Get your proposal process on the right track

Think of your proposal creation process as the subway line you use to go to work every day. Ideally, that line will have every stop you need and none that you don’t. Not only will it be the quickest route to and from work, but everyone you know and work with on a daily basis will be on that line, as well. 

The rail line that takes you to work every day only stops where and when you need it to. It’s available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and is never closed for construction, maintenance or any other potential pitfalls you may run into. 

We will call this line ‘Proposal solution’.

The ‘Word and email’ line

Now let’s look at the traditional document creation and collaboration process in the same context. You must travel far out of your way just to get to your line/station, and once there, you have to wait a long time for the subway to arrive, as it picks up passengers one at a time, each at their own station. Not an ideal start. 

Imagine if someone is late for their station or is a no-show. Then the subway will have to stop and wait for that person or go all the way back to where it came from and pick that person up, leaving everyone stranded on the platform. Time wasted. What’s more, your subway train gets renamed every time you arrive to take it to work, for instance:

• ‘Train1’
• ‘Train1_Revised’
• ‘Train1_Revised_Final’
• ‘Train1_Revised_Final_FINAL’

So now you have a slow train that is renamed every time you see it, picking up one person at a time, and is fraught with delays and hazards throughout. 

We will call this line ‘Word and email’.

The slow route to the goal vs. the streamlined one

So what does this have to do with document creation and collaboration? Well, in our ‘Proposal solution’ line, you have a streamlined process that is purpose-built to suit your needs. This is what working with a proposal solution is all about. It was designed to create and collaborate on all business documents while giving you exactly what you need – and nothing you don’t. 

The collaboration and workflow capabilities of a professional proposal solution enables you to work in real time with your colleagues wherever they may be, while being able to assign sections of a document to your team members. 

Just like having everyone on the same subway train at the same time, with all the stops you and your team needs. A rapid transit system for document co-authoring!

The ‘Word and email’ line doesn’t sound great, and unfortunately, most companies use this line on a daily basis and may not even realize how much time they are actually wasting. 

Working on a Word document, for instance, is basically anti-collaboration. Each person must work on it one at a time and then email it to the next person in line, so that they can do their part. As you are starting to see, it’s very similar to picking up one person at a time at a subway station. 

You now have a slow process. Each time you see the document it will have a different name, and you are frankly unsure if you even have the most recent version... just like taking a subway train with a constantly changing name is helpful to no one.

A document creation and collaboration process doesn’t have to be slow and cumbersome. Use a proposal solution to streamline and optimize your document production, maximizing revenue from bids and proposals and other business-critical documents.