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Rich asked how many of us do proposal writing. Well...
I'm the proposal manager for our company. About 90% of my job right now
(usually around 75% but we're very busy with proposals this spring) entails
efforts in response to RFPs and other solicitations (NASA, DoD & industry
mainly, but there are plenty of others). I'm in the Business Development
Dept., which also handles PR and Marketing, so I also write marcomm, develop
ads, develop the annual report, create web content, staff the company booth
at trade shows, etc. That certainly breaks up the stress of proposal
deadlines but adds its own set of interesting issues. Talk about switching
hats!
The Dept. Director makes the bid/no bid decisions and often acts as a
technical or business lead on major proposal responses, but for the most
part the responses are developed by me, another tech writer, a cost
analyst, a graphic designer and various engineering SMEs who are matrixed in
as needed. Our company is quite small - about 300 or so - so all proposal
efforts come through our department.
I'd be happy to discuss or compare practices with others in the proposal
writing world or with those wanting to get into it. I'm in the
aerospace/defense industry but I'm sure the ups and downs are similar.
Yvonne
Yvonne Duncan Polak
Senior Proposal Analyst, Space Dynamics Laboratory
yvonne -dot- polak -at- sdl -dot- usu -dot- edu
Office (435) 797-4419 Cell (435) 881-0041
www.spacedynamics.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Metzger [mailto:RMetzger -at- lawmanager -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 12:42 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Proposal Writing?
Hello fellow Word Nazis...
How many of you do proposal writing? Is it solely your responsibility? Or
does your co. have a full-time RFP writer/communications director that
handles them? Thanks in advance...
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