Friedman Williams
Business Development Specialist, Proposals and Presentations Chicago IL
Job ID: 20019
Our client is seeking a Business Development Specialist, Proposals and Presentations to join the Marketing Department in our Chicago office. The Business Development Specialist is responsible for the development of high-quality and competitive proposal responses, pitch decks, and representative experience materials that support attorney business development pursuits and efforts. The position requires an in-office presence in the Chicago office but includes flexibility for some remote work.
The responsibilities of the Business Development Specialist will include:
- Handles all aspects of:
- Responses to RFPs, RFQs, RFIs, and client compliance surveys, from notice to submission, including coordinating with other firm administrative departments and functions.
- Preparing pitch books and qualification statements, including customizing practice group descriptions and industry experience, in both Word and PowerPoint formats.
- The Firm’s legal/financial industry/business directory and league table submissions.
- Prepares responses for client specific survey requests and maintains/updates internal deal/matter lists and statistics
- Monitors competitors and advises on relevant trends and best practices related to proposals, pitches, and other pursuits.
- Ensures newly developed content (experience summaries, biography and statistics updates, etc.) are added to the Firm’s data sources and other relevant marketing materials.
- Serves as primary liaison for online proposal portals (PERSUIT and others).
- Maintains the proposal and pitch log and tracks proposal outcomes.
Minimum Qualifications
Education/Training/Certifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in digital marketing, journalism, communications, or related field.
- Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience preparing proposals, pitch decks, and other business pursuit presentations, preferably in a law firm.
- Must be a self-starter with a high level of initiative and able to operate with limited day-to-day direction and demonstrate excellent independent professional judgment.
- Organized, diligent, effectively manage numerous competing priorities, and follows through with commitments.
- Team-first orientation, ability to work in a diverse team environment and effectively support the demanding needs of the Firm.
- Ability to work under pressure, meet deadlines with shifting priorities.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, able to engage credibly and effectively with all levels of the Firm and outside vendors.
- Strong customer service skills, able to anticipate needs and exercise good judgment.
- Strong attention to detail while multi-tasking projects.
- Exercises solid strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.
- Maintains confidentiality and exercises discretion.
- Committed to following all Firm security protocols and maintaining information security.
Technical Skills:
- Experience analyzing requests for proposal (RFPs) and preparing responses, including experience narrative, pricing, and related disclosures, and using online submission portals.
- Superior writing, editing, proofreading, and visual storytelling skills, maintains consistent brand identity through document templates.
- Proven project management skills.
- Ability to understand, interpret, and translate technical concepts for a variety of audiences.
- Fluency in Microsoft Office products, particularly PowerPoint and Word.
- Good sense of graphic design and layout and comfortable using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.
- Familiarity with proprietary marketing databases such as Foundation or CRM is a plus.