Are you using too many words in your sales pitch?

Are you using an inordinate amount of verbiage to articulate abstract concepts to your clients in an effort to convince them to accept a business proposal requiring a monetary investment from which you receive a percentage in payment for the successful conclusion of the negotiations?

WHEW. Attempting to read the line above out loud in a single breath could leave you gasping for air. It could also cause your customer to tilt their head like a confused puppy and wonder what the heck is wrong with you.

Too many words could create too many questions in the mind of your prospect

Your pitches and proposals are not a place to try an impress your prospects with your vocabulary (unless you’re pitching them on writing a dictionary). You want your proposal to be straightforward and easy to understand — and easy to say YES to.

If you clutter up your proposals with complicated language and extraneous details you’re going to create questions in the mind of your prospect, and if you create questions they will need to find answers. Since they couldn’t get those answers from you, they may need to get other people in their company involved in the process (perhaps someone from the legal team), or worse yet they may decide to get answers from one of your competitors.

You’re better off challenging their presumptions and getting all the questions out in the discovery phase. When you reach the proposal stage of the sale there shouldn’t be any surprises for your prospect. Your presentation should simply be restating (in plain English!) everything you’ve both already agreed to in your earlier meetings.

The proposal should be a mere formality of moving forward.

All you need at this point is the final approval signature so you can begin work on the project — this simply takes all the important details of you earlier conversation and puts them in one place for ease of referring to as you deliver the agreed upon work to complete the project.

Use just the number of words required to spark a single question from your prospect:
“When can you get started?”