Writing Winning Proposals

Plans & Proposals

The reason you should take a course using this book, Writing Winning Proposals: Public Relations Cases, is because all significant public relations spending is subject to approval by your employer or client and normally requires a written plan or proposal. Writing winning plans is an opportunity for new writers to raise the bar in PR by leading the industry in overcoming one of its greatest weaknesses. Plan writing is a weakness in PR for these reasons:

The profession writes plans as though they are addressed to the PR profession, not to the industries they serve, like business. The plans are not written from the perspective of those seeking services.
Plan writers don’t give employers and clients plans that have what they want, the way they want it and in terms they can understand.
Oftentimes, plan writers don’t think about relating proposals to the financial success of an organization.
There is no uniformity of definition for terms, such as goal, objective, strategy and tactic. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably within the same plan. Confusion of terms always ends in rejection: “I don’t think we’re ready to do that.”
The profession has institutionalized plan writing by letting plan writers write and use terms any way they choose and recognizes and rewards poorly written plans in national competitions. Over the years, it would be safe to say that it has been difficult to find plans that qualify for national competition.
The profession and many educators have impeded the growth of PR in the industries it serves by resisting change in plan writing by insisting, “That’s not the way it’s done.”

Writing Winning Proposals: Public Relations Cases, teaches how to write plans from the perspective of industries PR serves, giving business persons, for example, information they want, the way they want it, and in terms they can understand. The book teaches how to write plans and proposals with the potential to win approval.

Instructors: see a Syllabus Idea Template for teaching with this book https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhagleysr/detail/recent-activity/shares/ and scroll down, or contact me for a free copy.