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#323 Part 2 Jon Williams Strategic Proposals Insights
What advice do you have about design, pictures versus text?
Jon’s a writer, and so finds that he often needs to stop himself from simply using phrases like “What are we going to write?”. Because there’s real value in also thinking visually: “What we will draw?”
What pictures could we bring our story to life? And how do we make the customer “the hero of the graphic”? He quotes the example of the common question on quality certification. Which is more compelling: a scanned copy of your ISO9001 certificate, or a diagram of how your quality processes result in better solutions that will reduce the client’s cost of ownership?
If you’re working on a bid that matters, you really need a designer to bring this to life professionally. And not just any designer: you need one who can work at “proposal speed”, against very tight deadlines, being comfortable knowing that changes will keep on happening right up until the last minute.
A question from our community regarding the importance of the executive summary, how important is it and is brevity the key? There is a popular theory that customers ignore the masterpiece and skip to the commercials - how true is this?
The job of executive summary is to “get the audience on your side quickly”. It’s critical to create deep rapport with the evaluators as soon as they start reading. And so you must include an exec summary, whenever the rules allow.
You need the buyers to think from the outset that you are the right partner for them. Grab their attention with relevant headlines. Create empathy, showing you understand their requirements and what they’re trying to achieve. Then you want the readers saying things like:
• “They know what’s needed to do this successfully.”
• “I can see clear reasons why to choose them.”
• “They’re clear on what needs to happen next.”
When reading the rest of the document, the buyers are then reinforcing their decision that you are their best option - rather than looking for reasons to score you down...
If you have found this podcast valuable, please review, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career.
To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.
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By Adrian EvansWhat advice do you have about design, pictures versus text?
Jon’s a writer, and so finds that he often needs to stop himself from simply using phrases like “What are we going to write?”. Because there’s real value in also thinking visually: “What we will draw?”
What pictures could we bring our story to life? And how do we make the customer “the hero of the graphic”? He quotes the example of the common question on quality certification. Which is more compelling: a scanned copy of your ISO9001 certificate, or a diagram of how your quality processes result in better solutions that will reduce the client’s cost of ownership?
If you’re working on a bid that matters, you really need a designer to bring this to life professionally. And not just any designer: you need one who can work at “proposal speed”, against very tight deadlines, being comfortable knowing that changes will keep on happening right up until the last minute.
A question from our community regarding the importance of the executive summary, how important is it and is brevity the key? There is a popular theory that customers ignore the masterpiece and skip to the commercials - how true is this?
The job of executive summary is to “get the audience on your side quickly”. It’s critical to create deep rapport with the evaluators as soon as they start reading. And so you must include an exec summary, whenever the rules allow.
You need the buyers to think from the outset that you are the right partner for them. Grab their attention with relevant headlines. Create empathy, showing you understand their requirements and what they’re trying to achieve. Then you want the readers saying things like:
• “They know what’s needed to do this successfully.”
• “I can see clear reasons why to choose them.”
• “They’re clear on what needs to happen next.”
When reading the rest of the document, the buyers are then reinforcing their decision that you are their best option - rather than looking for reasons to score you down...
If you have found this podcast valuable, please review, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career.
To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.