How to Write Proposals That Actually Work: ​Stop Guessing!

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Today I want us to look at why lots of you are sending proposals the wrong way and why you're sending out proposals that are ineffective and proposals that are not going to get read. The reason why is because in Nigeria, it's a common practice in some industries that when you want to run after certain kinds of individuals or certain kinds of businesses that might be big prospects. It's customary in this part of the world to create a proposal.

So you design the PDFs, you make sure that everything is well formatted, the graphics look nice. If you're going to send a physical copy of the proposal, you make sure that it is spiral bound and all that. And then you send it to the prospect and you are hoping that that is going to start a conversation with the prospect that might lead to business. So I'm here today to let you know that that is actually wrong. It might work a couple of times,

but if you want to see your success success rates go up, you need to change the amount that you go about creating, presenting, and sending over your proposals. My apologies because today's going to be a noisy episode. I'm making it at home. And for those of you who listen to the podcast regularly, you know that today's a Tuesday and the house gets cleaned on Tuesday. So there's going to be some noise in the background.

And my name is Tavishima Ayede. I am the host of the show. I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant. If you'd love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message, my WhatsApp message on 08064662140. So if you're one of those people who has been using a proposal LED strategy to reach out to customers, give me a call. Let's have a chat. Let's say we can fix your process. Again, the number is 08064 662140.

So let's say you are in the business of solar. You sell solar solutions, inverters, batteries, alternative energy solutions. Or let's say you're into audio production. For instance, you create you record podcasts for your clients, or maybe you record. OK, since I've worked with somebody who does ebooks for Nigerian authors. So let's say you present you sorry, not present. You create ebooks for Nigerian authors. It'll be easy to think, OK, I

sell solar, I want to get into Zenith Bank. Therefore let me sit down on my computer and type out a wonderful proposal. Make sure everything looks nice get the design guys to do a good job finish have it spiral bound. OK, no, since it's Zenith Bank, maybe have it leather bound and then have it sent to the GM and see if you can sorry, not the GM, the branch manager. See if you can use that to start a conversation. So if you're in the audio space,

you could be thinking, OK, so this is 1. So it's a very famous podcaster. It would be nice to have this person record the podcast at my own studio. So you, you do the same thing, you sit down, you get the proposal written up nice, you know, everything. And then you send and then the final one. Let's say you do audio books and you notice that maybe Chimamanda Adiche hasn't put up any single audio book. By the way, I don't know if she has or she hasn't 'cause I don't read fiction.

So let's pretend that she hasn't. And you think Chimamanda will be a good big fish. So you create the, the, you know, the whole, the same old process because maybe, you know, she's in Lagos. And so you find a way to get it through to her for anybody who knows. Now the problem with this whole process is this when you are sending over this kind of proposal, essentially there are two big problems #1 the proposals are usually about you.

You're telling the people I'm the greatest and the brightest and the cheapest and the fastest. I have the best experience, I have the highest quality, I have the, you know, it's all about you. The first paragraph, that's the problem. And that's the reason why I proposal are not being read. Because people are busy. Chimamanda is busy. She has a lot on her mind. She's trying to build her business. She's trying to write another book, You know, all kinds of things going on.

Why do you think she'll open your proposal and then, you know, be going on about how you know yours is the best studio did this, this, that, that, and, you know, on and on and on. Why do you think she would just sit down and read your proposal? The same thing with the branch manager for whichever Zenith Bank branch you're looking into. You could be worried about, you know, their profit loss reports or maybe expenses are not looking good.

Maybe there's some managerial issues or maybe there's some human resource issues. Like all kinds of things can be going on. Why do you think the girl will just come and read your proposal when it says I'm the greatest, I'm the brightest, I'm the best, I'm the this, I'm the that? Why do you think somebody will sit down and listen to your proposal when it is absolutely about you from beginning to end? That's the first problem.

We need to stop making the proposals about you. We need to make the proposals about them now. The second problem is that your proposal has plenty of guesswork because you haven't spoken to Chimamanda Adichie and you don't know what's important to her. You don't know the books that she's writing, and you don't know what her plans are for monetizing her books in the future. You are essentially guessing that she's interested in having her book turned into an audio book.

You're guessing. You could be wrong, but if it took you 4 hours to get that proposal and you're sending out maybe 4 hours, sorry, 4 proposals, maybe a month, you know, you are wasting essentially. You could be wasting essentially that's like 16 hours every month because you're doing guesswork and that is painful guesswork, guessing for four hours straight only to send this thing and then the thing doesn't even land. It doesn't resonate.

People don't connect. They're not driving with it. What you're sending is guesswork. The same thing if you're on the solar space and you create that proposal and then you send it over to the bank, the branch general manager, you are guessing that the guy has a problem with how much diesel that they're spending. You are guessing that maybe they don't already have solutions in place. You are guessing that maybe they recognize that there's a problem, but perhaps they have already started working on it and they're in conversations with three or four other vendors.

You're making, you're making plans. It's it's too much to guess, work too much. So this is what you need to do to fix your proposal writing process. By the way, I do recognize and I admit now when it comes to the civil service, you know, you're trying to push something through for Federal Ministry of Finance or you know, CBN or whatever. OK, I recognize that it's Niger business culture that you need to get that big thing inside orgas office 1st while you are doing leg work to see how you can get a meeting.

OK, fine, no problem. If you're selling to government sector, yeah, by all means, go ahead and make that thing. In fact, make it as big as possible because you know for sure nobody will read it. So you know they'll look at it, The thing will look hefty and you package it nice. It looks hefty, looks packaged nice. Maybe my accounting in favor. But let's pretend, let's just pretend now that we're no longer looking at government sector,

now we're looking at private individuals. What you actually need to do is to find ways to be having conversations with people first or have conversations with people who are representative of that industry first. So you can figure out what their their key concerns are. You can figure out the chief problems that they have. You can figure out the agenda that they have. And then your proposal can now be putting forward solutions or proposals about how your product or service can best address these sorts of challenges.

But at least when you do this now, your guesswork is minimized. So if you talk to, let's say you're not able to meet Jim Amanda, but you talk to a Nigerian author, maybe two or three others, and you find out that, yes, lots of them are looking forward to putting the books in audio form. And a lot of them are looking to explore how audio books can help them get international, get access to international audiences and things like that.

Chances are if you start putting those things down in your proposal, chances are one or two of these things might click with whoever it is that you send it to. But the reason why it's best actually have a conversation with somebody first before you send a proposal is because you will hear from their own words. You will hear from their words. You will hear from their tone. You will hear from their body language. And you will get a sense of what their biggest problems are, what they're trying to solve, where they're trying to run through.

And then you can write a convincing proposal that speaks directly to those problems. In fact, the chief advantage of talking to somebody before you write a proposal and why I recommend people do that is because they will use some specific words and guess what, Don't you think your proposal is going to be much more effective when in your proposal you are using the actual words that they said? If, if a Nigerian author says they want access to foreign audiences and it looks as if our Ukraine are reading Nigerian books, if the author says that exact phrase I want Ukraine meaning people in Ukraine, maybe Nigerians in in in diaspora Ukraine or something.

But person says I want Ukraine. And then in your proposal, there's a section where it says strategy for targeting I want Ukraine. Do you think this author is going to listen will be reading or not? It is her exact words. So I'm not saying you should completely abandoned this Nigerian thing of creating the proposal first, doing leather binding, doing spiral binding, doing, you know, that binding that you know has silver edge and all that.

I'm not saying abandoned these fancy proposals. I'm just saying that wherever you can, wherever possible, if you can speak to one of the gatekeepers, one of the assistants, one of the PA is one of the somebody, and you can have a direct meeting with Orga first where you discuss one or two things. It doesn't have to be a lengthy meeting, but at least you have the conversation with Orga. You have a conversation with a potential customer, with Madame,

with a potential client, and you figure out whether this is a problem that they have, whether they're trying to solve it, what they have tried to do to solve the problem in the past, what their vision is. It will help in putting down this proposal. So if you can talk to somebody to say, oh, you work in so, so and so I beg, I want to see Olga GM. How is that possible? He was able to hook up a quick meeting and you pass through,

you know, greetings, blah, blah, blah. Sorry not to take up your time. I'm in solar. This is what we do. And I was just wondering, most businesses in this area, because of the Band-Aid charges or because of this or because of that, struggling to cope with the high cost of diesel prices. So is this a problem you all are facing in this particular branch? And you ask him the question, if he says yes and you're able to talk to him some more about that and figure out exactly how much it is that they are spending on diesel, how that is affecting their operations or how that is affecting their balance sheet and then things like that.

So even if it's a sharp, sharp, sharp 15 minutes, you're able to get one or two things like that when you go back and you write the proposal. And these are some of the headers, these are some of the sections. These are some of the main things that you're pushing forward in your proposal about how your service is going to save them money or make them more efficient or, or give them make them much more comfortable because generator noise is not blaring in the background. 247

And then you're using the words that Olga GM himself has used. Don't you think he's more likely to read the proposal? So don't abandoned the strategy, but just try and find a way. Try and find a way without talking to the gatekeepers, whether talking to the secretary, whether talking to the PA, whether talking to your friend, whether to somehow shall try and talk to the person. If you're not able to talk to the person, if you're able to talk to someone who is representative in that industry,

it will help. So if you do not know how to get to the GM of Zenith Bank, which is where you want to do, but maybe your uncle is AGM in a smaller bank, maybe like Keystone Bank, and you have access to your uncle, you can go and have those conversations with your uncle. Chances are, whatever it is your uncle says as the GM of a smaller branch like Keystone might apply to somebody who is a branch manager in a bigger branch or a bigger bank like Zenith.

So stop sending our proposals, which is essentially guesswork. Don't be doing guesswork. Talk to somebody 1st and hear first hand from either the person or someone who is representative of those group of peoples here first hand the problems that they're dealing with. So their proposal will not be guesswork. Then try and put a paragraph about these people in the intro and get them to read. We are all vain. We all like ourselves.

If somebody sends me a proposal and it's all blah, blah, blah, you know about the other person, you think I'm going to read it. But if somebody sends me a proposal and somebody actually did saying, oh, you're the foremost, You're the foremost business podcast in Africa, the most consistent something, something a strong, clear voice given practical and tactical, wanting, wanting, wanting. Of course, I'm going to keep on reading.

How do you think I got my brand redesign? Elizabeth Dem, the lady I spoke about, that's how they reached out to me. Now you think that the first people that reached out to say, you know, my artwork is scrappy and I need to make something new. People have been telling me, you know, since since day one that my artwork was scrappy. They were the first ones who said reach out and try to toast the boy first. They say how far we noticed that you are this and you are this and you are that and you are like this, you are like this,

you are like this and you are good and good and good like this, like this, but you go help. If you know you do one or two brand design, you change that like this, you change that like this. That's how the conversation started. All right, so it's been 15 minutes. Let me not keep you guys longer anymore. I think you guys have gotten the gist of the message. If you would love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064 662140.

So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you all some other time. And I'm looking forward to speaking to individuals who you've been building your whole business process around this whole sending proposal, sending proposal thing. And you're tired, you don't think it's working. You want to make some changes, Reach out, holla at your boy. Let's have a conversation. Let's see how we can make it happen.

So 08064662140, don't be afraid if you don't have money, I'm OK with giving free advice. Just let me know that you want free advice right from the beginning and then I'll answer one question only. So think hard about that one question before you call. And for the rest of you who want to go in depth, that is not a problem. We have coaching packages available, whether monthly or weekly or daily or hourly. There's something for every single budget, including those of you who don't have money at all.

That's why I'm going to answer one free question. So don't forget to connect 08064662140. I'll catch you all some other time.