Drafting Winning Proposals for Legal, Commercial and Strategic Excellence Training Course (ONLINE EVENT: January 26-27, 2026)

In today’s highly competitive and regulated procurement environment, getting the proposal right is about more than just responding to a brief - it’s about creating a clear, commercially strong and legally robust offer that meets customer needs, manages business risks and showcases why your offering is the preferred option.

This practical and intensive training course has been expertly developed to help commercial and contracts professionals master the art of crafting compelling proposals that serve as both legal and sales documents. From understanding legal positioning in the bidding process to confidently defining scope, pricing risk and articulating value, the expert trainer will explore every critical element that strengthens proposals and increases win rates.

You’ll also learn how to clearly align your proposal with your customer’s decision-making criteria, showcase your organisation’s unique offering and manage the entire bid lifecycle with structure, compliance and clarity.

Whether you're dealing with RFPs, RFQs or ITTs, this course will help you build persuasive proposals that appeal to potential customers in meeting their needs while protecting your exposure to potential risks.

Benefits of attending

By attending this course you will:

Learn how to develop strategic, customer-focussed proposals that focus on client’s needs and priorities
Reduce legal risk by understanding how proposals become binding and how to avoid hidden legal pitfalls
Understand how to enhance risk management by aligning price to risk exposure and limiting liability with effective wordings
Get to grips with developing clear value propositions that differentiate your offer
Master bid processes by streamlining the process and ensuring compliance through structured internal reviews
Enhance your executive summaries and communicate with impact
Gain confidence in engaging with procurement professionals during the bid process

Certifications:

CPD: 12 hours for your records
Certificate of completion

Course Content

Day 1Module 1: The proposal as a legal document

Understanding the bidding process and legal implications

Pre-qualification (PQQ’s)/preferred suppliers; Request for Information (RFI); Request for Quotation (RFQ); Invitation to Tender (ITT); Best and Final Offers (BAFO)
Legal considerations:
Confidentiality - Non-Disclosure Agreement/Confidentiality Agreement
Quotation v Invitation to Treat. ‘Subject to contract’
Battle of the forms, Offer and Acceptance. The proposal forming part of the legally binding contract
Offer duration/expiration

Capturing your scope of supply within a legal framework

Clarity of offer
- Clearly defined obligations and ownership of those obligation including ‘dependencies’ on the Customer
- Clearly defined acceptance criteria/measurement mechanism
- Assumptions & Caveats
Exercises - Drafting/reviewing a scope of supply. Peer/Red Team reviewing

Pricing to reflect the allocation of liability/risk

Allocation of liability/risk and reflecting it in pricing:
- Clarity of ownership of liability/risk if obligation not met
- Ensuring price reflects allocation of liability/risk. Quoting subject to own standard terms and conditions or Customer’s terms and conditions
- Liability for ‘fit for purpose’ - Performance specification v Conformance specification
- Exclusions/Indemnities/Disclaimers/Limit of Liabilities
- Managing identified high probability/high impact risks through the contract/solutions not contingency budget
Exercise - Price v Scope/Liability & Risk. Removing ambiguity/passing or reducing liability to enable removal of contingency.

Internal governance process

Purpose and value
‘Go/No Go’/‘Bid/No Bid’ reviews
Proposal and Pricing Approvals/Peer or Red Team Reviewing
Authorised Representatives/Power of Attorney

Module 2: The proposal as a sales document

‘WHY’ first, then ‘What’

‘Start with Why?’ (Simon Sinek) - TED Talk video
Exercise - 5 Whys
Exercise - Applying the same principles of a ‘Performance Specification’ to drafting a proposal. The outcome of a Performance Specification not the input of a Conformance Specification

Understanding your customer’s needs. What is their ‘problem’ that needs solving?

5 Rights of procurement - Quality, Quantity, Place, Time, Price
Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS)/standardised v bespoke/need for innovation, research and development
RAQSCI - Regulation, Availability, Supply Quality Assurance, Service Requirements, Cost and Innovation
10 C’s - Competency, Capacity, Commitment, Control, Cash, Cost, Consistency, Corporate Social Responsibility/Clean, Culture and relationships, and Communication
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/sustainability

Day 2

Understanding your customer’s selection criteria/priorities

Kraljic matrix - customer’s businesses priorities - critical, strategic, tactical or bottle neck

Iron Triangle - Scope, Schedule, Cost

MIL - Must have, Intend to have, Like to have

Exercise - MIL

Winning themes - showcasing/story-telling ‘WHY’ your offering is the Customer’s ‘Best Realistic Alternative’ (BRA)/how it meets your customer’s needs/priorities

Identifying/communicating your Unique Selling Proposition
- Porter’s generic strategies - cost leader, differentiation, niche
- Defining the Value Proposition: unique benefits, measurable value, differentiation/competitive advantage
Rationalising your price. MEAT - Most Economically Advantageous Tender/value for money
Instilling confidence - demonstrating not just stating. Evidencing credentials/capability/credibility
Addressing any negatives past experiences/reviews/issues
Capture the key points in your Executive Summary
- When to write it
- Structuring, style and content to reflect audience
Exercise - Asking leading, open questions of your Customer. PULSE model (Position, Understand, Leverage, Solution, Evolve)
Exercise - Capture information from previous exercise and draft Exec Summary

Offering deviations from requirement set out in RFQ/ITT

Proposing alternative/additional options separately from core offering. Explaining reason for deviation, e.g. value added/benefits of alternative/additional options
Offering a solution which addresses future requirements
- Identifying potential opportunities (SWOT - opportunities) for: increased market share and/or cost savings/value engineering (improvements/efficiencies), and showing how these might be realised
- Addressing potential challenges/risks (SWOT - Threats/STEPPLED - Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, Ethical, Demographics), demonstrating how these will be managed to minimise criticality
Exercise - Drafting subsection of a proposal offering opportunity
Exercise - Drafting subsection of a proposal offering a pro-active risk management contingency plan

Module 3: Writing the proposal to enable easy evaluation

Answering the ‘exam question’/using customer proforma provided in RFQ but still embedding: WHY you; your unique selling points (USPs)/what differentiates you
If no customer proforma, suggested proposal structure.
Complying with bid requirements to avoid elimination, enable easy evaluation/comparison by the customer (‘apples for apples’), demonstrating respect to retain good relations.
Clarity & easy of understanding. 5C’s/7C’s of communication - concise, clear, complete, correct, consistent, coherent, concrete, courteous
Exercise - 5C’s writing skills

Module 4: Managing the bid process

Timing/planning the process to allow Red team/Peer reviewing/Internal governance process complied with
Engaging stakeholders
Selecting and role of bid team members

Course Provider

Ms Catherine Hurst,
Consultant & Trainer ,
Falconbury Ltd

Catherine Hurst is an independent commercial consultant and trainer. She was formerly a Commercial Manager at BAe Systems, following previous contract and commercial roles with GEC and Siemens, and has extensive practical experience of contract management, contract negotiation, commercial risk management and bid management.

She has been providing public training courses and in-house training courses for more than 10 years. Her success is demonstrated by the long standing relationship she has developed with numerous clients, to whom she provides regular repeats of her in-house courses.

Her training clients cross all sectors, including commercial companies, the government sector and charities. She is a highly experienced and a very popular trainer. Her style and manner of training brings the subject matter to life, making it enjoyable and easy to understand for all.