Grant and Proposal Writing Chapters 5 and 6

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Grant and Proposal Writing Chapters 5 and 6
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Types of Buyers

• Economic buyer
• User buyer
• Technical buyer
• Coach
• Ratifier

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Economic Buyer

• Gives the final approval
• Concerned with the bottom line and overall impact
• Has veto power, discretionary use of funds, and
  releases money
• One per sale

4
User Buyer

• Judges impact on operational performance
• Concerned with the adequacy of the proposed
  approach and its effects on the organizational
  units
• Will be directly affected by the project, and is
  important for implementation and continuing
  relationships
• Many of these per sale

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Technical Buyer

• Screens out unacceptable proposals
• Concerned with measurable, quantifiable aspects
• Several or many per project
• Cant say yes but can say no

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Coach

• Acts as your guide for this proposal opportunity
• Wants you to win and therefore gives you extra
  information about the clients environment
• Develop at least one

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The Ratifier

• To bless the recommendation of the economic buyer
• Usually only one in industry, more in government
• Has veto power, is in the highest levels of the
  organization

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So its really . . .
S2
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So its really . . .
S2
Varies by buyer and is conditioned by buying role.
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So its really . . .
S2
Our textbook says if you can get everyone to
agree on what the new situation should be, you
can eliminate everyones perception of S1.
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So its really . . .
S2
Varies by buyer and is conditioned by buying role.
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For scholarships

• Buyers will be a committee of
• English faculty from TC, linguistics, creative
  writing, and literature

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For Conferences

• Buyers will be the reviewers of the proposal,
  usually two per proposal
• Additionally, there is a review coordinator who
  can be a ratifier

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Chapter 6 Themes

• The
• Highlighted
• Essential
• Messages that
• Express the character of my
• Story
• Choose 3-5 for a proposal.

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What that means

• Highlightedrepeated throughout
• Essentialcome from understanding needs of all
  the buyers
• Express my storythe story of the buyers

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Themes come from

• Hot buttons from individuals, usually spoken but
  not officially in RFP
• Evaluation criteria the corporate official
  criteria
• Counters to competition your strengths compared
  to the competition on the evaluation criteria

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Addressing Hot Buttons

• In face-to-face meetings
• By methodology
• Through the sales approach
• Through the project team
• Through the project organization
• psychologically- and process-oriented

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Evaluation Criteria

• Can be sprinkled throughout the RFP
• Can appear on other publications
• Can be minor or knockout (aka dealbreakers)

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Counters to the Competition

• Pretty much what it says.
• They do need to relate to the evaluation criteria.

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How do you choose the 3-5 themes?

• Choose only the hot buttons of the medium and
  high power base buyers.
• Choose only eval criteria that are rated highly.
• Choose only counters to the competition that will
  significantly counter.
• also, consider blending two themes into one

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Academic Proposals

• We rarely know who were competing against.
• We have to think a bit differently about having a
  measurable-results orientation.

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Conference Proposal Review

• Make sure the topic links to the conference
• Make sure you follow the directions
• Make it clear that work has been done on the
  project
• Cite relevant sources
• Describe results if you have them
• Emphasize why this topic needs to be covered
  right now