MS Word is the standard software to develop proposals. Hone your skills & learn how to build a proposal template. Knowing how to best present the information so that the recipients can read it is an often overlooked, but key factor in getting contracts.

1. Proposal Templates that Resonate with Your Customer Presented to APMP NCA 2010 Boot Camp, Proposal Coordinator Track April 19, 2010 Copyright 2009 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Agenda Introduction to Templates Copyright 2010 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Developing Your Own Templates

3. Introduction to Proposal Templates Copyright 2010 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

4. 4 What are Proposal Templates? Templates are: Documents an author has formatted using specific fonts, colors, numbering, and spacing Saved as a “.dot” or “.dotx” file. When a user opens the template, it applies the font, color, numbering, and spacing defined by the author to the document.

5. 5 Benefits of Proposal Templates

6. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Elements of Effective Proposal Templates: Copyright 2010 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved. 6

7. 7 Color Palettes The Good: The Bad: The Ugly:

8. 8 Covers and Title Pages Good Follow the instructions Select images and color palettes that resonate Make your message easy to understand Display your contact information prominently Bad/Ugly Clutter up the cover so it is difficult to find the required information Distracting images, palettes, or obvious clichés Disproportionate images–your client’s logo should never be smaller than your own Colors that don’t contrast well in black and white print

9. 9 Headers and Footers Good Bad/Ugly

10. Heading Levels, Font Sizes Good Header 1 Header 2 Header 3 Use graduated header sizes in complimentary colors No So Good Header 1 Header 2 Header 3 Refrain from using headers that are too bold and do not use graduated sizes 10 Always follow the client’s instructions for font name, font size, and page margins

11. Tables Not So Good 11 Good

12. Developing Your own Proposal templates How-to Hints: Copyright 2010 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved. 12

13. 13 Creating & Saving Templates 1 2 3 1 2

14. 14 Creating Custom Color Palettes 1 2 3 4 5

17. 17 Modifying Styles OPTION 1: OPTION 2: 1 2 1 2

18. 18 Title Pages & TOC Pages Using Page Breaks 1 2 3

19. 19 Headers, Footers, and Auto-Page Numbers 1 2 3 4 5

20. 20 Auto-generated Table of Contents/Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

21. 21 Update TOC

22. Closing Remarks Follow the prospects page and document design instructions Use a style sheet for every proposal Select a document and page style appropriate for your prospect’s organization, your industry, and your organization Adapt your layout to the structure of the writing Use headers and footers to help evaluator’s navigate your proposal Select a page-column design that balances page limits, production requirements, readability and graphics size flexibility Establish a consistent system for headings, themes, action captions, lists, and other page design features Copyright 2010 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

23. QUESTIONS? Copyright 2010 Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. All rights reserved. 23