The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 411 - Proposals

Transcript:

Jen: Well, hello there, Peter Shepherd.

Pete: Hello there, Jennifer Leigh Waldman. We're going formal.

Jen: Yes. So I wanted to propose a topic to you for this week that I've been thinking a lot about, and that topic I would like to propose is: proposals.

Pete: That's so funny. I was thinking, "Why is she saying 'propose' so much? I've never heard her say, 'Propose a topic,' before." Okay. We're going to talk about proposals. Alright, there's lots of different directions to take this already. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay. So before you get ahead of yourself, we're not talking about wedding proposals. We're not talking about promposals, which is a major trend here in the US. I don't know if that's a trend in Australia.

Pete: A promposal? I mean, it could be. But I'm so out of the loop with trends.

Jen: Yeah. It's when you ask someone to prom, you stage a whole event out of it.

Pete: Woah.

Jen: No, no, no. The kind of proposals I want to talk about today are the ones you make and I make when we are proposing our services to prospective clients. This came up because I've got several clients right now who are building their own businesses. Many of these businesses involve workshops and, in some cases, keynotes. So, I've been having a lot of proposal conversations. And you are very good at these. And I've noticed some things. So I'm curious to hear from like a 30,000 foot view, when you are crafting a proposal, what are you thinking about?

Pete: That's such a loaded question.

Jen: I know, it's so much. It's so much.

Pete: I feel like there's what I think about now, and there's what I used to think about when I first started trying to create proposals, and there's what I've learned along the way. There's probably some things I don't think about now, because I've done so many proposals. I'm by no means an expert and by no means faultless, but I have got a lot of reps at writing proposals for companies that I used to work for and for my own business and for businesses I've supported. I've got a bunch of baggage, maybe, and thoughts and ideas around proposals. So like I said, loaded question.

Jen: Well, this is exactly why I wanted to speak to you about this, because you have so many reps now. And I have been lucky enough to observe some of your proposals over the years, that you sent some of them to me for a quick like, "Does this look good?" And I love how you think about offering your services. I want to hear more.

Pete: I appreciate that. I mean, in this moment, I'm trying to like break down how I even approach this. Because I think it's so automatic now that I don't even know if I could say to you, "Here's my step-by-step plan." So I think it would come back to the question I feel like we need to consider with proposals that we don't always consider, the age-old two questions that you and I always come back to, which is, "Who is a proposal for," and, "What is a proposal for?"

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Because I see and have experienced so many proposals over the years that I don't think are clear in these two things. One of the most common tropes I see is a proposal that sounds the same, no matter who it goes to, i.e. there's no consideration of who it's for.

Jen: Yes. Correct. I have witnessed the same thing many times.

Pete: The other trope (I don't know why I'm just on tropes, but it's related to these two questions) is a proposal that isn't clear on what it's for. A proposal that does something like, I would call it your kitchen sink proposal. You know? Where you're like, "Here are all the people I've worked with. Here are all the things I could do. Here are all the things we have done. Here is a bunch of questions for you to ponder. Here's our framework. Here's our philosophy. Here's what I understand about them." It's like so much. For, I don't know, fear of not including the right thing, for want of validating the work that you've done in the past. I feel like there's so many tropes and things that I've seen, but I feel like they all come back to these two questions. Right? Can I get super clear on, "Who is this proposal actually for? Who is the client? What do I know about them? What are their pain points? What did they tell me, based on the conversation that we've had, that's leading us to the proposal stage?" And then, "What is my proposal trying to do? Is it trying to get them to feel comfortable in me as a provider? Is it trying to get them to say yes? Is it actually just trying to get them to introduce me to the next person, who's the one that's making the decision?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: Different proposals serve different needs. Different clients or prospective clients need different things. So a long way of saying, "Who is the proposal for," and, "What is the proposal for," should be the first two questions we ask.

Jen: Yes, yes, yes. What you just described to me sounds like a Wikipedia page. Your proposal is not your Wikipedia page. It should not be like the full summary of everything you've done, your early childhood, your personal relationships, your professional start.

Pete: Early career. Yeah.

Jen: And then, like a full citation list at the end. Another thing along the "who's it for" / "what's it for" lines that I found myself talking to clients about recently is that very often, I'm going to say like most of the time, the person the proposal is for is not the same as the person who the service is for.

Pete: That's so true.

Jen: So you're proposing to someone who makes decisions, but they may not actually be engaged in the work you're delivering. They may not be seated in the workshop, for example.

Pete: Totally. I mean, this is my world. Not only might they not be seated in the workshop, but it might be for them to take to their manager to get approval for the people that are going to be in the workshop, of which they and their manager aren't in the workshop. Like, that is where I spend a lot of my time. You're working with people who are planning a leadership program for a group of senior leaders, but that needs to get signed off by the person who's contacting you as manager.

Jen: Right. Exactly.

Pete: And so, this is why this question matters. The "who's it for" is for the person that's receiving this, to then be able to pass up the line, so they need to have enough clarity in what is being proposed. They need to have enough clarity in what the session will look like, because they're not actually going to be in it, necessarily. And they need to communicate to the people who are going to be in it. So, there's so much that comes from that clarity on who it's for.

Jen: Yes. Okay. Can I tell you another thing that I find sort of a stumbling block with my clients, as they're showing me their early drafts of these proposals? Very often, they're including so much detail about the content they're going to be sharing that the proposal starts to feel almost like a class or like a lecture in some way, as opposed to getting clear on the big ideas. They are lingering on lots of small ideas. And when you have lots and lots and lots of small ideas you need to parse through, it can create a feeling of overwhelm and / or lack of clarity. And overwhelm and lack of clarity are absolutely not going to get that proposal to a yes.

Pete: Right. Which is a really, really good call-out for, in my mind, the question of, "What is a proposal for?" A proposal is not for someone to look at and go, "I feel like I've just taken a course in what it means to work with Jen Waldman." The proposal should be for someone reading it, or scanning it, most likely. They're probably not reading every single word...shocker, for those of us that write proposals. And they're going, "Okay, I feel like this person understands the problem that I've outlined to them. I feel comfortable in the solution that they're proposing. And now, I want to move forward." That move forward might be having another call. It might be to set up a meeting with their manager. It might not be, "I'm signing off on the proposal immediately." What the proposal might actually be for is continuing the conversation.

Jen: Yes. And I just want to back up to something you just said. (I'm not going to quote you directly because I can't remember the exact words you used.) But when the proposal is going well, the person reading it says, "Oh, they understand me. They understand my problem, my challenge. And they are offering a potential solution to my problem." So to your earlier point of, you know, the kitchen sink or the Wikipedia page, it's like, yes, there are many people out there in the world with problems, and this particular thing I have to offer might solve their problems. But the only people who need their problem solved with this proposal are the people who will be engaging with the work.

Pete: Yes, yes, yes. So, the overarching idea that shapes this for me is: It's not about you.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Now, I feel like this can sound counterintuitive for people writing a proposal. People think that this proposal is me explaining why I or we are the right people for this job. And I rebel against that. I feel like a proposal is not about you. It's about demonstrating you listened and you understood what the other person is working through, and you've provided some thoughts on how you might solve that problem for them. And then, it's up to them to decide, hopefully because you've showed you listened and what your methodology would be, whether you're the right person or the right company for that particular opportunity.

Jen: Yes. Okay. Now, Pete, something I do in my proposals and something I've seen you do in your proposals is to offer several options, different scopes of work. How did you land on that?

Pete: Oh my gosh. How I landed on everything...I was going to share this at the very start, and I've looked for this so many times and I can't find it anywhere. When I was a very junior employee at one of the first companies I worked with, I stumbled across this article. And I was responsible for writing a bunch of proposals and looking after a bunch of our clients. I found this blog post (when blog posts were kind of like a new thing), and it was titled something like "The World's Best Proposal".

Jen: Hmm.

Pete: And I remember where I was sitting when I read this. Because I devoured it. I booked a meeting room. I decoded it. I wrote it up on a whiteboard. And I tried to shape the proposals we were doing, for the company I was working with, to this methodology or this proposal structure. And I realized that the proposals I'd been putting together didn't do any of the things, essentially, that it was suggesting you do. And what it was suggesting...I can't find the original, but it was some version of what we're talking about, which is, "Can you put, up front, the problem the client is facing? Ideally, using their words." So, I think about this a lot. What are the actual literal words? And sometimes, oftentimes, I'll include quotation marks. What are the actual literal words that they use to describe the problem at hand? Then, there's like a section in this blog (that I can't find anymore, that I can try and remember) that is the consequences of doing nothing versus doing something, based on this challenge. So like, "We could just do nothing, or we could do this. And if we do this, here's what might happen." So, you try and paint like, "Here is what we see as a solution to your problem," so that they feel good about the fact that you know how to solve their problem. And then, there's a bunch of other stuff. But the point is, to answer your question, towards the end, it said something like, "Give them some options." And there's like a whole bunch of research that's been done about the psychology of making decisions as it relates to proposals. Essentially, everyone who knows anything lands on, "Give them three options."

Jen: Yep.

Pete: There's a whole bunch behind why. You know, the power of three. I don't need to go into it, other than I always propose three options. Because what often happens is someone reads the three and goes, "Oh, we kind of want something in the middle. But with a little bit of the one on the far side." You know? Like, there might be like a basic, a medium, and a platinum...whatever you want to label them, it doesn't matter. Usually, people want to land somewhere in the middle. So, you want to give them that choice. Is that similar to how you structure this? Do you give three choices as well?

Jen: Yes. I do, for exactly the reason you described. Sometimes, someone will just pick one. But sometimes, they'll want to talk about the benefits of certain elements. And then, you can create a whole bespoke option just for them.

Pete: So that, I just feel like, is so important to emphasize. Just because you propose three options, it doesn't mean you have to settle on one of those three options.

Jen: Correct.

Pete: In fact, I would say almost more often than not, those three give you the platform for someone to come back and go, "We want a little bit of this and a little bit of this and a little bit of this. Could you create that?" And then, you might come back with, "Here's the one option I recommend, which is essentially a mix of the three that we originally proposed." So this goes back to this idea of the proposal is to continue the conversation, and to help them give them something to react to and go, "Oh, actually, I want a little bit of this and a little bit of this. Could you make that happen?"

Jen: Yes. Okay, I want to bring up another thing that I think is so important. I guess it's a pretty famous saying, "Under promise, over deliver." But actually, under promise and over deliver. Because if you over promise, that is not great. Oh god, it must have been fifteen years ago now, I was working with a client who, he taught sight-singing. You know, being able to sing while you're reading the sheet music, in real time, without having to hear it ahead of time. So you're reading along and you're singing along, without having heard the thing before. So he wanted to offer an introductory session, for people who had no sight-singing experience. And the proposal he showed me said, "By the end of this session, you will know how to sight-sing."

Pete: Oh, wow.

Jen: And I was like, "Uh-uh, absolutely not."

Pete: You will have an understanding, maybe.

Jen: Yeah. Maybe you'll have an understanding of what sight-singing is. And perhaps you will be able to sight-sing an eight-bar cut that you have specifically chosen, to be able to give them that win. But no, you can't promise that they're going to sight-sing in a day. Or in this case, I think it was two hours. So, making sure that the promises you're making in your proposal are the promises you can absolutely deliver on.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, yes. I've seen so many versions of what you described, promising the world, and going, "I mean, there's no way you could deliver that. Why are you saying that's what you're going to deliver?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: Yeah. For fear of trying to get the work.

Jen: I mean, sometimes it's just as simple as adding the word "better". Like, "You will have," instead of, "an understanding of musical notation," it might be, "a better understanding."

Pete: Right. Right. Such a great point. And then, I don't know, for what it's worth...I was just writing this down, because this conversation is making me reflect on my own process. I think I could roughly shape all my proposals to the following three formats. (And this might sound familiar to you and listeners.) And that is a flow, that's something like, "Firstly, why are we here?" I'll often call that like the context. Which is, again, me using their words to go, "You mentioned a new leadership team has been formed, and there's an opportunity for us to get alignment on what we want this team to be known for." For example, like I literally use their words. I say, "This is the context. This is the problem we're trying to solve. This is why we're here." Once I've done that, I'll flow into, "How might we solve that problem?" So like, the proposed methodology. It might be a bunch of one-on-one coaching and a series of workshops, and what that would look like and how we can think about those, whatever. The methodology is the middle part. And then, the final part is, "What does this actually look like? What are the tangibles?" And this is the three options idea. "What does it cost? What are the specifics? It will be this many workshops, over this period of time." So, I want to give them the actual granular detail towards the end. And so, for those that have listened to this podcast / you and I talk long enough, you can see this is me essentially using Simon Sinek's Golden Circle in the proposal of a format. "Why are we here? How do we solve this? What does it actually look like?" And that's just honestly the three kind of phases that each of my proposals always goes through.

Jen: Yeah. There is a very well-known person in the world of marketing who uses the phrase, and I'm quoting, "Agitate the pain point." I hate that phrase. Because my goal, when offering something that I think might be helpful, is not to intentionally try to make people feel pain. The way I approach this idea, and I think this goes back to the why that you're talking about and the way I've seen you approach this idea, is demonstrate that you understand, that you see them, that you understand what they're going through. "I hear you. I see you. I get it." Not, "Let me pick at that wound for you."

Pete: No.

Jen: No, that is so nasty. So, don't do that to people. Don't agitate their pain. But instead, demonstrate curiosity and empathy.

Pete: You know, the visual I actually use when I think about proposal creation (and I don't think I nail it every single time) is that I want the person reading it to smile and nod when they're reading it. That's literally how I'm thinking about it, when I'm writing it. Would they read this and go, "Oh, he gets it." Or would they go, "Oh, that's a funny way of saying the thing that we need to do." I'm deliberately trying to delight the person reading it. Because one of the things I know about most proposals is they're so boring to read.

Jen: Oh my gosh, yes.

Pete: So painful. So I'm like, "How do you make it delightful? Interesting? How do you make it something that the person reading it is nodding their head and smiling, going, 'He gets it. I feel seen. I feel heard. I want to work with him.'"

Jen: Yep.

Pete: At least, that's how I think about it.

Jen: Well, Pete, I propose that we send this episode to our clients who are working on their own proposals, so that they can consider some of these questions and maybe implement some of these ideas.

Pete: Hopefully, it's helpful. And listeners, I'm sure there's a bunch of you out there who write proposals. Also, if you have tips and ideas and thoughts on this, send us an email at hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.