Writing Compelling Proposal Content
Creating compelling proposal content is about more than just checking boxes for compliance. It’s about telling your story, showing your impact, and proving why you’re the right choice for the customer. GovDash makes this easier by generating structured, compliant content, but the quality of the content depends on the context and information you provide. Here’s how to get the most out of GovDash, improve your proposal content, and create proposals that truly stand out.
Build a Rich Contract Inventory
The first step to writing impactful proposals is ensuring that GovDash has access to detailed, meaningful information about your company’s performance.
Start with the Basics
At a minimum, the contracts within your contract inventory should include:
Performance Work Statements (PWS)
Contract documents and modifications
Go Beyond the Basics
To make your proposals shine, include additional records that highlight your team’s successes and value, such as:
Kudos: Positive feedback from customers or stakeholders
CPARS: Ratings and narratives showcasing your strengths
Metrics: Tangible outcomes like cost savings or efficiency gains
Status Reports: Evidence of how you’ve delivered value
Deliverables: Key project outputs that exceeded expectations
Emails: Correspondence that demonstrates problem-solving or responsiveness
These documents give GovDash the context it needs to write more tailored, compelling content. They also allow GovDash to match you with opportunities that align with your strengths, providing a foundation for more impactful proposals.
Updating Your Contract Inventory
For more information on updating your contract inventory via the Contract Cloud, see our guide here.
Define Your Strategy
To connect with evaluators, your proposal needs to demonstrate a clear understanding of their needs and how your solution addresses them.
Key Actions
Win Themes: Identify what sets your company apart and why it matters to the customer. Record these within the Solution tab of your proposal, under the General tab.
Solution Bullet Points: Work with your subject matter experts (SMEs) to outline the solution you’re proposing in clear, simple terms. These can be recorded in the Solution tab as well in questions that they are most relevant to, as well as Writing Plans in your outline sections.
Why It’s Important
Even the best proposal tools, including GovDash, need direction. Just like a skilled writer, GovDash relies on the inputs you provide to create content that aligns with your strategy. Without a clear understanding of your goals, the content may end up generic. Providing focused inputs ensures the output reflects your expertise and customer focus.
Collaborate and Refine
GovDash is designed to save you time, but your team’s expertise is crucial to the process.
How to Use GovDash Effectively
Start with Clear Inputs: Provide GovDash with bullet points that outline your solution and key win themes within the Solution tab, and Writing Plans. Learn more about how to use these areas effectively from our guide.
Utilize Focus Documents Effectively: Focus Documents are supplementary materials like partner capabilities, technical specs, customer needs, or resumes of key personnel that help tell the full story of why your team is the best fit for the job. Focus Documents should be focused on what you want to highlight, so we don’t recommend uploading entire proposal volumes as this can be too much noise/text for the system to properly pull out the context you’re wanting to focus on.
Leverage the Word Assistant: Use GovDash’s tools to refine drafts, respond to review comments, and incorporate feedback from SMEs. Learn more about how to utilize the Word Assistant in our guide here.
Iterate for Excellence: Use GovDash’s knowledge base alongside your team’s expertise to polish the final draft using all the tools we’ve mentioned here: Writing Plans, Solution tab questions, Focus Documents, and Word Assistant.
The Bottom Line
GovDash simplifies proposal writing, but the best results come from combining its capabilities with your knowledge and strategy. By keeping your contract inventory up to date, adding meaningful records, and providing clear inputs, you’ll get content that is not only compliant but also compelling, tailored, and impactful.