Powerful Project Proposals

Successfully presenting to Mr./Ms. BigShot takes three areas of concentration: Preparing yourself, preparing your delivery techniques, and leveraging the psychological angles that work well with Big Shots.

In this chapter, we’ll focus on the psychological angles. Knowledge is power, so the more knowledgeable you are about how Big Shots think, the more easily you can get in-tune with them for your proposal presentation.

Mr./Ms. BigShot pays attention only to things that add value to BigShot’s work day. Here’s what most Big Shots consider to be of value:

• Big Shot wants to improve the company’s bottom line (profitability).
• Big Shot wants to find, and be recognized for finding, solutions to problems.

That’s pretty much it. Big Shots consider anything else to be a distraction at best, and an out-and-out waste of their time at worst.

Responsibility to Shareholders

In pursuit of these two ideas of value, Big Shots believe they have a responsibility to the company’s shareholders to personally investigate new ideas and suggestions. This is good news! Big Shots actually want to hear new ideas and suggestions – IF presented appropriately.

Here’s what you need to know first. Big Shots respond to ideas/suggestions that may lead to Shareholder Value. Now don’t roll your eyes over the term Shareholder Value! The concept is really quite simple, and absolutely key to understanding what makes Big Shots tick. If it makes you feel better, substitute the term Company Value for Shareholder Value.

True Shareholder Value comes from one of the following:

• A sustained, controllable increase in Revenue.
• An appropriate lowering of Expenses – most often gained by improvements in the effectiveness/efficiency of workers or machinery.
• A combination of the above.

Hey, that’s not difficult to grasp, is it? We want to either sell more, or produce our goods/services for less, or both. Piece of cake!

The funny thing is that these simple but important concepts are often overlooked by those who pitch proposals to Big Shots. The presenters get so wound up in the bells and whistles (features) of the proposed product/service, they often overlook what Big Shots value most: Impact on Revenue, impact on Expenses, or impact on both.

Don’t Overlook Shareholder Value

You’re not going to make the same mistake! I’m going to teach you to present your proposal in such a way that Mr./Ms. BigShot can easily connect its impact to Shareholder Value. Once you learn how to do this, you will see immediate positive results. You will focus on becoming a problem solver by clearly and confidently showing BigShot how to complete the puzzle.