Taoti Creative is looking a Proposal Writer / Manager to join our agency's business development team!

(Sorry in advance for the long read. But this is your career we’re talking about here! It’s worth the extra detail, right? The right fit is critical for both of our sakes, so please forgive us in advance for the verbosity.

You can view the full description and apply at https://taoti.bamboohr.com/careers/115 )

Now, about the job…

It’s one thing to have the brilliant ideas and technical knowledge to put together a solution for a client. But it’s another thing to be able to write it down and articulate it in a clear, concise, and compelling way. Taoti is looking for a Proposal Manager who can write interesting proposals and manage the submission process. At Taoti, our business development approach is extremely collaborative, so it’s not like we throw an RFP at you, lock you in a dark room, and say, “here, write a response to this.” As our opportunities come in or our team finds them, we evaluate, qualify, and strategize about how to win it. As a team (of which you will be part), we decide which opportunities to pursue and what our big ideas are. That’s where you step up. You borrow bits from old proposals and relevant core language, take ideas from our team, add in your own two cents, and set out to write the world’s best proposal that wins over our soon-to-be client in a manner that aligns with sometimes strict submission requirements.

Please note: This job is for a full-time, W2, in-office position; however, we do employ a hybrid work environment in which you may work remotely about two days per week.

What we're looking for 

• You write unbelievably well and can authentically and appropriately convey our agency tone and voice. We pursue as many government (federal, state and local) opportunities in response to publicly posted RFPs as we respond to inbound leads where the requirements are gathered via email and conversations with potential clients.
• You know how to write compelling copy that stands out, gets attention and portrays Taoti as uniquely qualified to support the needs of potential clients on a specific project as well as their larger strategic goals. 
• You have 2-4 years of proposal writing experience.
• You WANT to write proposals. 
• You know Word inside and out. You’d never dare to format a heading without applying a style. You know how to create dynamic TOCs and brand-aligned staff resumes. You could teach Clippy a thing or three. 
• While you may not be an artist, you know how to make a fine looking document (or ask for help when you need some design input). 
• You’re curious about how we’ve handled specific requirements in the past and instinctively dig into our previous deliverables to highlight our team’s collective expertise when it helps reinforce why we’re an ideal partner.
• You take ownership of our core content library to ensure that contributions in new proposals elevate the quality of how we describe our past performance and our approach.
• You’re collaborative. You’re not afraid to ask teammates questions early in the proposal process about how to tackle a client need.
• You care as much about understanding subtle differences in our approach, technology and deliverables as you do about ensuring proposals are submitted on time. In other words, you come away from each proposal feeling like you understand exactly how the work will be done.
• You take pride in identifying and addressing project risks. This includes creating questions that can help clarify client expectations and writing assumptions that help ensure our price-to-win strategy does not put us at risk of committing to more than the budget can support.

Some typical responsibilities

• Work with the Business Development team to identify and determine opportunities to pursue, including frequent monitoring of multiple RFP sources. 
• Read RFPs and RFIs to help evaluate if Taoti is the right fit for that client. 
• This includes identifying how and why Taoti is an excellent fit, and flagging the “uh ohs” where meeting client expectations might present a challenge.
• Ideate on win themes and strategies on pursued opportunities. 
• Seeking targeted feedback on proposal outlines draft proposals from other team members on technical or creative approaches. In other words, give your busy colleagues things to react to instead of asking them to fill out a blank document. 
• Budget, concept, and write a winning proposal that matches the client’s needs. This usually requires multiple back and forths between the budget, the prose, deliverables and assumptions.
• Socialize the proposal with others, including SME and other senior leaders. 
• Manage the process of reviewing the proposal and submitting it. 
• Making sure the case studies included reflect the most relevant aspects of our work as they relate to the proposal requirements.
• Grab our CRM system (Currently ZohoCRM, possibly a new on in the next year) by the reins and ensure all relevant data is added and up-to-date, including deadlines and “how did they find us?” information.
• Taking a beat after each proposal submission (whether you led it or not) to identify and catalogue the content that needs to live in our core language library.

Tips for getting onto the short list…

• Stand out. When you apply, make an impression.
• As a full-service agency, we do more than our fair share of web development. So, experience with Drupal and/or WordPress is a HUGE plus. So is experience with branding, marketing, video, SEO, analytics, CRM systems and paid media. If you’ve got it, tell us about it!
• Show—don’t tell—us how great you are.
• If you wrote and/or managed large-scale proposals for large, complex projects with multiple service offerings, partners or multi-year commitments, please share an example if possible, or describe your contributions.
• We can tell a lot by the documents someone creates. Doesn’t matter what it is, but we’d love to see some documents you’ve put together.
• Talk to us about your favorite tools.
• Give us some insight into your general Project Management philosophies.
• Tell us why you want to work at Taoti, specifically. And what was wrong with your last gig that makes you want to leave?
• Show us your passion and energy. We like passion and energy.
• As a member of the business development team, we seek competitive colleagues who want to help us win deals that are set up for our colleagues to succeed.

(You can view the full description and apply at https://taoti.bamboohr.com/careers/115 )

Pretty please, no recruiters.