Proposal Crutch Words: What They Are and Why You Should Avoid Them

Ashley (Kayes) Floro, CPP APMP • February 16, 2026
Image of a laptop with the title proposal crutch words, what they are and why you should avoid them

We’ve all heard them in conversation—those little verbal fillers that sneak into our speech when we need an extra second to think: umm, like, you know. In everyday dialogue, they may be harmless. In an oral proposal, they’re distracting. And in written proposals? They can be just as damaging.


While most proposal teams train themselves to eliminate crutch words from presentations, far fewer realize those same habits show up on the page. In writing, crutch words don’t sound like hesitation—they read like vagueness. They dilute strong claims, obscure key differentiators, and weaken otherwise compelling content. Instead of reinforcing your value, they clutter it.


In this article, we’ll explore the most common proposal writing crutch words—from imprecise qualifiers to unnecessary adverbs to tired clichés—and share practical strategies for eliminating them. The result? Clearer messaging, sharper positioning, and proposals that make it easier for evaluators to say yes.


What They Are


A crutch word is a word that becomes a filler in conversation or writing, or is used for emphasis, without adding any meaning. You could also call crutch words fluff, filler words, or weasel words. Many of us are familiar with crutch words in speech—those filler words that give us more time to think about our response or next point. Common crutch words we may use when we talk include:


  • umm
  • like
  • er
  • ah
  • right
  • and
  • so
  • anyway
  • okay
  • well
  • like I was saying
  • I guess
  • you know.


In oral proposals, we commonly practice our presentations and questions responses while minimizing these crutch words. This is because crutch words quickly become distracting to the evaluators and detract from our main points.


But did you know that we tend to use crutch words in our proposal writing as well? You may have heard crutch words called by other names—fluff, filler words, or weasel words. However, these all refer to the same bad habit of cluttering and diluting our message. In this week’s blog, I’ll review some common proposal writing crutch words and present some strategies from removing these from your text.


Avoid Words That Indicate Quantity But Lack Precision


Some common crutch words we use in proposals are adjectives, adverbs, nouns, or verbs that indicate quantity or intensity but lack precision. We tend to use these words when we don’t have the exact information readily available, or because we want to add emphasis. However, using these words will only dilute your message, so you should try to avoid using them in your proposal text. Some examples of these common crutch words include:


  • a lot
  • many
  • few
  • several
  • very
  • really
  • extremely
  • nearly
  • almost
  • quite
  • totally
  • slightly


Replace these weak crutch words with actual numbers, metrics, and measurements. For example, instead of: “Our solution saves the Government a lot of money,” specify how much the Government will save: “Our HVAC, lighting, and water system efficiencies reduce the Government’s annual energy costs by $500,000.”


Avoid Unnecessary Adverbs, Which Can Obscure Your Points Rather Than Support Them


Adverbs make up another category of common crutch words. An adverb is a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, another adverb, or a word group. The adverb typically expresses a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. In the professional writing world, adverbs are the hallmark of a lazy writer. What’s more, in proposals, certain adverbs can obscure a point rather than support it, so you should take care to eliminate these unnecessary and problematic adverbs from your proposal writing. Some examples are:


  • truly
  • honestly
  • just
  • almost
  • basically
  • actually
  • definitely
  • literally
  • essentially
  • absolutely
  • seriously
  • obviously
  • certainly
  • probably
  • basically
  • virtually


Similar to imprecise words of magnitude, we tend to use adverbs to add emphasis to our writing. However, using these words can actually dilute, or worse, discredit your message. For example, using “truly” and “honestly” can come across as insincere, or can cause the evaluator to contemplate why you felt the need to emphasize your truthfulness or honestly in this case and not others. So as a rule, you should try to avoid using unnecessary adverbs in your proposal text.


Avoid Clichés, Which Can Make Your Text Seem Trite


A third category of common proposal crutch words are clichés. Clichés are overused words that have lost meaning and/or effectiveness. The word cliché stems from the French word for the sound of a printing plate, which prints the same thing over and over. Clichés tend to become crutch words for us in our proposal writing, yet they add little to no value, often come across as trite, and can even signal to evaluators that you haven’t put much thought into your narrative. Watch out for these words and try to eliminate or reduce your use of them in your proposal text. Examples include:


  • best-in-class
  • industry-leading
  • right-size
  • cutting edge
  • world class
  • raising the bar
  • reinventing the wheel
  • hard and fast
  • last but not least
  • thinking outside the box


Similar to imprecise words and unnecessary adverbs, removing clichés from your proposals will declutter your writing and strengthen your overall message.


Final Thoughts


Proposal writing is certainly an art, and even the best writers find themselves falling into the trap of using crutch words. However, crutch words tend to lack precision, obscure the message, and can come across as trite and even lazy. By knowing your own crutch words, you can search for them in your writing and replace them with more precise and meaningful language. You can also keep a list of common crutch words that your team tends to use. Have your editors search for these crutch words during the editing process and revise the text to eliminate or reduce their use. Reducing or eliminating the use of common crutch words will strengthen the writing, making it clearer and more compelling to the evaluators. This will enable evaluators to focus on and find the content that addresses the evaluation criteria—and help them to score you higher. 


Revised from original article posted on Proposal Reflections.

From Submission to Success: How Lessons Learned Drive Better Proposals

By Ashley (Kayes) Floro, CPP APMP • March 30, 2026
When was the last time your team truly examined why you won—or lost—a proposal? Every submission your team makes, win or lose, contains a roadmap for doing better next time. Yet many organizations treat each proposal as a standalone event, moving quickly from one bid to the next without pausing to reflect on what worked, what didn't, and why. This is a costly mistake. A structured lessons learned program, built into every stage of the business development lifecycle, is one of the most powerful tools a company can use to sharpen its competitive edge. Conducting Lessons Learned Conducting lessons learned after each proposal submission is a critical part of the business development lifecycle. It helps companies understand where they are excelling and where they need to improve. To ensure the experience is fresh in everyone's mind, each member of the proposal team should document their impressions — both positive and negative — within the first week after submission. Sample questions to consider include: Was the proposal development schedule reasonable and realistic? Why or why not? Were there any bottlenecks or major issues? If so, what were they, and how could they be mitigated in the future? Did the team work well together? If not, how could team dynamics have been improved? How effective was communication among the team? What went well? What could have been improved? Did any unexpected problems occur during proposal development? If so, how could they be mitigated going forward? Did the team stay within its B&P budget? If not, what could have been done differently? What worked best during the capture and proposal effort? What areas require improvement? A practical way to gather and analyze this feedback is to send a survey to each team member using an automated tool, which makes it easier to collate and compare responses. After Action Report Once the results are in, the Proposal Manager should review the feedback and prepare an After Action Report that details lessons learned and recommended next steps. This report should be shared with the full proposal team to ensure that insights are carried forward into future efforts. Lessons Learned Session Additionally, after contract award is announced, the team should conduct a formal Lessons Learned Session to document and discuss observations, findings, and conclusions — win or lose. By understanding where the team encountered roadblocks, and where the customer found gaps in the response, the team can address those issues and strengthen both the process and the final product on future efforts. Equally important: identify what the team is doing well and make sure those practices are preserved and repeated. Analyzing Trends and Updating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) Conducting lessons learned after each proposal is valuable, but the benefit compounds when you step back and look at the bigger picture. On an annual basis, review your After Action Reports and lessons learned debriefs as a body of work, and analyze them for recurring themes and patterns. As the year wraps up, whether you follow a corporate fiscal year or the calendar year, ask yourself: What challenges keep surfacing? Where does the team consistently perform well? Sharing these trends with your team creates a culture of transparency and accountability, and helps focus improvement efforts where they matter most. More importantly, translate those findings into action by updating your business development and proposal SOPs. If internal feedback shows the team is consistently scrambling during production, adjust your SOPs to launch the production process earlier. If customer debriefs repeatedly cite a lack of customer understanding, take a hard look at your capture process and strengthen your call plan execution. Continuously refining your processes in response to real data is one of the clearest paths to improved performance—and more wins. Final Thoughts Every organization in this industry wants to win more, and win rates are often cited as the headline measure of a business development organization's health. While they are a useful starting point, win rates alone don't tell the whole story. Too many variables influence any single outcome. What matters more is building the discipline to learn from every effort, regardless of the result. A consistent lessons learned program, paired with annual trend analysis and a willingness to update your processes, creates a feedback loop that makes your team sharper over time. The companies that win consistently aren't just the ones with the best writers or the biggest budgets, they're the ones that treat every proposal, win or lose, as an opportunity to get better.

Six Strategies to Tackle Tight Page Limitations

By Ashley (Kayes) Floro, CPP APMP • March 25, 2026
Tight page limitations are continuing to be a challenge as contracting officers streamline their acquisition processes. When faced with tight page restrictions, we often find ourselves struggling with trimming five pages of material into two pages of allocated space. However, sometimes the content we are working with is so long because it is simply overly wordy. In this article, I present six tricks for eliminating waste. 1. Use Active Voice With active voice, the subject of the sentence comes first and performs the action in the sentence. Active voice is more straightforward and concise than passive voice. It typically results in shorter, sharper sentences. So not only does it take up less real estate, it flows better and is easier to understand. Passive: It was decided by the Program Manager to streamline the program. Active, Strong Verb: The Program Manager streamlined the program. 2. Eliminate Redundancies Remove redundancies that take up extra space and don’t add value. I present some examples below.
icons demonstrating how to write clearly

Write Clearly: Why “More” Isn’t Always Better

By Ashley (Kayes) Floro, CPP APMP • March 23, 2026
In the world of proposal development, there’s a persistent misconception that longer writing signals deeper thinking. Teams sometimes feel pressure to fill pages, add more qualifiers, or expand explanations in hopes that additional words will make their message more persuasive. However, the opposite is often true. Clear writing is powerful because it makes it easy for the reader to understand, evaluate, and remember your message. The goal should be clarity, not volume. The most effective writers know that concise, direct language carries more impact than dense paragraphs and complicated phrasing. In this article, we present seven practical tips to help you write more clearly and effectively. 1. Break Up Long Sentences and Paragraphs Long sentences are one of the most common causes of unclear writing. When a sentence stretches beyond 25–30 words, it is easy for readers to lose track of the main point. Instead of packing multiple ideas into a single sentence, break them into shorter, focused statements. Each sentence should communicate one main idea. Example Less clear: Our team will implement a comprehensive data management framework designed to enhance reporting capabilities while also improving accessibility for users across multiple departments. Clearer: Our team will implement a comprehensive data management framework. This approach improves reporting and makes data more accessible across departments. Shorter sentences reduce cognitive load and help readers absorb information quickly. Similarly, large blocks of text can overwhelm readers. Each paragraph should focus on a single idea or topic. If a paragraph begins to cover multiple points, consider splitting it. Shorter paragraphs make it easier for readers to scan and process information. 2. Avoid Nominalizations Nominalizations occur when verbs are turned into nouns, often ending in -tion, -ment, or -ance. While they are sometimes necessary, they can make writing more abstract and wordier. Whenever possible, convert nominalizations back into strong verbs. Example Wordy: The implementation of the solution will result in the improvement of operational efficiency. Clearer: Implementing the solution will improve operational efficiency. Strong verbs make writing more direct and easier to understand. 3. Choose Strong, Specific Verbs Weak verbs like make, do, provide, conduct, or perform typically require additional words to explain what is happening. Strong verbs communicate action more clearly and concisely. Example Weak: Our team will conduct an analysis of system performance. Stronger: Our team will analyze system performance. Replacing weak verb phrases with precise verbs makes writing sharper and more confident. 4. Remove Unnecessary Words Many phrases in proposal writing add length without adding meaning. Words like very, really, quite, and in order to clutter your sentences. Look for opportunities to tighten phrasing. Examples In order to → To Due to the fact that → Because At this point in time → Now The goal isn’t to eliminate detail, it’s to eliminate filler. 5. Use Active Voice When Possible Active voice makes it clear who is responsible for an action and typically produces shorter sentences. Passive voice can be useful in certain situations, but overuse can make writing vague and indirect. Example Passive: The report will be completed by the team next week. Active: The team will complete the report next week. Active voice improves clarity and accountability. 6. Use Lists When Appropriate When presenting multiple related items—steps, benefits, features, or requirements—lists can improve readability. Lists allow readers to quickly understand key points without digging through dense paragraphs. They also highlight structure and make complex information easier to follow. Final Thoughts When readers can quickly understand your message, they are far more likely to absorb your ideas and act on them. Remember: strong writing isn’t measured by how many words you use. It’s measured by how clearly those words communicate your message.