Persuasive Business Proposals, 3rd Edition

2 Recognizing Reality

THE BEST WAY TO RECOGNIZE WHAT WORKS IN A sales proposal and what doesn’t is to put yourself in the position of a buyer. Unfortunately, many salespeople and full-time proposal writers never have the chance to review proposals and make business decisions based on them.

So let’s try it. Read the following executive summary—don’t spend more than a few minutes on it—and answer one question: Does it go on the “keeper” pile or does it go on the “discard” pile? That’s the first question your prospects are probably going to ask, because it’s likely that the reviewers are staring at a pile of submissions much larger than they can reasonably handle. So let’s put you in the role of a buyer, too. Let’s say you own a small business called ...