Every Document Is a Proposal
Feb 28, 2024
4 mins
Perception is reality.
How you are perceived is more important than how you actually are. Think about that for a moment. How others think of you is more important than how you actually are. It doesn’t matter that you are the best if others don’t see you that way.
This isn’t to say you need to run around trying to appease others. But if you’re trying to convince someone that you’re the right company to choose over others, it matters what they think.
This isn’t to say you need to run around trying to appease others. But if you’re trying to convince someone that you’re the right company to choose over others, it matters what they think.
So how do you convince them?
This phenomenon has been exploited to the furthest corners of the universe with millennials running around banding together to rent a Lambo for the day so they can pretend they own one. What’s the point? So that others see this kid owns a fancy car, attributes that to him being successful, and, if you just do what he did, then you could have one too. In other words, buy his course so he can rent another Lambo for the day.
It’s basic, it’s simple but, stupidly, it works.
The same thing could be said for wearing a suit, or having a clean, tidy house or using high-quality cameras instead of an iPhone. How people perceive you is how you actually are in their eyes.
If you wear a suit instead of a hoodie you’re seen as more professional, whereas a hoodie would perhaps be more relatable. Having a clean, tidy house suggests you have your life in order, everything has a place.
If you can afford to shoot that video professionally with multiple cameras rather than with a basic iPhone+tripod combo, what does it say about the level you’re playing at?
So how does this apply to proper business and the documents you send?
If you send someone a contract that you know they’re going to sign and it’s a badly formatted, janky mess and you’re going to ask them to print it out, sign it, and send it back… How does your business now look to them? Clean, smart, professional, and on the ball?
Not likely.
It’s more likely that, if you’ve done well up to this point, it might just start to plant a seed of doubt. Nothing that’s going to break a deal, but enough to be a bit of a downer on what was otherwise a smooth process.
What happens if you’re legitimately late for a meeting or you’re a day late on a deadline? Now, maybe that fancy sales process was a one-off and you’re actually not as good as you said you were.
But having everything uniform and organised? A clean sales process followed up by a smooth contract signing where everything looks consistent and the same as your proposal did? What’s the perception now?
But having everything uniform and organised? A clean sales process followed up by a smooth contract signing where everything looks consistent and the same as your proposal did? What’s the perception now?
Organised company that has its shit together and is professional.
What about a new employee starting?
In this day and age, people move companies more than ever and the tables seem to have turned in the eyes of employees. “You’re lucky to have me”, not “I’m lucky to have a job”. So, with that said, how you treat your staff in those first few weeks is critical.
What do you send them to offer them the job? An email? An MS Word contract? It’s fine, but is it setting the right tone?
It’s a proposal. You’re proposing they join your company, you’re proposing they sign that contract. You’re proposing they take that next step.
Perception is reality. How are you looked at when you send them something like this?
Different level.
It creates excitement. It’s actually less impressive that we do this as a company because it’s a pretty obvious use case for our software. But done in a different setting, this can be even more dramatic.
Every document is a proposal. It’s a chance to impress, to present what you’re really about and how your company does things. In a world where the barrier to entry in business has never been lower, it’s a chance to do something different that has a massive positive impact on how you’re viewed by potential customers, your staff, and other people who do business with you.
Better Proposals isn’t a proposal tool that you can send different documents with. It’s a next-generation document designer which suggests that every document you send should be a proposal.
Are your sales docs more awkward than small talk?
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