In Atomic Essay #2, I described 3 tips for creating good presentations. Here I’m going to offer 3 tips on how to find content for a particular kind of presentation, the sales proposal.
Most people don’t realise that the initial skill for crafting sales pitches is searching.
Search for strategy
Before writing a good sales proposal, you first need to understand what the strategy is behind the client’s business and their specific buying criteria.
Search for the company (e.g. Toyota) plus keywords like “strategy 2021” or “annual report”. Expand to their domain (e.g. automotive) and search for the domain plus “trends”. Finally, look for any specific keywords in the brief and search for these too (e.g. connected cars).
Search for supporting evidence
OK, so you have a good idea of how to craft a point of view. Now you need supporting evidence.
For that, we need to get more specific and repeat the keyword searches to find case studies. In the case of Thoughtworks, the best place to search is in our Google Group “Go Lives”.
Search for style
Finally, you want to make your proposal look good with imagery that supports the overall theme of the proposal. For this I recommend using an image library like Adobe Stock.
Once again repeat your keyword searches but also include keywords for the pictures that come into your mind when you think about the client’s problem, domain and solutions.