Reply to Who are all these people making over $150k a year?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]150 + bonus. Senior proposal manager. 42 years old.

I'm pretty confident I'll make director in the next few years and that would bring me closer to 200k+bonus. If I can ride that till retirement, I'm happy!

[/quote]

That’s great! I contribute to proposals on occasion and always find it incredibly stressful, any tips?[/quote]
Another proposal manager here. I always tell myself that this is my day job and it is your "free time" work and very forgiving of things like missed deadlines.
Tips: 
1) Focus on the big stuff - your SME submission. The proposal manager will catch spelling issues, formatting, making it sound like one voice, etc. We just need your expert opinion. You would be amazed at how often I get drafts back that barely look at content and rather tell me that the formatting is off.  Yes, I see that too, I will fix it. You just focus on the words!

2) Get very specific deadlines from the manager and communicate continually with them. If you know you are going to miss a deadline, let him/her know ASAP. We understand this happens and plan for it but knowing in advance lets us focus on other things other than "Why the heck hasn't Mary gotten me her godda** section yet??"

3) Find out how detailed the proposal has to be. I do commercial proposals, and we don't need the same in depth detail that gov proposals need.

4) Try to write in plain English. It is easier for everybody to read. Remember that not everybody who reads this will know what you are talking about. If the proposal manager can't understand it, he/she will probably ask for rewrites to make it. Hopefully writing in plain English will be easier for you to get your thoughts on paper.

5) See if the proposal manager would be open to you writing down notes and turning it into a coherent sentence. Maybe you could get on the phone with him/her for half an hour to talk through it. (This one is highly dependent on your proposal manager)

6) We all know proposals suck, even those of us who do it for a living. Another thing I always tell myself is that there is a due date and it is coming up soon. I can do anything for XX number of days, then I never have to see it again! It will pass, and hopefully your weekends don't get consumed by it.[/quote]

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