Writing persuasive and effective customer proposals

As someone who has spent ten years helping people produce high quality, persuasive proposals, and who is frequently asked to do the same to win business for my company, I strongly identify with the results of a recent survey highlighting the level of discomfort experienced by people when ‘writing a document (like a proposal, sales letter or brochure) which is designed to persuade people to buy you, and your products / services.’

However, we all recognise that one of the critical success factors in winning new business and developing existing customers is how effectively and persuasively you articulate (in a proposal or a pitch) your understanding of their requirements, your corresponding solution, and why they should spend their money with you, not someone else. How do we go about this daunting task?

Guiding principals

The purpose of any proposal is to persuade. There is a well known quotation from Cicero, the Roman philosopher who died circa 106 BC which states “If you want to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words”, so the writer must try and get inside the head of the customer to achieve this, or risk failing to ‘persuade’.

Plan before you write

Imagine that you have just seen a prospective customer and they say ‘Sounds great, send me a proposal and I will take it to the board for consideration’. Everything rests on that document and all you have to start with is a blank sheet of paper.

Before you start to write, I would advise a short period of reflection, analysis and planning. APMP (Association of Proposal Management Professionals) research several years ago identified that the primary reason customer’s selected one proposal over another was that they demonstrated the ‘best understanding of the requirement’. So, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the prospective customer’s requirements, making you ideally placed to ‘create’ an aligned solution.

Writing styles

Some people find writing comes naturally, whereas others find it difficult. If you fall into the first group, writing a proposal should not be too difficult, but if you fall into the second, seek help from an experienced colleague. Whichever the case, the language used in proposals should be less formal that contractual legalese, but more formal than emails, being informative and conversational, demonstrating insight into the customer’s business and the issues to be resolved.

Starting to write

Having analysed the prospective customer’s requirements, created an aligned solution, you are ready to start writing; but what, and how?  I would suggest you start by making some bullet point notes covering your answers to the following questions:

1	What is the purpose of your proposal? Tell them why they are reading it.
2	What is the background to your proposal? Tell them what led to it being produced, such as meetings and previous projects / engagements.
3	What is the customer’s business requirement, pain or issue? Focus on them, without mentioning your business.
4	What is the solution that they are looking for to meet this requirement? Once again, it’s about them, not you.
5	What are they looking to achieve from this solution? Talk about outcomes, results, benefits, ROI etc.
6	What is your proposed solution? Tell them who will do what, where, when and how. Keep it short, talk about the alignment of your proposed solution with their requirement.
7	Why should they buy it from you? Only tell them facts that are relevant to their requirements; global reach is irrelevant if the requirement is for their Croydon office.
8	What are the proposed fees, timescales and assumptions? The all important piece, made easier if you know what they are prepared to spend.
9	What will happen next? What is the call to action?

Take these points and expand into sentences and paragraphs. Try to avoid marketing statements at all costs; focusing on their requirements, making them feel that the proposal was specifically written for them. Additional information such as case studies, customer testimonials etc, should be consigned to the appendices and cross-referenced in the main proposal.

Guidelines

There are 10 simple guidelines that will improve the final document and the outcomes:

1	So what? – Test everything you write be asking yourself ‘so what?’ and making sure the answer is relevant to the customer and positive.  If you don’t, they will.
2	Prove it! – Back up any claims you make with facts, figures and/or testimonials.
3	Be brief – Say just enough but never too much – remember, less is more!
4	What do they want hear? – Write what the customer wants to hear, not what you want to write.  Leave your corporate ego at home, and focus on the customer.
5	Make it self-contained – Make sure it stands on its own and needs no verbal explanation, as it may be read by a wide audience.
6	Check it yourself – Find somewhere quiet and read the document out loud; this always highlights mistakes.
7	Get someone else to check it – Spell checker in Word is dangerous, as it checks that the words you have used are spelt correctly, not that they are the right words. For example ‘moth’ and ‘month’ are similar, valid words, but mean very different things.
8	Customer focus – Use replace in Word to replace the customer name with itself, and note the word count, repeating the exercise with your company name, noting the word count again, ensuring that the emphasis is as much if not more on them than you.
9	Test with your customer – If at all possible, ask to test it with your prime contact (without details of fees), prior to final submission, but only if you have a good and trusted relationship. This gives the customer the opportunity to ask for changes without the fear of causing offence. Withholding the fee details prevents the customer from expecting the revised proposal to have the same fee!
10	Deliver by hand – When you are totally satisfied with the final document, make an appointment with the prospective customer and walk them through it, face to face.

Hopefully this short article will have given you enough basic information to start producing better proposal, and win and/or retain more business as a result. If you want more help, please contact the author on +44(0)777 929 7401 or via email at chris@gettogreat.co.uk