Writing Effective Business Proposals

Description: 

You’ve recently been promoted and, as part of your new position, you’ve been asked to write a business proposal. Where do you start? How do business proposals work and what do you need to include in yours to accomplish your goals?

In this course, we’ll approach business proposals as persuasive arguments, dissecting a proposal, examining its underlying components and putting it back together in ways that increase its effectiveness. You’ll then move on to generating your own basic proposal arguments in response to a case study and end the day with working on actual business proposals shared by you and your classmates.

Who Should Enroll: 
  • Decision-makers in businesses, government agencies and nonprofits.
  • Managers and supervisors at all levels.
  • Proposal and report writers.
  • Anyone seeking to improve their business writing skills, especially audience analysis and document organization.
Learning Outcomes: 
  • Understand basic proposal structure, logic and objectives.
  • Develop a well-crafted plan for reaching the proposal objectives.
  • Perform an audience analysis by identifying stakeholders, investigating their concerns and weighting criteria accordingly.
  • Develop structured benefits that will result from accepting the proposal.
  • Tie complex elements into a coherent and persuasive argument.
Continuing Education Hours: 
Continuing Education Units: .65 CEUs
Additional Information: 

Please bring an actual business case for us to workshop in class. This case could be a proposal draft, a past proposal, a scenario or a request for proposals that requires a response from you.

Applies Towards Certificates:

Communication Skills for Professionals Certificate Program

For withdrawal, transfer and refund information, see Policy Code A.