How to Prepare Your Proposal Presentation for Demos

One of the most important parts of the proposal process is your presentation to the buying organization that is considering working with you. This is the part of the process, which many Request for Proposals (RFPs) require, that typically follows after you’ve already submitted your written proposal and the buying organization has invited you and the other contenders to give a more detailed presentation of what you can offer and how you will execute it. Make sure to bring your A-game because you are essentially competing against the best of the evaluated proposing organizations.

Dale Jordan, Director of Procurement, Cherokee County, GA, has provided us with important advice on how to improve your proposal presentation which we will discuss below.

In this article:

1. Confirm With the Buying Organization
2. Plan Your Presentation
3. Produce A Compelling Presentation
4. Practice What You Prepared
5. It’s Time to Present

Confirm With the Buying Organization

Now that you know you’ve been selected to do a presentation, it’s time to start the preparation process. You’ll want to make sure you send a thank you to the organization and confirm key information that you’ll need to better your presentation such as, requesting the names and titles of the buyer’s evaluation team, requesting an agenda, and confirming the location, date, and timing.  Dale suggests starting by making checklists and using templates which can easily help organize and identify all that you need to do and what topics need to be addressed. Ensure you also provide the buying organization with some information about your business such as key personnel who will be presenting and a main point of contact so they can easily contact you if needed.

Plan Your Presentation

Next, you’ll want to start planning your presentation, making sure it’s both informative and persuasive. First, determine your objectives. Leave no doubt that your business is well qualified by providing past examples of success in similar situations and leave no doubt that the project team is also well qualified to complete the work. You want to show that you understand the buyers’ requests and that you’re excited and committed to delivering successful results. Second, evaluate what needs to be included. The buying organization should provide you with an agenda, make sure your plan covers all the agenda topics and consider adding more such as, fresh content that shows your unique value, details into the solution, budget and schedule management plans, and a list of questions for the buyer. You want to ensure that you resonate with the buying organization and truly understand the work from the buyer’s perspective. Show that your business is unique, viable, and capable of performing what’s being asked and stand out from your competition.

Produce a Compelling Presentation

After you’ve planned out your presentation, you want to critically evaluate how each point you deliver follows the theme laid out, demonstrates your unique value, and creates clarity in describing your solution. Even though the buying organization has already read your proposal, they may have already read many others and sat through a bunch of other presentations, so you want to make sure you reinforce key highlights of your proposal to refresh their memories and then you can go ahead and add new information. Dale also mentions some important things to include to make your presentation run smoother:

• Develop an outline that supports your narrative that links each topic to the theme
• Create a storyboard
• Generate a focused draft
• Brainstorm and prioritize

Practice What You Prepared

Next up is practicing your presentation. It’s critical to have a seamless presentation that demonstrates both mastery of the material and the cohesiveness of the team. Make sure everyone on the team feels comfortable and confident in what they’ll be discussing to leave no doubts in the buyer’s mind. Two important things to keep in mind are time management and establishing who will take the lead. For proper time management, you’ll want to run through the full draft of your presentation to see how long it's going to take and if you’ll need to shorten or make it longer. Focus on spending more time on the most important topics and less time on the less critical areas. Then you’ll want to factor in time for questions and interactions. It’s hard to tell exactly how long this will take, but Dale suggests you include one to two minutes of customer interaction time for every 10 minutes of time allowed for the presentation.

It’s Time to Present

After spending all that time planning and practicing your presentation to get it just right, it’s finally time to present! This is where it all counts. Remember all that you’ve gone over, show confidence, and prove to the buying organization that you’re the expert in the field and that you understand their needs completely and can offer them a great solution that they won’t want to turn down. Bonus tip: Make sure on the day of your presentation, you arrive early to the venue to give your team some time to relax and prepare.

Find Your Next Demo and Win Your Next Contract

We hope that these five tips from Dale on how to prepare your proposals for presentations and demos will really help bring your business’s proposal to the next level. The presentation process is one of the key deciding factors in who they will choose to fulfill the contract so make sure you leave it all out on the field. As Dale says it best “close strong, interested and committed to the project”.

If you’re looking for an easy way to find and manage your bids and RFP’s, consider Bidnet Direct to fulfill your government bidding needs. Get notified of new bid opportunities that match with the goods or services your business provides in seconds, so you can start building relationships with the buyers you’re interested in working with. You can even submit your bids electronically (when applicable) and send your questions to the buyer directly through our platform, so you can be one step closer to getting invited to present your proposal and possibly winning your next contract!