One voice? Not in proposals

One voice?  Only one voice?  Fine at Barry Manilow concerts – get those torchlights waving – but not in proposals.  Not any more.

Don’t let your proposals get ‘tech writer’ syndrome. Things have  moved on… for all your clients and prospects.

People buy from people – we all know that – and all your sales strategy and sales training reflects that message.  So why would you try and homogenise the ‘voice’ coming through your proposals?  Why do some consultants want you to edit out the ‘personality’ from your bids by making every section sound as if written by one person?  Clients don’t only want to hear from one person.  They want to know the team that will be delivering your solution. The team who will be working with them and their people. And you want your proposals to showcase the breadth of knowledge and experience in your team.  Your people don’t all speak with the same voice.  You employ them for their different specialist skills and knowledge.  Increasingly, that needs to come through your proposals.

We know clients want to see more than just one person – it’s why they have started asking for your technical and project managers to come to the presentations so that they see more than your sales patina before they buy…. So recognise this trend!  Let many voices shine through your response. You have your technical or service or commercial experts writing different parts of the proposals, so show the client who they are.  Have a quote box at the opening of the section with some of the wording as a direct quote from the team leader and a photo of them.

No client expects that every part of your bid will be written by the same person so why try and pretend it is?  Let the personality of your business and your team come through your writing.  Don’t have someone take all the style and personality out of your writing to make it conform to some artificial (outdated) stereotype of what a professional bid should look like.

Let your proposals talk to your clients through your writing. One voice? Nowhere near enough….