Example · Proposals Proposal drafting
A tool built for the principal of a small practice. It reads the request, drafts each section in the practice’s own style, and assembles the package. The fee and the signature stay with the principal.
What it was for
- Problem
- A one-person structural practice. Requests for proposals arrive by email, often several a month, and each one competes with billable work. The principal wrote every proposal personally, usually in the evening: re-typing the scope, hunting through old proposals for wording that had worked, and assembling the package by hand.
- How we worked through it
- We built a tool that reads the request and suggests the project facts for the principal to confirm. It drafts each section in the style of proposals the practice has already won, and the principal edits it or asks for a redraft.
- Outcome
- A proposal can now start from a full draft in the practice’s own voice, with the package assembled. The principal sets the fee, and nothing goes out until the principal accepts it.
Where a person stays involved
The principal confirms every fact the tool pulls from the request and accepts each section before it moves on. Anything the principal cannot stand behind comes out. The fee and the signature are the principal’s.
The same pattern in an engineering firm
- Proposals drafted from the request and the firm’s past winning proposals, for the principal to edit
- Project descriptions and staff résumés adjusted to fit each request
- Fee tables set up from the firm’s own rates for the principal to adjust
Spending evenings on proposals? Tell us how you put one together now.
