Amaze Your Proposal Team With This Comprehension Stunt
Some proposal professionals find themselves pretty low in the pecking order. If the team doesn’t understand why they should defer to your judgment in areas of your expertise, you’ll struggle to contribute your talents.
Here’s a demonstration that has convinced proposal teams to hand over control of the document to the proposal professionals.
As we wait for the group to assemble, pick out two early arrivers. Hand a copy of The Wall Street Journal to one person, preferably the least educated in the room. Then, hand a copy of People Magazine to another person, preferably the first Ph.D. to arrive. Ask each of them to pick out one article and read it before the meeting begins. Then take away the newspaper and magazine when the meeting begins.
After some time, maybe when you are up on the agenda, or at the end of the meeting, ask each of your readers to describe the article they read for you before the meeting began. The reader of The Wall Street Journal will likely recall a good deal about the story they read. Sometimes they recall an amazing amount of detail. You can quiz them about whether they have read a lot on this topic previously.
Then, ask the reader of People Magazine about the article they read. If they are lucky, they will recall that it had a picture of Brad Pitt. They will struggle to remember much else.
Why would this be?
The Wall Street Journal cherishes comprehension and works hard to maintain excellent typography to help readers remember more of what they read.
People Magazine works hard to minimize comprehension. This is because there are only so many photos of Brad Pitt, and only so many comments that can be made about them, before the reader realizes that they are pretty much recycled content.
Which is your proposal?
Do you create documents readers remember? Or do you create snappy looking fancy documents impossible to remember?
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