Page 168 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Writing the Situation and Objectives Slots 159

charts and figures and 8 pt. Myriad Pro for captions. As much as possible, our
color schemes/palette should harmonize with their own. To help reinforce the
good relationships we’ve developed with ABC’s buyers, the document should
be a letter proposal that therefore will allow us to address ABC directly and to
use second-person pronouns.
◉ Given the need to adapt the document to different readers with different atten-
tion spans (e.g., Armstrong on the short end and the detail-oriented Morrison
on the other), we should keep our methods section relatively brief and place
our full-blown methodology in an appendix.
◉ Bottom line: When they read our proposal, we want them to feel as if it’s one of
their own internal documents, as if we and they are partners sharing the same
culture.

In your experience, and to his credit, you believe, Gilmore is the only con-
sultant you know who engages in such strategies. A form of Neuro-Linguistic
Programming, these strategies certainly help him avoid situations where the
buyers expect parchment and the consultants deliver stone tablets.

Writing the Story Component

Before beginning to write the Story Component, you review the Logics Worksheet
that you filled out in Chapter 3, especially Cell 1 (Prospect Profile) and Cell 2
(Prospect’s Current Situation). You also consider the large amount of Story
Component material from your and Gilmore’s notes as well as from the exten-
sive in-house research that you’ve conducted. From these notes and research, you
know, for example:

◉ Industry unit sales have been fairly stable, and total market forecasts indicate
only modest growth.
◉ Despite stable industry sales, demand for ABC’s products has been grow-
ing consistently, with associated (though modest) increases in market share,
because of well-designed, high-quality, and competitively priced products, as
well as good customer service.
◉ Projected demand will soon exceed available capacity.
◉ Lack of adequate manufacturing capacity could certainly stall ABC’s growth.
◉ Geographic shifts in both population and households have changed patterns of
demand and suggest that to maintain or improve customer service some man-
ufacturing capacity should perhaps be located closer to high-growth areas.
◉ Several expansion alternatives have been proposed, though little agreement
exists among ABC’s management.