One Simple Technique To Improve Your Consulting/Freelancing Proposals
You're not writing a technical manual, so use this technique to improve the quality of your proposal writing and increase your persuasion skills.
Most proposal writing is far too dry.
I want to share a quick lesson from the Proposal Mastery course that might really help your business writing skills.
Don’t just write what you plan to do or believe in; write what you won’t do and won’t believe in.
I can’t stress enough the importance of using contrasts when writing proposals.
Compare these two sentences.
“We believe in taking a data-driven approach.”
“We don’t trust anecdotes or folksy wisdom, we trust our data.”
Do you notice how the second sentence feels more powerful?
That’s the power of contrasts.
This is one of the many techniques we cover in the Proposal Mastery course (reg open until Nov 18).
Four Ways Contrasts Improve Your Writing
You should use many contrasts in your proposals (and presentations) to reinforce your argument.
Contrasts help your writing pop by:
Clarifying the message. When you present opposing ideas (e.g., problem vs. solution, current vs. future state), you can explain the gap you’re addressing. This helps the audience understand the logic and importance of what you’re doing. Contrasts really help clarify the unoptimised state vs. the optimised and visualise the impact of your approach.
Hooking the audience. When you describe the pain of the problem vs. the relief, you make your argument more compelling and emotive. If you’re trying to persuade, you should use contrasts.
Making your message memorable: When used effectively, contrasts can make key points more memorable long after the proposal or speech ends. Contrasting ideas or images stick in people’s minds because they create a cognitive 'tension' that draws attention (e.g. “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”)
Persuading your audience: Contrasts create a choice for an audience - but a choice where you can tilt the balance towards the desired option. The "either/or" dynamic makes aligning people with your viewpoints easier.
If you’re not using contrasts, you’re probably missing out to people who are.
Examples Of Contrasts In Practice
Instead of just talking about it, let’s show another example of this in practice.
Let’s compare two paragraphs in a typical proposal.
The first one reads:
"We propose a comprehensive marketing strategy.
This strategy encompasses social media campaigns, content marketing, email marketing, and paid advertising. Our primary goal is to boost brand visibility and engage a wider audience. To achieve this, a dedicated team of specialists will develop and implement tailored content across various platforms. We will continuously monitor and analyze data to refine our approach, ensuring maximum ROI."
We can use contrasts in several places here. But we’ll go with the obvious at the beginning.
“Instead of tackling each project piecemeal and duplicating work, we propose developing a comprehensive marketing strategy”
You don’t need to do it in every sentence, but it helps to sprinkle in some contrasts to reinforce your arguments.
You can use the power of contrasts liberally throughout your proposal to increase the power and logic of what you’re saying. For example, imagine you plan to host a workshop to gather everyone’s feedback.
A better way to say that might be:
“Instead of spending weeks interviewing stakeholders individually, we will host a workshop to gather all the feedback at once”
Another useful technique here is to begin a sentence with a contrast using a term such as ‘However’ or ‘But’ to build engagement.
You can see the power of this below:
Here’s a simple way of thinking about it:
Basic Proposals: Rely solely on straightforward information and explanations. While they convey facts, they usually lack the emotional engagement or persuasive power needed to connect with the audience you want to persuade.
Proposal Mastery: Utilizes contrasts alongside storytelling, emotional appeals, and evidence-based arguments. This combination not only captivates the audience but also makes your case compelling.
You can spend years (and cost yourself thousands of dollars) trying to work these techniques out for yourself, or you can sign up to our Proposal Mastery course beginning on Nov 18.
The course includes:
Step-by-step lessons to improve your proposal writing skills. We have over five hours of content and lessons to learn form.
Interviews with real buyers about what they want to see in proposals. You’re going to learn exactly what they want from a proposal.
Our templates you can use for writing your own proposals. You can download, edit them to suit your needs, and immediately increase your win rate.
See real examples of successful four-, five-, and six-figure proposals we’ve used. Notice how we structure different proposals for different types of projects.
Access detailed agendas with the critical questions to ask clients at every stage of the journey.
Watch me write and rewrite proposals in real-time. I’ll take you step by step through a real proposal I’ve written.
Get personal feedback on your proposals. Please share any section of any proposal at any time and get individual feedback from me.
The introductory fee for this course is $500, and I offer a full refund within the first five weeks if you’re not happy.
The course begins on Nov 18 (but you can access a lot of the content right now!)
I look forward to seeing you on the inside.