How to write an effective proposal

Earlier we’ve talked about writing reports and its structure for business English students. You can read more about it here. Today, we’ll look into the structure of writing effective proposals. 

It’s not a secret that students learning business English have different needs and expectations compared to the learners of General English. They are more goal oriented in terms of their professional development, and teaching them how to write effective proposals has to do not only with English but also with skills. Hence, it is our job as an educator to study the varieties of business proposals and choose the most appropriate structure to teach our students depending on their field of expertise.

Here we’re looking at the proposal structure that I have been working on with my B2 level of learners.

Before we go any further, we need to clarify what a proposal is for. Normally, the target reader of a proposal is a person of higher authority (a manager, a client, etc.). The purpose of a proposal is to give recommendations and persuade the reader to follow them. The style of the report is semi-formal or formal.

The structure

Below you can see a company sample proposal based on which we’ll analyse the structure.

Situation

You need to provide language training training services to the local bank who wants to train their employees to master the language. Your target audience is the frontline staff. The CEO of the company has asked you to put together the training options you have for their employees.

You must write about:

1. Available courses.
2. Description.
3. Your recommendations.

Write 180-200 words.

Sample

This proposal is intended to offer English language training to XXX bank based on the management request.

Business and General English Courses

We offer Business and General English Courses for your staff. The duration of Business English courses are 2 months to complete one level and 1.5 months for the General English courses. The courses are rich in real-life situations, up-to-date training materials and result-oriented methodology.

Description

Business English courses cover topics like:

1. Conflict management.
2. Career development.
3. Financial analysis.

The classes occur 3 times a week with 2 hours long sessions. There is a test at the end of the course to determine the progress of the students.

General English courses cover topics like:

1. Talking about vacations.
2. Talking about hobbies.
3. Socializing.

The classes occur 2 times a week with 2 hours long sessions. There is a test at the end of the course to determine the progress of the students.

Recommendations

Considering your area of expertise, Business English courses will be more suited for your employees as they cover a lot of relevant information for the day-to-day work. Your employees will have a chance to converse in simulated situations similar to those they might be having while at work, they will enrich their vocabulary in business related situations and will feel more confident when talking with foreign customers.

The courses are delivered by certified English trainers who are equipped with the necessary knowledge to guide your staff through their learning.

As you can see from the sample proposal above, the first and the foremost things is to introduce:

1. The purpose of the proposal — why we are writing it, what the underlying issue is.
2. Body — what the issues/situations that we focus on are, pain points.
3. A recommendation — what our solution to the situation is.

DOs

1. Define who your reader is

The first and foremost thing to consider when writing a proposal is to take a moment and think who your target reader is. It will help you to better organize your ideas and sound more persuasive in reaching your goal. Questions you can ask yourself while planning to write a proposal are:

1. Who is going to read the proposal?
2. How familiar are they with the topic?
3. What do you want to achieve with the proposal?
4. How can you sell the idea/product to them most efficiently.

2. Focus on the solution

The aim of a proposal is to highlight the problem (in our case it’s a need for a training) and offer a solution (an appropriate course). Unlike meeting minutes, where merely the facts are being stated, a proposal aims at offering credible solutions to the reader/client and persuading them in its validity.

To do this successfully, you can create an outline of a proposal before writing it. It should have three main section;

1. What’s the problem/situation? — brief it shortly, using keywords.
2. What’s the solution — possible options.
3. What’s the final recommendation? — what will fit the clients’ needs at most.

3. Use paragraphs

Paragraphs help to make the speech more organized, they are more friendly for the eye. To succeed, it’s best to allocate one paragraph for every new idea. This will give the reader a chance to see the whole picture and leave a favourable impression. Same is true for usine headlines. In the sample above, the proposal is logically sequenced in 3 paragraphs. 

4. Cover all the points

This is especially true if you’re preparing your students to take some sort of business English exam (BEC). If that’s the case, make sure you highlight it for the students that they need to cover all the points presented in the taks. Otherwise, they will lose points against the criteria Task Achievement.

5. Keep the style

Depending on your proposal and who’ll be reading it, you need to sensor your paper to fit a certain style. Avoid writing in jargon and using abbreviations or unnecessarily complex language. Instead, write in plain, direct language as much as possible.

For example, instead of saying “dismissing the underperforming staff“, you could simply write “letting them go“.

DON’Ts

1. Don’t go off topic

This is a common mistake in all types of writings. If you want to leave a professional impression on the reader, do your best to stick to the topic of the proposal. Don’t overlap it with unnecessary data and information that people can find on your company website.

2. Don’t forget that humour is not always appropriate

Pay attention to the genre you’re writing in. Using humour in business documents is not welcome as it hijacks the seriousness of the topic at hand. 

3. Don’t go general

Make the issue as relevant to the audience as you can. Tie it to their interest or goal as directly as you can. Make it specific to them, and avoid relying solely on generic appeal to emotions or values. This might do the trick sometimes, but relying on it is not what you want.

This is just one style of a proposal mostly used in everyday business writing, academic preparation courses (BEC) and language assessment slots. There are many other proposal samples (service proposal, financial proposal, change of system, etc.) All of them have their individual style and requirements, much depending on the company preferences and the sphere of expertise. 

Try out this structure of report writing with your students and let us know how it works. It has always been a great success in my classrooms.