Begin your sentences with human subjects

You tell stories through characters and their actions. Because proposals are action-oriented documents, you should try to use human subjects whenever possible. Your proposals need to actively express how you perform for customers, because they pay you for results.

Check out this next sentence:

Design decisions were made to human factors specifications.

Who is doing what? No actor is named. The verb indicates vague actions. And don’t get us started about unravelling that ending cluster of nouns.

Try this for size instead:

Our engineers design our products to work as you do.

Now you have a human subject — an actor who performs a significant action for your customer’s benefit. It’s more direct and more personal, so it’s more meaningful. And it’s worth paying for.

Put sentence parts in the right order

To keep your actors’ roles clear and their actions plain, write mainly using an active voice. You learned how to talk using your active voice. It’s the sentence structure of stories: subject–verb–object (s–v–o). Sentences in active voice position the person doing the action as the subject and place the main action in the verb (the “doing” word), followed by the object or the thing changed by the action.

Here are some examples of the s–v–o sentence structure in action:

• A boy meets a girl.
• The parents size up the boy.
• The girl defends the boy.
• The parents ask, “Where did we go wrong?”

In passive voice sentences, you get the reverse: The subject is the goal of the action, and the action is partially diluted because it’s coupled with helper verbs like is, are, was, or were. If the writer bothers to name the main actor, it’s usually the object in a prepositional phrase starting with by:

• The girl was met (by the boy).
• The boy is sized up (by the parents).

You get the picture.

Passive voice is the style of science and technology, where objectivity is a main concern. Although passive voice doesn’t necessarily mean that a writer is being objective, in a proposal it can mean three things, none of which are good for winning a bid:

• You don’t know who the “actor” is (not a good thing when talking about what you’re going to do for your customer).
• The reader doesn’t care about the actor (usually that’s you, and again, not a good thing).
• You’re trying to avoid blame (not a great way of winning customers).

Okay, passive voice is good for one thing in a proposal. Used judiciously, it can help your paragraphs flow and stay on topic (it’s all about keeping your topic consistently in the subjects of your sentences). More about that in the upcoming section “Bond your sentences into coherent paragraphs.”

How can you tell when a sentence is in the passive voice? The easiest way is to have your word processor’s grammar checker look for it. Check the grammar and writing style options in your word-processing software and make sure the function to look for passive voice is turned on.

Never rely solely on grammar checkers. They still miss a lot, and passive voice isn’t hard to spot. Look for three things:

• A past participle form of a verb (usually ending in -ed)
• A to be verb (is, am, are, was, were, be, and being)
• A prepositional phrase beginning with by (whose object is the true actor)

Here’s a sentence in passive voice:

The inspection of the facility was conducted by the security team.

Note the to be verb was. Then notice the past participle form of the main verb conducted. Usually, that’s enough to denote a passive sentence. Yet the third sign is also present: the by phrase (by the security team).

Now, check out the active voice version:

The security team inspected the facility.

Not only is this version in active voice, but it also turns the sentence back into a story: people doing something. And better still, the shortened sentence doesn’t lose meaning; in fact, it makes the meaning clearer.

Note: The verb inspected is in the past tense, which is perfectly okay (you can still express active voice in the past tense). The past participle form of the verb is the same as the past tense form and is an indicator of passive voice when it’s coupled with the to be verb. If English grammar is your Kryptonite, check out English Grammar For Dummies, by Geraldine Woods (Wiley). Or if you really want to dive deep, we recommend Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb’s Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (University of Chicago Press).

Many technically inclined people tend to write in passive voice. They may have picked this up in engineering classes, where the people doing the thing are less important than the thing itself. But this is business, and business is all about people doing things for other people. So make your proposals about people helping people and avoid the passive voice (unless you really need to use it).

Put action in verbs

Because action drives all but the dullest of stories, use strong, active verbs to avoid abstractions. Technical content often hides complex actions in the form of nominalizations, or verbs and adjectives that have been converted to nouns. Nominalizations represent very abstract concepts — implementation, industrialization, and even nominalization itself, to name a few.

Why do nominalizations exist? Nominalizations help subject experts reduce the number of words they need to convey a complex concept. They work great when subject experts are writing to other subject experts in their field. They don’t work so well when they’re writing to people without their expertise: You know, the people who make decisions about proposals. And here’s the paradox: You want to write concisely in proposals, but you have to be clear. Nominalizations can reduce word counts, but they also make content harder to understand.

Most nominalizations end in the suffixes -tion or -sion, but they don’t have to. They can also end in -ary, -ery, and -ment, to name a few.

Check out the nominalization in the passive-voice sentence in the preceding section. The main verb is inspect. The original sentence used that great, action-oriented verb as a noun — inspection. Look at how many more words it takes to finish the sentence after turning the main verb into an abstract noun. First, you have to add a new verb (two, actually) for the sentence to be grammatical: was conducted. And what good does the empty verb conducted do for the meaning? None, except maybe it formalizes the tone or makes the idea sound grand. You then have to get the actor in there (or the sentence would be worthlessly vague), so you have to create a prepositional phrase to explain who conducted the investigation (by the security team). Eleven words in total when six would do!

Check out this sentence:

We increase engagement and prevention by implementation of the survey, which enables outreach and increases utilization.

Wow, talk about abstract. Whose engagement? Prevention of what? To whom is the outreach pointed? Utilization of what? It may be easier to start at the end and work backward to figure this one out, first turning the abstract nouns back into verbs and then figuring out what other words they relate to:

• Utilization = utilize = use (simpler). Use what? You have to uncover a few clues before you can tell.
• Outreach = reach out. This is an insidious nominalization — it doesn’t end in the usual suffixes — but it’s still a verb posing as a noun. Something allows you to reach out. Looks like it’s the survey.
• Implementation = implement. You implement a survey. Shouldn’t that come first? You implement a survey to do what? To reach out to someone who isn’t named. For example, maybe it’s some people for whom you provide health insurance. Now you’re getting somewhere.

• Engagement = engage. Another sinister nominalization — this one ends in -ment. Who’s engaged? The insured? Is that the right word? Engagement can mean participation. Maybe the survey increases participation in the insurance program (that’s a nominalization you may be able to use because most people know what it means).

  Now you can see that utilization and engagement refer to the same thing. So you need only one of them.

• Prevention = prevent. What does the survey prevent? What does the insurance prevent? Can you assume that this word refers to preventing disease?

So what does that leave you with?

By implementing the survey, we increase program participation, which helps prevent employee health problems.

Now we have an actor (we), and we can clearly identify the cause (implementing the survey), the effect (increase program participation), and the after-effect (prevent employee health problems). Readers can follow the story line more easily when we turn abstract ideas into more concrete actions. And though the passage is not much shorter than the original, it’s definitely clearer.

Unfortunately, business and technical content can be full of these abstract nouns. Sometimes writers string them together without words between them, making them even more difficult to decipher. We consider these noun stacks in the later section “Writing concisely.”

Eliminating all nominalizations in proposals is probably neither possible nor desirable. Specialists in all fields use nominalizations to label complex concepts that would take many words to explain, and if you’re writing to specialists, they already understand the concepts. The problem arises when you’re not writing to specialists.

If you’ve taken the time to explain an abstract concept to a non-specialist audience, you can use a nominalization subsequently to refer to that concept, reduce your word count, and still be clear. For example, using a nominalization to refer to a process you recently described in detail (an implementation process) or a concept that is already understood and accepted by your audience (participation perhaps) achieves the original purpose of any abstract noun — to reduce the number of words needed to convey a concept. Because the nominalization has been explained before or its concept is common knowledge, it works.

So what’s the takeaway about nominalizations? If your reader understands the concept, use the nominalization. If not, turn the concept into a more concrete action and outcome. After you’ve explained it, you can use the nominalization later to refer back to your explanation. You know, tell a little story about it.

To avoid nominalizations, you look for the action verb behind nouns that end in -tion and -sion. These aren’t the only suffixes that nominalize verbs and adjectives, but they’re a great place to start your search. For additional endings and tips for finding and converting nominalizations, see the activating nominalizations guide we provide online (via the appendix).

Choose simple words

Just as you’d do in conversation, opt for briefer, more common words when you won’t compromise your meaning. The following two sentences mean the same thing, but the second one, which uses shorter words, is easier to read and understand:

• We utilize regenerators to provide essential amplification of signals between nodes of a dedicated ring.
• We use regenerators to strengthen the signals between the nodes of a dedicated ring.

You’d probably say this the second way in conversation. The meaning stays the same, but the text is shorter and more direct, which makes for a winning way of writing.

Avoid technical and industry terms

Use jargon only when it’s clearly to your advantage to do so. Technical or professional jargon demonstrates mastery of a subject and gains a technical reader’s trust, but, because a proposal is usually evaluated by people with different degrees of technical knowledge, be sure to define any necessary jargon you use either right after you first use the term or by including a link to a glossary definition. A better approach is to use nontechnical language unless you’re writing only to technical experts.

Check out this example of content perhaps too technical for a non-expert audience:

We proactively monitor our network to guard against a wide range of security threats, including viruses, botnets, worms, distributed denial of service attacks, spam, and other harmful activity.

This passage is perfectly clear to a Wi-Fi expert, but a lesser informed audience may benefit from a few adjustments:

We monitor our network to prevent security threats from viruses and other malicious attacks that try to overload your system with spam or other data.

Beware of acronyms, too. They’re the shorthand of technical and industry experts, who instantly translate the often cryptic abbreviations into valuable nuggets of information. Novices or people outside the industry won’t understand or, worse, may attach the acronym to another meaning. How bad can it get? The website www.acronymfinder.com lists at least 130 meanings for ATM!

Use personal pronouns

Business communications are increasingly less formal. Instead of keeping your customer at arm’s length, build intimacy by using personal pronouns and direct address. Using third-person pronouns and collective nouns (for instance, ABC Company instead of we or us and customer instead of you) puts a distance between you and your reader yet implies no greater degree of objectivity.

Using the second-person pronoun to address your readers directly is sometimes called the “you attitude.” You write just as if you’re having a one-on-one conversation. Not only does this approach build on your existing relationship with your reader, but it also reduces the number of words you need and helps you avoid the passive voice.

Tighten your talk with contractions

Along with direct address, use contractions whenever possible to help create an informal, friendly tone. Don’t use them if you’re writing to someone you don’t know or to someone you know is more traditional. Avoid them, too, if you want to create a tone of academic objectivity. But if you want a familiar, personal tone to your proposal — if you’re writing on behalf of a salesperson with a long relationship with the customer — contractions can help you mimic spoken English.

Punctuate with punch

To further engage your readers as you write, use a variety of punctuation marks. Although punctuation is more cut-and-dried than style, the examples in this section show you how punctuation can bring emphasis and cohesion to your content.

The colon (:) and em dash (—) are both great tools for emphasizing the importance of any content that follows them in a sentence. Use them after complete sentences to point to a single word, a list, another complete sentence, or a series of complete sentences.

How do you choose between the colon and the em dash? Use the dash when your tone is informal; use the colon for a more formal look and tone. For example:

• Formal: We detected problems in the following areas: accounts receivable, accounts payable, and debit entries.
• Informal: We found serious problems — in both accounts receivable and payable and in debit entries.

Semicolons help to join two or more independent clauses when you want to show that they’re closely related without having to overtly state that they are.

Consider these alternatives:

• Less related: The new console has more features. However, the new console does require a separate power supply.
• More related: The new console has more features; however, it requires a separate power supply.

Bond your sentences into coherent paragraphs

Readers lose their way in paragraphs for two main reasons:

• They receive new information before they know how it relates to the information that they already know.
• They lose track of the main topic of the paragraph because the subjects of each sentence are inconsistent.

You can improve the cohesion of your paragraphs by placing new information after old information. This allows you to build on what your reader has just read and to use this knowledge as a springboard to the next round of new information.

Notice how the second and third sentences in this paragraph begin with an idea unsaid in the preceding sentences:

You want to be the best wireless company in the world. To achieve consistently high levels of customer service, your network must perform reliably. We use two redundant management stations that work simultaneously to achieve overall wireless system reliability.

To create a more cohesive paragraph, simply start the second and third paragraphs with “old” information:

You want to be the best wireless company in the world. To be the best, you must delight your customers every time they make a call. To achieve overall wireless system reliability, we use two redundant management stations that work simultaneously to eliminate dropped calls.

You can keep your readers aligned with your paragraph topic by referring to that topic in the subject of each sentence you write.

Notice how this short paragraph seems to hop from subject to subject:

Your monthly selections should arrive via ground shipping within two business days after we ship. The delivery company will send a tracking number upon picking up the shipment from the winery. Notify us immediately if your selections fail to arrive within the allotted time.

By making the subjects of each sentence the main topic (the monthly selections), you create a paragraph that truly seems to be about one thing:

Your monthly selections should arrive via ground shipping within two business days after we ship. When your selections leave the winery, the delivery company will send you a tracking number. If the selections fail to arrive within the allotted time, notify us immediately.

One last technique: Tie your sentences to others using transitions (words, phrases, and sentences that connect one idea or sentence to another). Transitions specify relationships of time, cause and effect, space, addition, comparison, and contrast.

A transition after the verb weakens the effect of the transition and sounds awkward, as in the following example:

The programmers failed to validate the findings with usability testers. Management asked the team lead to retest the routine as a result.

Always place transitions at or near the beginning of a sentence:

The programmers failed to validate the findings with usability testers. As a result, management asked the team lead to retest the routine.

Getting to the point

Clear writing informs readers quickly and unmistakably why they need to read what you’ve written. State your main idea upfront and make sure everything else in the unit — whether it’s a chapter, section, or a paragraph — relates to that main idea. Do the same in your transmittal letter and executive summary; do the same when you introduce each section of your proposal.

When you write, every paragraph you write needs to be about one idea — it should have a topic sentence, and the rest of the paragraph should comment on that one idea. This is sound advice for most writing, but in proposals you need to think beyond this.

You need a way to state your main idea (or your response to the customer’s question), provide proof to support it, and then imprint it onto the evaluators’ brain.

Two American professors in English language, Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb, studied the characteristics of effective technical paragraphs and uncovered a model that we think is perfect for proposals. They referred to it in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (University of Chicago Press) as the issue/discussion/point pattern. Here’s how you do it:

1. In the first sentence, state your sole topic.

   Answer the customer’s question directly. Here’s a simple model for doing this:

   • “We provide [whatever] because [why].”

2. In the next few sentences, support your topic with comments.

   Comments are the “proofs” in your proposals, and they should relate only to the topic you stated in Step 1 (that is, sentence one). Be complete but brief: The more comments you make, the more likely your reader will lose your thread.

   To provide proofs, you may use

   • Examples
   • Explanations
   • Illustrations
   • Specifications
   • Testimonials

3. Close the paragraph with a point statement.

   In the final sentence, remind your readers why this topic is important to them. Reinforce your win themes (refer to Chapter 2 for more on win themes), differentiate your solution, or echo your main idea and how this particular aspect relates to it.

This logical model inspired our four-part RFP question-response model, which we discuss in Chapters 9 and 13. You can also access additional information online via the appendix.

Unpacking long, dense paragraphs

Shorter paragraphs are easier to read. Shorter paragraphs read like dialogue and reinforce a conversational tone, especially in nontechnical sections of a proposal. Even in-depth responses can be more reader-friendly if you write shorter paragraphs based on the various levels of ideas that you need to present.

The issue/discussion/point structure (introduced in the preceding section) supports a short paragraph strategy and makes it easier for your reader to follow your line of argument. You may even separate the point statement from the main paragraph to make the paragraph shorter and the point more emphatic.

Check out this packed paragraph:

We approach projects of this scope through a defined program management process. In the initial phase, the ABC Company team identifies the processes and tools required to implement and validate the project. We then systematically develop a resource plan and road map to maximize the potential for success through end-to-end management of the deployment and the associated processes and tools. As a result, you have the defined strategy and experienced resources to help ensure a successful implementation.

You can make the main idea easier to follow while emphasizing the key takeaway by breaking the paragraph into smaller units (in this case, creating bullet points and then separating the point statement from the body of the paragraph):

• We approach projects of this scope through a defined program management process.
  • Phase 1: Our team identifies the processes and tools we need to implement and validate the project.
  • Phase 2: We develop a resource plan and road map to ensure that we control the deployment of the associated processes and tools.
• Because we follow this two-phased approach, you have the defined strategy and experienced resources to help ensure a successful implementation.

Separating the paragraph elements makes the content jump out to readers. They get the issue in sentence one, understand the details from the middle two sentences (now highlighted in a bulleted list), and can quickly confirm what you want them to take away from the passage.

Unpacking noun stacks

Watch out for long strings of nouns in succession, or noun stacks. When you use two or more nouns to modify another noun, you often force readers to read the string several times to understand which is the main noun and which of the other nouns modify it. Although they’re succinct (engineers love them for that), noun stacks create ambiguity and slow down readers.

Here’s a challenging noun stack in an otherwise easy-to-understand sentence:

Our solution applies smart population health maintenance analytics to focus our resources where they do the most good.

Sometimes you can get to the gist of a difficult statement by starting at the end and working backward (as you see in the earlier section “Put action in verbs”). At the end of this stack, you have a nominalization: analytics (analyze). What are you analyzing? Another nominalization: maintenance (maintain). What are you maintaining? Health. For whom? Another nominalization but an understandable one: population. But population of what? In this case, employees.

Unpacking this noun stack yields this idea:

For our solution, we analyze statistics showing how well your employees maintain their health, so we support those who need us the most.

Still not perfect, but at least you have an idea of what’s going on!

Avoiding empty redundancies

To write tight, use only the words that your readers need. Respect your readers’ time by eliminating redundant and unnecessary words. Redundancy occurs when you use words or phrases that unnecessarily repeat the meaning of other words in the sentence.

Here’s a terrible example:

This new routine completely eliminates all errors for a true and accurate count.

When you eliminate something, you get rid of all of it. An accurate account is, by nature, true. So you can rewrite the sentence without losing any of the meaning to read:

This new routine eliminates errors for an accurate count.

Wordy phrases add girth to writing with no added value, and with proposals, that can be the difference between meeting page counts and not.

Using concrete images and precise measures

Proposals are a genre of technical communication, and technical writing must be precise. Proposals are also persuasive documents, largely based on logic. Logic depends on concrete proofs, so use exact amounts and measures over indefinite amounts like some, many, or few.

Applying technical terms consistently

Your readers get confused when you use a synonym or alternative word when referring to technical concepts, providing instructions, or describing equipment.

To minimize frustration or the chance of misinterpretation, create a style sheet (Chapter 6 has more information; check out the link in the appendix for a sample) and list all the technical terms that you’ll use in your proposal. Refer to the style sheet often, and share it with all your contributors.

Staying positive

Whenever possible, tell your readers what something is rather than what it’s not. Readers comprehend positive statements faster and more easily than negative statements. If you place several negative statements within a sentence or paragraph, your readers may struggle to comprehend. They’ll most definitely have to slow down and reread the passage until they untangle the action.

Writing informative headings

Knowing that your readers scan, skim, and screen your proposals, write headings that describe the contents of every section and subsection. Consider two guidelines as you write headings:

• Avoid single-word headings. Structure-based headings (for example, Current situation and Recommendation) are too vague to keep your busy reader from having to read every word that follows. Say something about the current situation that shows you truly understand it.

• Use a parallel grammatical structure for headings within a hierarchical level. This means that you form each heading by using the same grammatical pattern, such as a verb phrase, a noun phrase, or even a full sentence. Using parallel patterns for each level of heading is a subtle way to let readers know where they are in your proposal.

  Three strong options for proposal headings include

  • Questions: Question headings are perfect for proposals, because you’re just answering readers’ questions anyway. End these headings in a question mark (the only time you should punctuate headings).
  • Appositives: An appositive is a noun (sometimes more than one) followed immediately by words that explain it or rename it to clarify its meaning. This style is a great way to keep structure-based headings and still elaborate on them. Use a colon between the structural element and the description, as in Current situation: Your network under attack.
  • Gerund phrases: Gerunds are verbs used as nouns. They end in the suffix -ing. They name actions, and you see plenty of them in this book, because the For Dummies heading style is to use gerund phrases (for example, this section is titled “Writing informative headings”).

You can choose from many other heading styles as well: noun phrases, clauses, even complete sentences. All are better than single-word headings. Keep the styles consistent by heading level so your reader can follow the structure of your proposal from table of contents to conclusion.

Check out the later section “Using Headings to Guide the Reader through Your Proposal” to find out more about headings.

Using numbered and bulleted lists

Numbered and bulleted lists are easy ways to open up your documents for easy reading and absorption. Consider these ideas for using such lists effectively:

• Build numbered lists to highlight items in a sequence. Use numbered lists for procedures, step-by-step instructions, and references to numbered components.

• Develop bulleted lists to highlight components or elements when no sequential order is evident.

  For emphasis, place your most important bullet list items in the first, second, or last positions.

• Use hanging indents. Wrapping text around the bullet or number reduces the eye’s ability to separate the items in the list.
• Limit the number of items in your lists. Limit lists to three to seven items (and aim for the lower number). If you have more items to display and can’t exclude any, group them into labelled categories (again sticking to three to seven items per grouping) and use them as substeps.

Transitioning smoothly between sections and chapters

Just as readers can get lost within paragraphs, they can easily lose the thread of your message as the pages pile up. To help your readers overcome section and chapter breaks, use visual and verbal transitions that echo your value proposition or key discriminators while promising great value to come.

Have you ever listened to talk radio? If so, you can think of these transitions as being like the brief teasers that the announcers use to entice listeners to keep listening through an upcoming commercial break. These snippets are known as packaging. Instead of saying, “We’ll be right back,” they plant a little seed to entice listeners to stay tuned for what’s to come.

You can use a similar technique to gently push your readers into the next section of your proposal. Use transitions at the end of the current situation section to restate an overall need and set up the promise of the solution section. Push your reader out of the pricing section to your experience section by setting up your staffing plan or past performance as valuable benefits that more than justify the price.

Consider setting these transitions apart from the body text at the bottom of the last page in a section, allowing any remaining white space to push the reader’s eyes to the transitioning message. You can also make the transitions visual, using an icon to lead into the message or a mini sidebar in a shaded box.

On the flipside, provide a “landing pad” for your transitions as you introduce the section that follows. Pick up the message from the prior page and close out the thought, using a technique such as one of the following:

• Use cause/effect and comparison/contrast transitions that relate to the transition message from the preceding section.
• Pull in takeaways from the preceding section that pertain to the new section’s line of thought.
• Preview the new section’s structure by indicating how it’s parallel to that of the preceding section.
• Recap prior conclusions.
• Recast the themes that you established in your executive summary in relation to the purpose of the new section.

Analyzing your readers

How do you know what your readers need if you’ve never met them? How do you know what words to use when you’ve never heard your readers talk? What if you’re a lone proposal writer back at the main office, and your only connection with your readers is the salesperson or service rep who supports them?

You start by posing a few questions to the people who know your readers best:

• What roles do the readers play in the customer’s operation?
• What are the readers’ levels of technical expertise?
• How urgent is the need for a solution in each of the readers’ minds?
• How does this proposal affect the readers personally and professionally?
• How do these readers like to receive information?
• How do these readers make decisions?
• What special expectations do the readers have?

Aim for specific answers to each of these questions. If you don’t get the details you need (such as, what is at stake professionally for each of your readers), you may need to probe deeper. You can’t persuade people when you don’t know what makes them tick.

If your sales reps haven’t met your customer yet, try to persuade your organization to hold off bidding until they do.

Making assumptions about your audience

Some proposal experts go to extraordinary lengths to analyze their audiences. They project roles like decision maker, influencer, advocate, expert, and adversary, and create personas for each. The truth is, all these roles are possible, even likely, in every multi-evaluator situation.

Be specific: Ask your customer-facing contacts who will evaluate, who will influence, and who will decide, and build your approach accordingly:

• If your decision maker is an executive, above all, be brief. State your recommendation at the beginning of your executive summary. Avoid technical terms, and reference the customer’s vision and goals as opposed to specific technical problems.
• If your decision maker is a middle manager, focus on how the solution will work in the business (a “day-in-the-life scenario, present and future,” is a great technique for this reader because it shows exactly how the solution will affect their team as they go about their daily business). Define all technical terms. Speak of processes and outputs.
• If your decision maker is a technical expert, use technical terms but still apply the techniques of clear writing we discuss earlier in this chapter in the section “Writing Clearly.” Even technical readers appreciate a clear, direct style (although they tend to talk and write using jargon and noun stacks!).
• If your decision maker is a financial expert, get to the point as you would with an executive and avoid technical terms, but be sure to use terms that illustrate the financial value of your solution.

Should you be writing to all these reader types, write to the least expert reader. You will affirm what the experts already know and you won’t alienate the executive or manager who is more focused on business operations.

Establishing the validity of your proposal by using logic

In proposals, you state claims and provide proofs to support them. This is the most intellectually satisfying of persuasive techniques. The more objective your proofs are, the more compelling your argument is.

Proofs take many forms, ranging from the definitive …

• Technical specifications and standards
• Test results
• Certifications

… to the more anecdotal:

• Evidence of past performance
• Testimonies of satisfied customers
• Citations of awards and recognitions

To persuade, you must follow every claim with a proof and show how that proof applies in your reader’s world.

For more on the logical approach, refer to Chapter 7, where we talk more about the importance of proofs.

Appealing to the emotions of your audience

If you truly understand your readers, you know that they’re people of passion as well as of intellect. People — although some don’t like to admit it — make decisions based as much on emotion as on logic. A time-tested persuasive technique is to express how inaction or the wrong action can jeopardize your reader’s wellbeing. This is known as the FUD Factor (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

Storytelling techniques can be of great value in a proposal (refer to the earlier section “Telling stories to your customers” for more on this). Telling a story about what may cause an outage or interruption to your reader’s business is a great way to bring an acute awareness to a problem and its potential consequences — and a way to bring urgency to a decision.

Another technique for eliciting an emotional response from readers is to use vividly descriptive language. Bring vividness by using the following:

• Common words over their formal equivalents: Listen closely to the words your customers use when describing their problems. Rather than a lot of formal and technical terms, you likely hear words that express the pain behind the technical issues. Repeat these words in your proposals. The more emotion they carry, the better. Use them sparingly, though. In large doses, they may come off as heavy-handed or even unethical.
• Concrete words rather than abstract terms: Language is more persuasive when it helps to build an image in your mind. Concrete words are easier to read and easier to understand than abstractions. Nominalizations are harder to understand than people performing actions. To persuade, use words that accurately describe what you see so your readers see it the same way.

Expressing an ethical character

The ethical approach means forging mutual respect with your readers by stating your logical and emotional appeals with sincerity and honesty. Using the ethical appeal adds substance to your argument and reinforces that your solution is a win-win for both parties.

You can win your reader’s confidence and convey your integrity by

• Purging any fallacies from your logical proofs
• Recognizing issues you may have had in the past, as you explain how you resolved them
• Showing empathy for people who may be negatively affected by your solution
• Expressing concern for the environment and a bias for sustainability