My Partner and I went to a meeting Wednesday organized by the Capital Region Chapter of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP).  I've mentioned this organization before because it is the leading professional association for best practice in business capture and proposal management.  It's an outstanding organization, particularly if you are involved Federal Government Contracting.

The presentation and discussion topic was win theme(s).  Getting the right win theme(s) is critical to any successful proposal outcome.  I want to share a couple of points about win theme(s) that stand out in my own experience and in the meeting's win theme(s) presentations as well.
First, you need to decide (once the final RFP has been released) on only one or two overarching win themes.  What is the single most compelling (from the perspective of the source selection board) factor about your approach, expressed as key feature(s) and benefit(s), that will discriminate your approach from that of your competition?  Volume or chapter themes should support that message.

Second, you need to remember that, almost all final purchase decisions are "left brain" decisions, made in the brain's emotional centers.  What this means is that your capture lead needs to take sufficient time to fully understand customer bias, in particular the bias' of the source selection board members.  From a business capture perspective, this is more than just identifying customer "hot buttons" and reflects the need for additional and sometimes difficult research.  While competitive analysis is vital, fully understanding customer bias is essential.

If you successfully accomplish both points above, chances are you will have some "killer" win themes.

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