Four Ways to Create a Proposal Story
If you’ve ever read a business proposal (or any business document), you’ve likely been greeted by a dry, no-nonsense document that you dreaded reading. When submitting a proposal to a potential client, the last emotion you want them to experience when looking at your proposal is dread. Instead of creating boilerplate content and checking off boxes, focus on incorporating a story into your proposal that speaks directly to that potential client and their specific needs.
Developing a strong proposal story is a key to making your proposal stand out from the competition. Read on for four ways to create your own proposal story.
1. Identify Storytelling Elements
Storytelling in business writing works the same way as telling any other kind of story. Fortunately for proposals, most elements, such as characters, plot, and setting, are clearly defined. Instead, focus your proposal storytelling on addressing three main elements: setup, conflict, and resolution.
Setup
The Setup aspect of your proposal story is where you set the stage for what life looks like now for the customer. Here you’ll talk about their current process, structure, and systems that they are using. This will vary depending on your exact solution, but think of the setup as the current state.
This section should be included in your cover letter, executive summary, and solution overview/approach. It may be mentioned in other sections as well, depending on how you structure your proposal and your key differentiators.
Conflict
The Conflict portion of your proposal encompasses the triggering events that pushed this customer to begin seeking outside help. To introduce conflict into your proposal, you should touch on key pain points, issues, and challenges that the customer is experiencing due to their current state. You will provide an overview of these challenges in the cover letter, executive summary, and solution overview/approach, but you should also incorporate conflict into other key sections throughout the proposal.
Resolution
The Resolution portion of your proposal allows you to present your company as the “hero” solving the conflicts the customer is experiencing. The best way to introduce the resolution is immediately following any conflict you introduced. For example, if a key challenge with the current state is an approval process that takes 3+ weeks, highlight that your approval process can be completed in 1 week and provide a brief description of how. This positions you as an expert who can solve their challenges and shows that you understand and can overcome existing problems.
2. Invoke an Emotional Response
Contrary to popular belief, businesses don’t purchase based on logic alone. At the end of the day, every procurement committee is made up of a team of people who ultimately decide based on what feels “right”, even if they have detailed evaluation criteria.
By incorporating storytelling into your proposal, you not only make your proposal more engaging, but you inspire the evaluation committee to see what life would be like with your company. Your goal is not to simply submit a compliant proposal that checks all of the boxes. Your goal is to submit a proposal that gives the evaluators hope that life with your company will be much better than working with other vendors or the current state.
Anyone reading your proposal should feel eager and excited to work with your company because of the future that you inspire, not because you’re the smart financial decision or because you scored slightly higher in one area.
3. Expand on Key Themes
If you’re ready to begin incorporating storytelling into your proposals, the way to begin is by expanding on key themes. These themes are the elements that you will highlight in your story in contrast to the conflict.
To create themes, first develop a list of pain points or challenges faced by the customer. Choose the top 3-5, and outline how you solve these challenges. The themes should be high-level, and you will then have supporting points for each of those themes.
For example, if “Fast Delivery” is a theme, then supporting points may be “partnerships with delivery companies, integration of Point-of-Sale system and Fulfillment system, and 2 month inventory in stock.” Each section in your proposal should speak to at least one of your key themes and outline supporting points.
4. Develop Content
After you’ve identified key themes and supporting points, it’s time to begin creating your proposal content. There are a few key ways to make your content easier for reviewing and to truly highlight your proposal story.
Skimmable Content
Most proposals, especially in response to RFPs, quickly become lengthy, text-heavy documents. Many evaluation committees have at least 5 documents to review, and they will appreciate your effort and ingest more of your proposal if you make it easy to skim. You can do this by breaking up content with descriptive headings, making use of bullets wear possible, and bolding, highlighting, or italicizing key points where needed.
Clear Graphics
Including graphics in your proposal also makes the content significantly easier to understand. “A picture is worth a thousand words” certainly applies to proposals. Instead of explaining a complicated process, include a graphic for visualization. Graphics can be used for simple information as well, such as a simple callout describing recent awards your company received. Where possible, graphics should support your proposal story and key themes that you identified.
Simple, Jargon-Free Language
When creating your proposal, avoid using highly technical terms or other jargon that only those in the industry understand. Oftentimes evaluation committees consist of individuals of a few different backgrounds, and the worst thing you can do is alienate half of the committee by creating content they don’t understand. If you must include technical jargon, make sure to briefly describe what it means and its significance. In general, focus on creating content that most people can understand.
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Conclusion
Creating compelling proposals starts with the content, and one of the best ways to do this is with storytelling. With the above tips, you will be able to create a compelling proposal that speaks directly to your potential customer. If you need help incorporating any of these tips, we’re happy to help!
