I suppose it was natural that my boss thought of me when the board decided that someone needed to write a proposal. The sales department handed me all sorts of statistics and company data, as well as some pertinent facts about the client and the project the bosses wanted to create a proposal for. At first, I felt a little flattered by the assignment, but then, when I sat down to begin, panic set in. I suddenly realized I knew nothing about writing a business proposal. Writer's block threatened to paralyze me into complete rigor mortis. I quickly fired off a few emails to close friends who I knew wouldn't advertise my ignorance. (Writer needs help!!) One of them advised me to check out ProposalKit.com, a web site that sells products made for proposal writers.

Yeah, right, I thought, like a web site or a software package is going to help me get words on all those blank pages. But I went to the ProposalKit.com web site, and I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised. Actually, I was more than surprised, I was encouraged. Heck, I learned a lot from the web site itself. For one thing, there's a whole section called "Proposal Writing Tips, Tricks and Best Practices" that contains all these informative articles about - guess what? - how to write a proposal. They actually explain the process and how to do it the best way, right on the web site!

I found out that the product includes over 2000 proposal topic templates. I clicked on that link to see the list. Wow! The templates were even grouped into categories like Introduction, Goal-Centered Topics, Project-Centered Topics, Financial Spreadsheets, and so forth. Okay, now I started to see not only a whole bunch of proposal topics that I needed to include in my proposal, but I could envision the structure that my proposal should have, too.

I clicked on one of the proposal template titles, and it displayed the description for that template, which told me how I should use that page in my proposal. This is true for every proposal template page in the product - it not only tells you the typical usage for that page in a proposal, but it suggests all sorts of information that you might want to include on the page. Just by reading the descriptions, I made a list of data that my boss hadn't given me that could make the proposal much stronger. The boss - and even his boss - was going to be so impressed when I made suggestions about information to include that the board hadn't thought of by themselves.

I could see that I could select a whole bunch of proposal template pages from the library in Proposal Kit and then follow the suggestions on each page to create the proposal for my company. Yes! I was not alone in this undertaking; Proposal Kit was actually going to help me.

On the web site, I also noticed a section that described a library of sample proposals. Now that sounded intriguing, so I clicked that link. OMG! The product contains over a hundred samples of proposals from every conceivable type of organization about almost every conceivable type of project. ProposalKit.com even let me look at a couple of complete sample proposals for free, and let me check out truncated samples for any of the others on their long, long list. All right! I was really getting the hang of this proposal writing gig now; I could see what sorts of pages other companies put into proposals and how they sell themselves to prospective clients. As a matter of fact, it was looking like it might be a whole lot easier to write this proposal than the boss had led me to believe. I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching my Proposal Kit investigation, and I jotted down a few notes to myself about tone and style for my company's proposal.

There were even reports and studies and special applications - like pages for all sorts of contracts - among the samples. Hey, I could use those in the future, too. The boss was going to be oh-so-amazed when I talked to him about writing up feasibility studies within the company and the potential for government contracts that we might be able to secure for the future. I wrote down details about all those things, too.

Proposal Kit has a program called a wizard that assembles all the pages into a professional-looking proposal, and the company also sells all kinds of designs, called graphic skins, that we can choose from. So I jotted a note about how the proposal should look and 'feel' to the readers—should we choose a sophisticated design scheme created by a pro (Proposal Kit), should we put our own logo on every page, or both? I will sound so knowledgeable when I run that query past the boss.

After an hour or so, I had a list of information I needed to collect and questions I needed to ask others within the company, as well as advice that I was going to pass along. I could see the proposal writing path laid out before me like it was lit up with runway lights. Of course the writing was going to take some time, but I could see exactly how I needed to do it. Proposal Kit was going to make me look like a genius.

I had to get my hands on the Proposal Kit products. They were very reasonably priced, so I just told the department that I needed Proposal Kit and the Wizard for my writing projects, and with their permission and the company credit card, I placed my order and downloaded the products. I'm already half way through writing the proposal and I'll easily finish before my deadline. Now, my hardest decision is whether to share my discovery of Proposal Kit with others in my company, or keep it my own secret weapon. Either way, I'm expecting to get a big raise when review time comes around again.

by Jade Austin

P.S. you can find Proposal Kit here: https://www.ProposalKit.com