Halos and Pitchforks: The Power of a Positive First Impression
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The adage is old, but when it comes to proposals and presentations, it’s as important as ever. In fact, even the briefest of first impressions can become the lens through which a prospect views all of your remaining messages. That’s right, the first messages your prospect reads or hears are more than just the ones they remember most—they’re the ones that have the biggest impact on your overall persuasion. How big? Let’
How Sequencing Can Improve Persuasion—and Win Rates
When it comes to proposals and presentations, order matters. In fact, studies have found that even with outstanding, prospect-focused content, changing just its sequence can have profound effects on a prospect’s understanding, recall, and impression of your key messages. So, in this post we’re discussing the connection between memory and order—and what it means for the structure of your next proposal or presentation. The Serial Position Effect
When presented with a series of
Three Is a Magic Number (for Proposals and Presentations)
Chances are your organization has lots of compelling features and benefits. Most do. But when crafting a proposal or presentation, how many should you highlight for your prospect? Five? Ten? According to cognitive psychologists, it’s probably less than you think. That’s why this week, in continuing our discussion of simplicity, we’re examining your prospects’ short-term memory capacity. How many features/benefits do they actually retain when processing your information, and w
Four Reasons to Keep Your Content Simple
Your prospects are bombarded with persuasive messages—400 a day, according to psychologist Kevin Dutton. Moreover, research shows that 81 percent of those messages contain more written or verbal content than is necessary, encouraging audiences to tune out, gloss over, and move on. It’s time to streamline. So before allowing the kitchen sink to be tossed into your next proposal, presentation, or marketing document, point out these four reasons to keep your messages short, shar
Five Tools for Averting Proposal Disaster
We all know that proper planning and communication can go a long way to preventing last-minute proposal chaos. But let’s be honest: Every proposal writer, no matter how prepared, has felt the stress of a down-to-the-wire proposal submission. It’s a terrible feeling, and according to a recent University of Washington study, that stress can make us especially prone to proposal-killing mistakes. Not good. So next time you’re in an eleventh-hour pinch—whether it’s because of a fi
Seven Tips for Working with Subject Matter Experts
Marketing and proposal writers are used to overcoming obstacles. Shifting deadlines, fluctuating workloads, snarky executives, and poorly written Requests for Proposals: they’re just part of the job. But as we found in our recent business writing survey, one challenge continually stands above the rest—working with subject matter experts. So, in this post we’re exploring seven simple steps for getting the content you need, when you need it, from your firm’s technical folks. On
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