If you wish to persuade me you must think my thoughts

Old Cicero doesn't cut us any slack here. This is mandatory. Not "it would be a good idea if" or "beneficial results may derive from..."No. You must. And he's right, because what he goes on to emphasize is the necessity of developing your persuasive arguments from the client's perspective. One of the keys to thinking like the client is to try to see things from his or her point of view. In fact, that may be the fundamental key to all persuasion: getting outside your own head and away from your own interests and trying to get inside the decision maker's head. You must think my thoughts.
To think the thoughts of your client, you need to watch for clues regarding his or her preferences in terms of receiving and processing information. The challenge you face as a proposal writer is twofold: you need to know what your own preferences are, since you will tend to write a proposal that you would like to receive; and you need to know what your Customer's preferences for receiving and processing information are, since you want to adapt your own style to match his or hers more closely. We'll look at specific ways to do this shortly.

The Cicero Principle

The essence of Client-based persuasion can be summarized in the words of the Roman orator and statesman Cicero: "if you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words." This is great advice, so excellent that it is the basis for this entire blog posts. When we break it down, phrase by phrase, we can see just how profound it is. IF YOU WISH TO PERSUADE ME.............
Why do you wish to persuade anybody of anything? Basically, you're hoping to influence their behavior,thinking, or attitude. If the context of the persuasion is sales like the best Auction sales, here you're trying to motivate the audience to purchase your product or service.

Where to Put Your Client-Centered Insights, Not a direct Promotion.

The whole proposal should be oriented toward the client,we are not talking about promoting your products now. But it's particularly important to put as much of your CLIENT-CENTERED insight up front as possible. That means including the client in your cover letter, title page, and executive summary.
One simple way to check whether your proposals are client centered or self centered is to count how many times your company's name appears in the executive summary compared to the Customer's name. The Customer should appear at least three times more often, because a good executive summary will focus primarily on the Customer's business situation, their needs, their desired outcomes, and how your SOLUTION will match up against their expectations. If it's all about you, it's a bad executive summary.

The last six of the Twelve questions for developing a consultative proposal

6. How inclusive (or limited) is this proposal? Could it be focused more narrowly or expanded to include more? Should it be? 7. How can I prove my claims, particularly regarding potential ROI or competitive superiority for my products or services? What kinds of evidence will this client find convincing? How can I illustrate or support my claims? 8. What might an opponent say against my proposal? What aspects of my recommendations might provoke resistance or disbelief? 9. Does this proposal clearly suggest that some sort of action must be taken? Does it indicate the consequences of inaction? 10. If the proposal includes a prediction or estimation of results, how accurate is this likely to be? What is it based on-factual data,observed trends, comparisons to other situations,intuition,or what? Am I guaranteeing results? 11. What are the total costs for this client to undertake the course of action the proposal recommends? Does this include both time and money costs? Are these costs linked to a calculation of return on investment, payback period, total cost of ownership, or some other measure of value? 12. Does my proposal involve the coordination of large numbers of people or resources? If so,does the proposal make clear how this coordination effort will be managed? Register or follow me to recieve my updates it's free.

Twelve Questions for Developing a Consultative Proposal

Lets take the first six of the questions this time:1 What must I establish about myself and my company so that the client will believe what I say? 2. What is the key recommendation I am making? How does this recommendation address the client's needs? Have I substituted my own sense of what the client ought to do for what it thinks it needs? 3. What specific opportunities for improving the client's productivity or profitability am I presenting in this proposal? Have I demonstrated these opportunities in enough detail that the decision maker will find them credible? 4. What are the meanings of the key words I am using? Will the client understand them? Have I minimized the use of jargon? 5. How can I contrast my proposal with other, similar proposals?(Try to anticipate how the competition may bid and -preferably without disparaging or naming names - ghost the competition by showing the weakness of those approaches and superiority of yours.) 6. How inclusive (or limited) is this proposal? Could it be focused more narrowly or expanded to include more? Should it be?

Accept the need and study the client's situation

Respond to the client's definition of the need,but also offer an alternative perspective. You could discuss the situation frankly in the executive summary as a way of introducing your proposal. State that while you are fully prepared to respond to the statement of work as written in the original RFP, and included a response that proves you can do exactly what the client has asked for, your analysis has led you to develop another approach to solving the client's problem. You can get affordable e-books here that will boost you more. In addition,because this alternative approach will be less costly or more effective (or both),you feel obliged to at least present it as an option.
One other technique is to offer a phased approach to solving the total problem. This is reasonably safe approach to take, particularly when the client has not misdefined the need but simply has not requested the total solution that he or she needs. By structuring your proposed solution in terms of phases, with which phase priced separately and each phase requiring a joint review of progress and commitment to the next phase, you provide a structure in which the client can change direction without scrambling the budget or losing face.

Study the client's situation as accurately as you can

Use your own definition of the clients need as the basis for the proposal you submit.
Redefining the need is a high-risk approach, particularly when the client has provided the original analysis or has paid a consultant to develop it. Sometimes, though, you really have nothing to lose. For instance, when the analysis has been provided by an outside consultant or competitor,redefinition may be necessary in order to position your company more competitively. If your competitor has written the RFP,you can assume that there will be nothing in it that favors you.

Accept the need as defined in the RFP and study the various ways in which your company can satisfy that need.

In the short term, this is the safest approach to take. Bid on the job as it's been described, try to win it, and then hope you can convince the client to alter the statement of work after you have the contracts in your pocket. Unfortunately,what's safe in the short term is risky in the long. You're basing the business relationship from the outset on less than full honesty,and a tough Customer who is looking for performance guarantees or service-level commitments may not be willing to approve change documents or authorize additional funding to get a solution that works.

Redefining customer's need.
Sometimes the client tells you his or her need explicitly, either by explaining it in conversation during your sales process or by defining it in the statement of work of the RFP the client issues. The trouble is,Sometimes the client is wrong.
For example, suppose the manager of a telemarketing operation contacts you because she's unhappy with the sales volume her group is producing."We need a course on closing techniques,"she tells you. "can you do that for us?"
Well,you can do it, but after observing the company's salespeople in action, you realize that what they really need is a course on telephone courtesy. These people are so aggressive that they cross the line into rudeness. The best question is, what do you propose?
The best course is to communicate with the potential client, discuss your conerns or your observations, and try to educate and inform the decision makers before you write your proposal. But Sometimes you can't. Sometimes,when you're dealing with a formal RFP released in quantity to many potential vendors, or when you're dealing with a consultant who has written the RFP, or when ego or politics or governmentally mandated procurement rules get in the way, you have to respond to the client's need as it's stated, even if that's not appropriate. And Sometimes you must be sentitive to the client's or consultant's need to save face.

What results are likely to follow from each of my potential recommendations? Make an educated guess, perhaps based on prior experience with other Customer,s, about the probable results of each possible course of action. Will they lead to the client's most important goal? Will they provide competitive advantage? What will they cost? How long will they take? Are cost and timing important issues will they require the client to commit employees to the task?
Choose the best option from the client's point of view, and use that as the basis of your proposal. Even though it can be tough sometimes, try to resist the temptation of recommending the solution that offers you the highest profit margin or the biggest commission check. Manage your proposals and your business for the long term.