Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2002 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

We’re not professional writers, but we’ve seen a neat writing technique that we’d like to share with you. We think it has real value in your SBIR and STTR proposal writing.

What could this technique be, you ask? Actually, it’s the use of questions in your proposal.

We’ve identified three situations in which questions can be valuable in your proposal. These situations are when you are trying to anticipate a reviewer’s question, when you ask what you wish the reviewer would ask, and when you just want to break up the text a bit. Let’s look at all three situations. Do you think that some examples might be useful? Okay, we’ll include some of those, too.

The first situation in which questions might be used in an SBIR/STTR proposal is when you are trying to anticipate what a reviewer might ask. As a reviewer is going through your proposal, they likely have questions, concerns, doubts, misunderstandings, and a host of similar reactions that you’d just as soon avoid. One way to avoid them is to anticipate these "objections," to use a sales and marketing term, ask them yourself in the text of the proposal, and offer your best answer to that objection.

One reviewer question you might anticipate is the innovation inherent in your project. Therefore, you might write in your proposal "The reader might ask what makes this approach different from what others have tried before. The innovation in our approach is …"

Another reviewer question might pertain to the benefits of your approach versus competing ones. Again, you might write in your proposal "Why does this make our approach better than what commuter train operators currently use? The superiority of our approach comes from …"

Finally, a reviewer might question the adequacy of your team. You could anticipate this by writing "One might question how these individuals compose the perfect team for the proposed project. The answer comes in that…."

The first situation is one in which you are trying to figure out what a reviewer might be asking themselves about your proposal. In this second situation, you are asking the questions that you wish they were asking. The value is that you can help guide their thinking and attitude toward your approach by asking the "right questions."

One example is to help them understand the nuance of your approach. You might write "Why does it matter that Medicare reimbursement codes are already established for this procedure? This is very important in that it increases the chances that our approach will be adopted by physicians and endorsed by insurance companies."

Another example of the type of question you wish they’d ask is about the feasibility issue and measure being used in a Phase I SBIR or STTR proposal. To help guide the reviewer’s thinking along these lines, you might write "How will we measure whether our approach offers a solution to this pressing agricultural problem? We propose to measure feasibility by the degree to which…."

Finally, you can help the reviewer summarize key points in your proposal through the use of a question like "Does our company’s unique blend of experience in cryogenics and technology transfer and commercialization, and our on going relationship with a major manufacturer or cryogenic products make us unequaled in our qualifications to perform this work? We believe it does, especially when the reader also considers that we have …"

Every SBIR/STTR proposal writer runs the risk of boring the reviewer with paragraph after paragraph of text. Yes, graphics can be important in breaking up the text of the proposal, and simple things like indentation, bullets, and double spacing between paragraphs can make the proposal easier to read. But don’t forget about tossing in an occasional question as another way to break up a lot of text.

An example of this would be to write "This might be a good point to pause and ask, in summary, why this problem should be a priority concern of the agency. There are three reasons. First,…."

Note that this not only provides a break, but also allows you to ask what you wish the reviewer would ask themselves, so it also is an example of the second situation in which questions add value to an SBIR or STTR proposal.

We urge you to try adding a question or two to your next SBIR/STTR proposal. After all, what have you got to lose?