Just to be clear, we’re not talking about the down-on-one-knee kind of proposal. Today I’m focusing on that perfect proposal that will win the business.

I was reading an article recently about proposals that really work. Well, I found out that I’m moving in the right direction with the recent changes I’ve made in format and style.

You may have heard that telling a story is much more effective than just stating the facts. This is the main thing I hope you take away today. Tell stories! They worked thousands of years ago and will be a winning strategy for thousands more. It’s just the way our brains process information. It’s not trickery, just the way our cortexes have evolved over millennia.

If you’d like a hand in telling your story, we can help you with our StoryStyle^TM methodology. It’s all about being different in the eyes of the prospect, showing empathy, being a guide and letting them be the hero.

The second-best thing that was in the article is the advice to edit your proposal mercilessly. Unfortunately, you’ll likely spend at least double the time you would have if you didn’t. But it’s a small price to pay compared to the alternative. They touched on a few of the ones below and I added another six.

Here are my 10 suggestions to reduce your embarrassment and greatly improve your chances of winning.

• Have you possibly copied and pasted something, but didn’t take the previous prospect’s name out of the old copy?
• Has spellcheck sabotaged you? Spelling, punctuation, tenses.
• Could you have used fewer biz buzzwords (unless they are the client’s preferred vernacular)?
• Are you consistent in your descriptions of the same things throughout the document?
• Is the information optimally organized?
• Could a narrative be better shared as bullet points?
• Could the opposite be true? If you’re trying to make an emotional point, you might want to back off the stats and talk feelings.
• If you make a claim, can you provide backup proof for that claim?
• Did you include at least one testimonial from a client that went through a similar purchase from you and was ecstatic?
• Could there be a picture/graphic or two to make the piece more eye-catching?

Going forward, consider yourself more of an author than a salesperson. Bring the appropriate style and grace for the audience, but dust it with a little personality and a surprise or two. Encapsulate that in a story and see what happens. Then you can take me to lunch.