3 Signs of a Good Proof Point

Proof points are one of the most important elements of a technical proposal, because of their ability to quickly give your approach credibility. Referencing some other time you’ve done a certain thing, or incorporating a particular facet of your team’s experience can allay fears and go a long way to convincing an evaluator that your company can get the job done. Despite how important it is to substantiate your claims in the competitive space, proof points are also among the most ignored and misunderstood details of proposal preparation.

Proposals often straddle a fine line between marketing wizardry and technical documentation, so it’s easy to see how people can get swept up in talking about their “unique” or “innovative” solution, even when what they’re offering is neither of those things. This is one of the reasons a strategic use of proof points can be so critical: it adds legitimacy to the claims you’re making, and can help distract from those areas where you might not have the level of detail or technical whiz-bang you’d like.

Is it objective? Can it be verified?

The first question to ask yourself when reviewing a detail you’ve collected is whether it qualifies as subjective (opinion) or objective (fact). Wherever possible, we want to strive for statements of verifiable fact that we can point to as a corroboration of our claims.

Subjective statements usually include a lot of adjectives that describe the state or nature of something—it’s an “innovative” solution and presents “unique” capabilities. The subjective statement falls apart when you try to assess it through any kind of formal measurement. Often these will come from well-meaning program or technical personnel who want you to understand just how well they do their job, and why their way is the best. This is important and helpful, because it shows an engaged staff that wants to contribute in a meaningful way to the proposal. However, where we need to push back as proposal professionals is in the collection of supporting data to backup those claims. We want the practitioners on a contract to tell us how great they are, but we want them to do it in a way that includes evidence. Consider the strength of this statement:

“Our unique solution delivers widgets faster than any other…”

This may, in fact, be an accurate statement. Your firm’s solution might be faster, but does this sentence deliver that information in a way that is verifiable? Does it substantiate the claim with some kind of observable measurement or performance indicator?

In contrast, objective statements are those that describe the performance of contract or other commercial activities, and include numbers, dates, or performance indicators that have been counted, measured, or otherwise validated. This helps us present clear, irrefutable evidence to evaluators that we have been successful undertaking related tasks. To do this, we need to quantify the efficacy, efficiency, and experience of our team or approach, in contrast to the scale, scope, and complexity of the related project(s), and then make a direct comparison to the work in question. Consider a revision of the example sentence above:

“Our unique solution was employed on the [contract], where we produced 100 widgets per hour in support of [agency], and delivered a 20% increase over the previous provider’s pace…”

The difference between these two statements should be clear: the second sample, complete with multiple pieces of objective, verifiable data, presents a clear, compelling version of the contract performance that draws the reader in and makes you understand exactly what happened, and how they performed. It retains the use of the subjective adjectives, but combines them with evidence that makes us understand exactly what it was about their approach that put them over the top.

Can it stand alone?

One way I like to evaluate the efficacy of a proof point is to consider whether it can stand alone as a statement, outside of a proposal, and still be impressive. Taken entirely out of context from the rest of the solution, can you present that information and have an audience go, “Okay, I get it. That’s really good.”

This can be an important distinction for proof points, because evaluators often lack the contract-level institutional knowledge, or even technical background, to fully comprehend the impact of a claim. Stating that you delivered “an innovation” is one thing, but providing a complete description that includes numbers can give a layperson more background and a better understanding of why that’s important or impressive.

Refer back to our previous two examples in the last section. The first sample statement was fairly generic, in that it addressed an innovation but did nothing to contextualize or quantify the value or impact. In the latter sample, we were given a figure, but it was then placed in context as a contrast to competitors’ throughput—this lets it stand alone as a statement, because the evaluator now has an idea of how/why that figure is important. We provided a way to measure the value of producing 100 widgets to somebody who might not realize what an accomplishment that is.

Where do they come from?

It’s not enough to just cite numbers about contract performance; it’s also important that this information come from sources that are trustworthy and, ideally, independently verifiable. That is to say, the evaluator should be able to seek out whether this information is truthful and accurate. It’s unlikely they will (in most cases), but they should at least be able to.

The major benefit of including proof points and objective performance data is that it takes your subjective claims from the realm of “trust us” to “let us show you…”, but if you use data that the reader has no chance of verifying, then you’re relying on them to take your word for it, which defeats the purpose of including the proof in the first place. If at all possible, focus on data that comes from previous contract performance, or that is listed publicly somewhere (as appropriate).

It’s entirely possible that an evaluation board will ask for backup of claims, or for a team to provide a more robust explanation during ENs or discussions, so you want to make sure that the figures you’re using can be backed up with a larger data set. If you’re citing employee retention figures, for example, you want to have the breakdown of start/end dates for staff, and show your attrition, etc… This type of internal proprietary data can easily be manipulated or misrepresented by unscrupulous offerors, and evaluators are well aware of this. For this reason, you want to make sure that you have a well-maintained repository of proposal proof points (sometimes called a “Wall of Truth”) that you can quickly go to for clarity.

Conclusion.

Proof points can make or break your bid by quickly and concisely validating your claims, and giving evaluators peace of mind that you can honestly deliver what you promise. This can be achieved by providing clear, objective, verifiable facts that can be measured and observed, with context to explain their relevance. I strongly encourage everyone working on a proposal to ask themselves whether what they’re saying constitutes a subjective or objective claim, and how they can prove it.