Page 298 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Using the Right Voice 289

situations. Every day, you play so many different roles, speak in so many different
voices, that you’re probably not even aware of doing so.
Despite your being relatively different across different situations, you’re rela-
tively the same in similar ones. This consistency within similar situations is
important in many relationships. When someone you thought you knew acts
differently than you would have predicted, you often feel that you didn’t really
know her at all or that you didn’t know her well enough. This change in behavior
might surprise you, and it might even unsettle you.
Consider the common newspaper story of the good husband or boy scout who,
beyond anyone’s prediction, turns out to be a bigamist or mass murderer. Those
events make news because they’re so surprising and unsettling. When you try
to sell to me your proposal, I don’t want any surprises, either. If I come to know
you during our initial meetings as energetic and animated, I’d be surprised by
a proposal that’s leaden and dull. If I know you as analytic and careful, I’d be
surprised if the proposal’s voice were speculative and incautious. Similarly, if you
have established good chemistry and rapport with me but the proposal’s voice
is neutral and generic, I’d probably suspect that your proposal is boilerplate and
thus that your study will be also. So the “you” that you project during the prepro-
posal meetings needs to be the same voice that speaks in the proposal.
Here’s how one of my friends, an experienced consultant named Donald Baker,
strategically adjusted the voice in his proposal to match the image of himself pro-
jected during the client call:

Baker had been trying for about four years to secure business with this poten-
tial client, a leader in the building-materials industry, so when they finally did
need a study done, Baker was the one called in first. And he was the only
one called, apparently because Baker convinced the company president that
the consultant’s firm “wouldn’t scare the daylights out of” the divisional vice
president with whom Baker would be working.
The company’s president was a dynamic, aggressive, Harvard graduate.
Although the proposal was addressed to him, the primary decision maker
was the divisional vice president. Unlike the president, the vice president was
not at all polished. He had worked in the mills all his life, was practical and
direct, and did not wear a jacket to work. The decision was the vice presi-
dent’s because the company was “totally decentralized.” The president had
told Baker that if the vice president said yes, he would say yes (though the
vice president did not know that). Thus, Baker needed to write a proposal
responding to the vice president’s practical sensibilities, but he also wanted
the document to be responsive to the action-oriented president, who had