Adjusting for Levels of Expertise | Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts

Another element of Cicero's formula has to do with the audience's level of expertise: "speak my words" means to use language or, more generally, content, that the audience understands. That applies to our use of jargon and acronyms, to the assumptions we explain and those we take for granted, and to the actual details we include.

If you stay consciously aware of your audience as you write your proposal, you are much more likely to communicate at the right level. And if you don't stay aware, you'll probably end up writing to yourself. You'll use the words and make the assumptions that seem appropriate to you. But how many customers and prospects do you have who know as much as you do about your topic? How many of them use the same words, understand the same jargon, recognize the internal acronyms the way you do?

In my experience, proposal writers almost always overestimate the level of understanding of their clients. One reason for that is our own material—our products, our services, our technology, our methodology—becomes so familiar to us that it seems easy to understand. Another reason is that clients seldom tell us when they don't understand something. They may be worried that it's something they "should" understand, so they keep quiet. Or, in the context of a government bid, they may be forbidden by rules of procurement from asking for clarification.

Instead, when clients are not sure what you're talking about, they typically withdraw from the process and make noncommittal statements, such as, "We need to review this further internally." Or, "We may want to schedule another meeting before we reach a conclusion." Or, "We have some additional homework to do internally and then we'll get back to you." If you are hearing messages like these from prospects, it's possible they don't understand your proposal well enough to reach any kind of buying decision. And one thing you can count on is that when people feel confused, they don't buy.

Unfortunately, there's another reason why proposal writers communicate at a technical level that's over their clients' head: laziness. Simplifying your content can be hard work. Once when I was working with a team at a major technology firm, I guess I began to annoy one of the technical sales specialists by my constant harping about simplifying. Finally, he turned to me and said, "Look, Tom, if the client doesn't understand this, he shouldn't be buying it."

"Don't worry," I said. "He won't."

It's better to aim too low than too high. If the audience actually understands more than you thought they did, they may find your presentation a bit slow moving. As a result, they may skip over parts that they already understand. But if the audience understands less than you thought, they're stuck. Your proposal content will go sailing over their head, and there isn't a thing they can do to make it more intelligible. So if you have to guess, err on the side of keeping things too simple, not too complex.

Level One: The Uninformed Audience

Uninformed readers have virtually no background in your industry or area of expertise. They may be very bright and highly educated, but not in areas that pertain to what you are proposing. Categorizing someone at this level does not mean we think little of his or her skills or intellect. The fact is we're all at this level for a lot more topics than not. As Will Rogers once said, "Everybody's ignorant, just on different stuff."

The level one audience is most likely to be a person who reads your cover letter and executive summary carefully, then skims the rest of your proposal, relying on colleagues or employees who are more technical to evaluate the details. It's a good idea to try to keep your cover letter and executive summary short, businesslike, and focused on bottom-line issues.

Here are some guidelines to help you slant your writing toward level one audiences, people who are uninformed or unfamiliar with your field:

Provide only the information the reader truly needs to know. Avoid digressions into technical details or options, no matter how interesting they may be to you. Keep your proposal focused on the specific functionality that will be of interest to this client. Avoid giving the level one audience "extra" information—it is more likely to confuse than to impress.
Keep the presentation basic. Short is better than long; simple is better than complex. Focus on what your solution will do for the customer, not on how it works.
Use clear, simple illustrations and lots of them. There are two kinds of illustrations that can help the uninformed reader understand your message. Visual illustrations (bar and pie charts, uncomplicated graphs, simple flow charts, photos, maps, organization charts) communicate to many people more clearly than words. Even better, adding a graphic can actually increase the persuasiveness of your message. (One study found that adding a simple graphic increased the persuasiveness of a piece of text by 47 percent!) Verbal illustrations (comparisons, analogies, examples, metaphors, anecdotes) help the level one audience understand your point by making it more concrete. In explaining how a new router can alleviate slow performance on a virtual private network, you might cut through a lot of confusion by comparing the hardware to an air traffic control tower.
Avoid using in-house jargon and keep acronyms to a minimum. And don't forget that for this level of audience, your product and service names are jargon, too.

You may have been taught that the first time you use an acronym, you should present it in words and then put the acronym in parentheses immediately after the words. You might write something like this: "We have sales and support offices through Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) to support clients of Abecedarian Avionics." But often that is not enough, because the words themselves may not make any sense to a level one reader. For example, one of the regional telephone companies was issuing letter proposals to small business owners for "ADSL service." When asked if the use of that acronym was appropriate for a level one audience, the proposal writers decided to make it clearer by spelling out the acronym the first time they used it. But ADSL stands for "asymmetric digital subscriber line," which isn't any clearer for a level one reader than the acronym itself. In fact, it might be worse. After some debate, they decided to communicate the concept in ordinary language:

You need high-speed access to the Internet. You can't afford to waste time while large file transfers crawl across your phone system to your computer. But you can't afford to replace your existing phone system or rewire your office, either. The answer? Our new Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, or ADSL service, which uses your existing phone lines but runs at speeds up to 125 times faster than traditional analog modems.

Now the client understands the concept and the proposal writer can use the acronym in the rest of the proposal. Would it be necessary to define DSL service that thoroughly today? Probably not, since it has become a widely used application, but isn't it better to be too clear than too obscure?
Keep both the words and the sentences simple and short. Use everyday language. Choose words of one and two syllables mainly. Try to keep your sentences to an average length of fifteen to eighteen words.
Avoid references to specialized reports, manuals, or sources. This level of reader won't look for them, probably wouldn't understand them, and perhaps doesn't care. Your proposal needs to stand alone as a clear, self-contained document.
Describe procedures or processes in a simple, step-by-step fashion. When describing a project plan or explaining how something works, you will communicate more successfully if you use a simple chronological structure rather than a series of complex options. Flow charts and similar diagrams can be a great help, too, as long as they're clear. A complex, multilevel Gantt chart would not be a useful tool for the level one reader.
Highlight your main points, make the transitions obvious, and reinforce your message with design and typography. Most business readers skim, but none more so than the senior executives who are likely to make up a large portion of your level one audience. So make your proposal easy to skim. Use boldface type, headings, bullet points, color, white space, tint blocks, borders, and anything else that makes your key points jump off the page. (Just be careful not to produce a document that looks like a circus poster.)

Level Two: The Acquainted Audience

An audience who is somewhat acquainted with your recommendations may have considerable education or experience, perhaps even in your general field (business management, electrical engineering, marketing, accounting, whatever), but may still lack detailed, in-depth knowledge of your specific area of expertise. Many of the decision makers to whom you write proposals will be at this level.

All of the guidelines we just discussed for level one are appropriate for level two, because they enhance the simplicity and clarity of the writing. For the most part, you will make slightly different judgment calls regarding the jargon to be defined, the acronyms to be left unexplained, and the examples to be included. You won't offend anybody by producing a proposal that is too easy to understand, but for this audience you can make more assumptions and skip over the basics a little quicker.

Here are some guidelines to follow:

Present your proposal in a larger context—a frame of reference within which your proposal can be positioned and categorized. For example, if you are recommending an online inventory control system that provides remote access to real-time inventory data for field salespeople, start by discussing the client's current sales model, or the client's move to an e-commerce approach, or changes in the way supply chains are being managed. The point is to show that what you will describe (your product or service) is relevant to the reader's concerns and has a place within the reader's worldview. This positioning statement can be the springboard for your discussion of the client's problem, of course, but even in the more specifically technical sections of your proposal, you should move from general and familiar to specific and new.
Use more complex graphics, tables, and figures. This audience will look at and understand visual material that is more complicated and that contains more data. However, you should still avoid equations, programming statements, schematics, complex decision trees, and other specialized examples or illustrations. You should definitely resist the urge to include illustrations from user documentation or technical manuals.
Use the accepted jargon of the field, but avoid in-house jargon. If you are writing a proposal for telecommunications services to a level two audience, you can use terms such as "DSL," "voice over IP," or "ISDN lines" without worry.

Level Three: The Informed Audience

This audience has extensive knowledge of your field, but less knowledge of the specialized project, product, or service you are proposing. For example, a long-time client may know a lot about your material handling systems, but may not possess any details about the new photoelectric measurement tools you are introducing. An MIS or I.T. manager may be very knowledgeable about LANs, WANs, and corporate database administration, but may not be aware of the specific features of the software you provide to locate duplicate entries in a database.

The guidelines:

Establish immediate links between the familiar and the new. Suppose you are proposing that your client outsource all facility management services to your firm. If you know that they already contract for cleaning and landscaping services, you can draw a parallel between those specific niches and the idea of turning over complete management of the property to your firm.
Focus on the new or unique aspects of what you are offering. You can assume with a level three audience that they are familiar with the basics of your product or service. What they need to know is what differentiates your new offering from what they already know and how will those differences benefit their organization.
Stay client centered as you write your proposal. The temptation when writing to a more knowledgeable audience is to lapse into informative writing, to use jargon, to focus on technology for its own sake. But that won't work. Even though this decision maker is very well informed, you must show how your recommendations help solve the prospect's problems or meet the organization's needs. No one buys a new product just to get cool new features. Instead, people buy products that have features that will deliver important outcomes for their organizations that aren't otherwise available.

Level 4: The Expert Audience

The expert audience knows as much (or more) about the products and services you are offering as you do. The expert not only has extensive knowledge of your field, but has detailed familiarity with the latest work in that field, the various products and options offered by your company and your competitors, and the industry trends.

The good news is that it's very easy to communicate with the expert audience, because it's not much different from talking with your own colleagues. The bad news is that true experts in your customer base are extremely rare.

If you do encounter a true expert among your prospects or customers, here are some guidelines to follow when you write your proposal:

Summarize technical background information or indicate where it can be obtained. The expert decision maker is more likely to be an analytical personality type, so he or she will want to have access to as much detail as possible. If you provide it by reference or attachment, you are giving them a "complete" proposal.
Use jargon (but be judicious). Even for an expert, encountering a slew of acronyms and jargon makes for a distasteful reading experience.
Use math, equations, programming statements, or technical explanations if they're needed. Almost without exception, this kind of technical content will appear in the body of a proposal, not in the executive summary.
Maintain your objectivity, use a professional tone, but remember that your most important job is to persuade. Even for the expert audience, your proposal must constantly answer the question, "So what?" In providing details, link them to benefits the decision maker cares about.