Tourism professional, Nadine Johnson, writes as a guest blogger reviewing a presentation by LA based event planner extraordinaire, Ruth Moyte, who spoke last week in Trinidad  about how to write  a winning proposal.  

Ruth should know right? 

She manages 30 full-time employees, up to 200 subcontractors and every day coordinates over 50 clients at a time. 

Ruth's presentation  was a must attend event on Eventology’s calender but because  a conflict in my schedule prevented me for being there,  I asked Nadine to do a recap. 

Nadine works at the TDC where she has been responsible for the successful management to Taste  T&T, Tourism Park, Summit Village. She is both a client and a practitioner and is able to analyse information from both perspectives 

Her  conclusion?

“Many of the Trinidad and Tobago’s event managers and planners provide excellent "first world" event services  even as they work with  "third world" resources.

The first step in providing the service though is winning the business. And it all starts with the proposal

Here are Nadine’s  take aways from Moyte’s presentation: "Writing to Sell - Putting Passion on Paper."

1) When given a Client RFP dissect it with the event team and look  for inconsistencies and solutions to them. This is important as you should be able to glean the who, when, what, why and where from any proposal.   I can't tell you how important this is because as a Client I have received countless proposals which have left me wondering if the potential bidder had ever even read the RFP.  

2) Look at the past history of the event.  As a Client I can say that this yields maximum results.  As the project manager for several different annual events, I have received proposals from bidders that clearly reveal that they have absolutely no knowledge of the event.  In a bidding session we even had to stop a presenter to ask if she had ever attended the event.  No one on her entire event team had ever attended and that was clear because they were completely off-base.

3) When writing the proposal evoke a sensory response with the writing within the proposal itself.  Ruth's trick when she is struck with a bad case of writers block is to write a letter to her mom about the event.  Rationale? When you write to someone close to you, you tend to be more expressive.

4) Once done, ask this question: Is it outstanding? Does it achieve the objectives the Client set out? If not, read the proposal, re-read it, re-read it again and yes, read it another time.  

5) Check for grammar and spelling, punctuation.  Enough said.

6) Never call your proposal, "A Proposal,” find a more vivid name.

7) Ask the Client for their business.  As a Client I can say that we really want to work with people who really want to work with us.  

Chatting with Nadine during Saturday's Eventology session, she said she remained convinced that: “We can attend all the courses and seminars we want to, but if we never employ the learning we will remain the same and never raise the bar for ourselves and the industry.”