Page 174 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Writing the Methods Slot 165

◉ Proposals contain both information and persuasion.
◉ Proposals (and their sections and subsections) have beginning, middle, and
ending slots.
◉ When presented with a three-part sequence (i.e., a beginning, middle, and
end), people tend to remember the beginning and ending items much more
than those in the middle.
◉ If you need to be persuasive, as opposed to just informative, your persuasion
should go in the first and last slots.

To sense the importance of the first and last slots, consider a sequence of three
proposal presentations. If you were one of three bidders, you’d want to arrange to
be first or last. As first presenter, you’d have the opportunity to set the tone and
create the standard by which later presenters would be judged. As last presenter,
you’d have the opportunity to make the last (and, you’d hope, a lasting) impres-
sion. The middle presenter risks getting lost in the shuffle, especially in a very
close competition.
I call the beginning and ending slots, where you place your proposal’s persua-
sive content, persuasion slots (P-slots). The opening P-slot explains why something
should be done, and the closing P-slot explains what will result (for example, what
benefit will accrue) from the doing. Persuasion slots always frame or “sandwich”
an information slot, an I-slot, which explains how something will be done.
Now let’s see how PIP works, or should have worked, in my presentation to
Collins and her team. So far, I had filled the information slot, the I-slot, explain-
ing how, in part, I would achieve the project’s objective (Figure 10.2).
Now assume that I had provided a rationale for what I was going to do, explain-
ing why the how should be done. Figure 10.3 shows that rationale along with an
improved I-slot.
How do you feel now, Marcia? Of course, you’re still angry and embarrassed,
because I have still made the crucial mistake of not having discussed this issue
with you before the presentation. But notice how you are less angry, less embar-
rassed. Why? Because I’ve explained why. I gave you a good reason for why I’d do
what I said I’d do. I filled the opening P-slot by providing a rationale.

Slot Explains Expresses Example
An action/ We will work with ABC to update its
I-slot How
activity market forecast.

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FIGURE 10.2 The I-slot and what it does s
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