About The People And Resources
Behind This Writing Proposals Site

Curious about us and who's behind this writing proposals Web site? The content comes from years of successful hands-on experience in writing and evaluating countless proposals.

Because the content is based on real-world experience, it gets immediately to the heart of what is needed to write winning proposals whether for grants or for business.

So Who's Behind This Site?

Hello! Don Coggan here with a warm welcome to Writing-Proposals.com. This site is the result of my experience over the years in writing and evaluating proposals.

Let me give you some of my background and the rationale for the site.

Since 1981, I'd been providing technical consulting services throughout the US, Canada and internationally to clients in the private and public sectors.

In early 1996, I left my consulting engineering practice cold turkey and began applying my previous experience to the development of Internet businesses throughout the US and Canada.

Then, almost immediately, something amazing happened!

Out of the blue came a Technology Transfer opportunity from the US Department of Energy (DOE). It was a training course on how to write proposals that use a proven winning method.

I jumped on the opportunity because the training materials matched my own successful experience in writing proposals for business and grants. I had always wanted to create such a course myself.

Writing Proposals – Lessons Learned

Over the years, I've written countless proposals, most of them successful. Some were to win bids in the business sector I was in. Some were to get government grants.

You'll be unstoppable, once you've learned the secret!

Of course, I've also written proposals that lost, especially in the early days. The key mistake I made then was not responding to the specific needs of the recipient of my proposal.

It actually took me some years to realize that the other party wasn't really interested in my stuff. He was more interested in his stuff.

Once I realized this, it was as if I had just smashed through a solid concrete wall! I felt unstoppable... just as you will feel after taking our Proposal Writing Course!

It got to the point where I was almost directly asking, "How will you evaluate my proposal?" If I didn't get a clear response, I didn't waste any time on writing a proposal.

As someone who was making proposals, I was always intrigued by the evaluation process. Of course I always wanted to win, but I was actually more interested that the process be fair.

When I started my own engineering consulting business, I got a chance to know all about evaluating proposals.

Evaluating Proposals – Lessons Learned

As a consulting engineer, I was writing specifications all the time. The objective was to get my clients what they wanted, even though they sometimes didn't know what they wanted!

The main reasons clients didn't always know what they wanted were:

• The field was outside of their direct expertise.
• Each potential supplier told a "different story."

It's not all about you! Don't make that BIG mistake!

So the challenge was to do an evaluation of a client's needs and then turn that into a specification that allowed bidders to describe how their proposed offerings met my client's needs.

This led to a process I called "Specifying For Maximum Value," which became the subject of many publications and presentations. See the Writing RFPs page as well as my résumé for background.

The main thing I learned in evaluating proposals is that most people (and companies) are more interested in talking about themselves than they are in understanding the needs of their potential business partner or funder. Don't you make that BIG mistake!

So there you go... background and rationale!

Anything More You Need To Know?

Something else that may be of interest is that as well as being a registered professional engineer and Internet business consultant, I'm also a certified hypnotherapist. It's been very useful to better understand and help people and... to write winning proposals!