Style over substance
On a recent visit to museum, I was handed an access card displaying a bar code that would allow me admission to the galleries for which I’d paid the entrance fee. I was impressed – it’s great to see museums moving away from their old-fashioned, stuffy image and adopting new technologies.The only problem? The bar code readers at the entrance to each gallery didn’t work. Visitors looked at one another bemused, waving their cards at the barriers in ever-more intricate dances in a vain attempt to persuade the gates to open.
Some proposals I see are beautifully designed, wonderfully illustrated, printed on the finest paper, cleverly bound. And it’s really important that your documents look great and create a powerful impression, re-enforcing and setting the tone for the story your book wants to tell.
Yet without the substance to back it up – if all of the investment has gone into the look and feel, and none into (say) the strategy process or professional proposal writing support – then you might as well not have bothered. Your readers will be left feeling let down, short-changed, frustrated by a document that’s elegant yet insubstantial.
This article was written by Jon on 7 July, 2008 and filed under Musings. If you found it useful, you can with others. To receive automatic updates, subscribe to The Proposal Guys via 
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I believe that works both ways. Receiving a well-written, beautifully formatted document gives you instant credibility. If I receive a document that is sloppy and poorly-written, I immediately lose confidence and spend more time looking for other signs that they might do shoddy work.
After all, those people with the access cards knocked themselves out trying to get them to work, assuming they weren’t using them properly rather than to assume it was possible that a museum with such a wonderful technology didn’t have it together.