The KISS Principle

Let's pretend you received two proposals. One of them is 25 pages long. The other is 100 pages long. Which one will you read first?

Exactly. That's why this message focuses on the KISS principle--Keep It Short and Simple.

Simplicity is a good thing. I've never heard anyone complain that a proposal wasn't complicated enough. And keeping it short makes sense, because people are more likely to read it if it's short.

This message contains eight ideas to keep your sales letters and proposals simple and short.

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The KISS Principle

For people of a certain age, the KISS Principle conjures up visions of guys in face paint with huge amps.

But KISS is actually an acronym that embodies guidelines for writing clearly. Sometimes it's spelled out as "Keep It Simple, Stupid." But a better definition--and one that's less offensive--is "Keep It Short and Simple."

Short?

As a general rule, keep your sentences about 15-18 words long. That's an average sentence length that most readers can decode easily.

Use short words. As Churchill once said, "Short words are the best words." Why? Because they're the words people use every day, the words they understand easily. On average, 90% of your words should be one or two syllables long.

And keep your paragraphs short, too. Three or four lines of text are plenty. You don't have to write paragraphs that fill up the whole page. In fact, most people would prefer it if you don't.

Finally, whenever possible, use bullet points:

• They're easier to read
• They add emphasis
• They make the page more appealing to the eye

Simple?

Avoid jargon--yours, that is. And don't forget that product names are jargon. In spite of all that advertising and marketing, outside your company most people don't know what the "Turboencabulator 2000" is.

If you use acronyms, don't assume that spelling out the acronym in words makes it clear. One telecommunications company recently wrote, "DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is an option for your high-bandwidth applications." Huh? What's a digital subscriber line? How complicated is it to install? What's a "high-bandwidth application?"

Use everyday language. You're better off writing it the way you would say it, especially if you were explaining it to a bright kid or your mother-in-law.

It also helps to use language from the customer's area of expertise. If you're selling to a school board, talk about students, faculty, staff, and the campus--not customers, users, or the physical plant. It'll make more sense to them.

So forget the face paint and the huge amplifiers. Just "Keep It Short and Simple" and you'll be a hit.

For more short and simple ideas to improve your sales results, visit us at www.santcorp.com,

How to start your sales presentation

Lots of nerve wracking activities aren't so bad once we get going. That's why it's important to have a clear idea of how to start when you are making a sales presentation.

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How to Start your Sales Presentation

There are few places where first impressions matter more than in a sales presentation. The overall impact you create during the first two minutes will shade the audience's overall reaction to everything you say in the body of your presentation.

Here are some things you should NEVER do:

Don'ts

1. Don't apologize.
Starting with an apology creates a negative tone, if the apology is for your lack of preparation, qualifications, substance, and so forth. Never say something like, "I'm glad to be here with you. I just wish that I had had more time to pull together the material, because we're doing some very creative things in this area. But I'll just go ahead and share with you what I've got..." On the other hand, if you got caught in traffic and arrived late, go ahead and apologize.

2. Don't be long-winded.
Greet your audience, tell them who you are, why you are there, and why they should care. Then get on with. You don't have to tell jokes, act folksy, or try to impress them.

3. Don't antagonize or offend your audience.
I heard a saleswoman start a presentation to a group of managers from AT&T with the following joke: "When I was a little girl, I loved everything to do with Disney, so I asked my parents for a Mickey Mouse outfit for my birthday. So my dad bought me ten shares of AT&T." Needless to say, her audience was not very receptive to the rest of her message and the whole presentation became a debacle.

4. Don't use irrelevant material.

5. Don't start with "Today, I'm going to talk about. . . " or other clichés.

6. Don't lead the audience to take a negative attitude toward your subject.

On the other hand, here are some things you should ALWAYS do:

Do's

1. Do get the attention of the audience first.
Start with a ho-hum crasher, something to get them focused on you and your message.
Some possibilities: A startling statistic. A quote from their CEO. A brief, dramatic anecdote. A compelling question.

2. Do act confident. Step up with confidence. Smile. Speak out firmly and clearly. Move with assurance. Sound authoritative, yet pleasant. Imagine yourself radiating positive energy.

3. Do get set before you start to speak. Once you've begun, you don't want to arrange your notes, adjust the projector, fool around with your computer, move the lectern, adjust the screen, look for water, or anything else. You want to speak

4. Do tie your attention-getter to the remarks of the previous speakers, other parts of the program, or the person who introduces you.

This may seem like a lot to accomplish with an introduction that comprises no more than 10-15% of your total speech. However, the introduction is critical. Your first job, when you begin your presentation, is to turn that daydreaming, distracted, diverse group of individuals into a concentrating, stimulated, involved, thinking, participating audience.

Most Important!Tell the audience what's in it for them. If you are looking for a way to start writing better proposals and RFP responses, check out our ProposalMaster and RFPMaster products. You can see and listen to an interactive, Web-based demo of them at our site, http://www.santcorp.com/.

Clear, Compelling and Concise - Writing for Impact

Ever watch a commercial and ask yourself, "What was that all about?" Ever get a sales letter and wonder, "So what? Why should I care?" Ever get a proposal and groan at the thought of reading the whole thing?

Persuasive messages are characterized by the three C's: Clear, Compelling, and Concise.

Attached are our best tips for helping you achieve those qualities in your persuasive documents.

Regards,

Tom Sant

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Clear, Compelling, and Concise: Writing for Impact

Here are three tips to help you write more persuasively.

1. Don't write like a bureaucrat
Bureaucrats use pompous, unnecessarily obscure, or pretentious language to impress or intimidate the reader rather than to communicate clearly.

Here are three warning signals that you or someone you love may be producing text that sounds like the braying of a pompous donkey:
(a) lots of big, pretentious words: 90% of your words should have one or two syllables
b) lots of long or overly complex sentence patterns: keep your average sentence length around 15-17 words per sentence for maximum readability
(c) too much passive voice: we normally use passive voice only about 10% of the time; that's a good percentage for your writing, too

Here's an actual example of a sentence that violates every one of those guidelines. It actually appeared in a sales proposal!

The dimensionality of expected project problems coupled with the limited time available for preparation means that choices will have to be made to assure viability of the most critical analytical processes."

What this is supposed to mean is anybody's guess, but here's a shot at translating it into plain English that uses simpler words, cuts the sentence down a little, and eliminates the passive voice:

Because this project will focus on major problems and because time is short, we must prioritize our work so that we analyze the most important processes first.

2. Use the Primacy Principle to your advantage

People naturally assume that whatever comes first must be most important. So put your key points or information up front when you write. This rule goes for sentences, paragraphs, and the whole proposal.

For example, can you hear how negative this sounds?

"All assumptions are considered preliminary until the final proposal, SOW and vendor management responsibilities for each study is approved."

As the old song says, you've got to accentuate the positive. Here's a rewrite:

Once the proposal, scope of work, and vendor management responsibilities have all been approved, we can finalize the project assumptions.

3. Finally, keep your sentences and paragraphs short

Short sentences and paragraphs are usually easier to read than long ones.

As a general rule, the majority of your sentences should be between 10 and 35 words in length, with the average around 15-17 words. Use short sentences to make a strong point. Use longer ones for detailed explanations and supporting evidence.

Similarly, even though you may have been taught differently in school, paragraphs can have any number of sentences, including just one. In fact, fewer is better, because most people do not find large blocks of type very inviting.

The preceding paragraphs exemplify this principle. The three paragraphs contain 92 words and six sentences, for an average sentence length of 15+. And none of the paragraphs contains more than three sentences. They read pretty well, don't they? (The correct answer would be, "Yes, they do." Thank you very much.)

Mind the Gap

Gaps are dangerous. They pose hazards that can keep us from reaching our goals.

Unfortunately, in business processes, we sometimes don't realize there's a big gap looming in front of us until somebody points it out. Then it becomes obvious.

This message is about one of the most common gaps in sales. Is it one you need to watch for?

Regards,

Tom Sant

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Mind the Gap!

If you ride the London underground, you will hear the announcement, "Mind the gap!" It's a warning to watch your step so you don't fall into the space between the platform and the train.

There are lots of gaps in business--process needs, incomplete capabilities--that we need to "mind." In fact, closing the gaps in our business critical processes is a fundamental source of competitive advantage.

The Proposal Gap. For sales people, writing a persuasive proposal is one of the most challenging gaps they face. To avoid it, they resort to lots of creative techniques: Cloning old proposals, changing the names to protect the guilty. Slamming together slabs of boilerplate, even if they don't match what the client wants. Sometimes--and this is the real killer--just ignoring the opportunity completely!

The result? All-night, marathon scrambles to get a proposal done. Missed deadlines--and missed opportunities. Proposals that contain the wrong client's name, incorrect information, or spelling and grammar mistakes.

For example, one of the world's largest telecommunication firms discovered to its horror that sales people were issuing proposals based on old marketing information that was sometimes years out of date. In fact, in some proposals, they were offering products and services that the company didn't sell any longer!

A Two-Track Solution. Closing the proposal gap takes two things: sound methodology and good tools. For example, here are some of the practices that can close the gap for you:

The Primacy Principle. Most of us are susceptible to first impressions. So ask yourself what comes first in your proposals? Is it a focus on the client's key issues and concerns, on their ROI, on their outcomes? Or do your proposals start with your company history, your products and services, your mission statement even? Count how many times your name appears in the first few pages and how many times the client's name appears.

Persuasive Structure. Persuasion is not a matter of fancy words and pretty pictures. It's a matter of structure. There are four steps to follow in organizing your information persuasively:

First, restate the customer's needs, problems, or issues. Second, state the positive outcomes they seek. Third, recommend a solution that solves the problems and delivers the results. Finally, show you are competent to deliver on time and on budget.

If you follow that order, your win ratio will go up. Guaranteed.

Show the Value. The customer wants to see that there will be a positive impact from adopting your recommendations. Base the value proposition on your differentiators (so competitors can't say "Me, too!"), and quantify the impact and display it graphically for maximum impact.

Keep it simple. Eliminate jargon and acronyms. Instead, use short, simple words and sentences. Include content specific to the customer's industry or vertical market, particularly in the cover letter and executive summary.

Automate the Job with ProposalMaster. If you want to produce better proposals and do it a lot faster, you really need to automate the process. ProposalMaster is an award-winning product that incorporates best practices in an easy, intuitive package so that every sales person writes a terrific proposal every time. With ProposalMaster it takes just half an hour to create a customized, persuasive 15- to 20-page proposal.

With a combination of the right techniques and the right tools, you'll close the gap and sail down the rails toward major sales success!