Two Types of Readers
In the early 2000s, Microsoft did a study and found the human attention span was only about 12 seconds long. Several years later, they conducted the study again and found that our attention dropped by 4 seconds, leaving the average person with only 8 seconds of focus.
And after years of working with A/E/C companies to win projects, I can tell you that proposal pages get about 8 seconds (on average) of attention from each person looking at them (and that's being gracious). This means your proposal is getting maybe 5 minutes of a selection committee member's attention.
Eight seconds is how long a bull rider has to stay atop their bull. So, how can you make sure you're not throwing your readers off the page too soon?
Layout your proposal for the two types of people who will read them: the skimmer and scanner.
Skimmers – These folks are typically not on the technical side of the work and are looking for enough key points and specifics to create a high-level view of what you're delivering. They use deductive logic, skimming over most of the content and looking for ideas, not specific details.
To format and layout your proposal pages for skimmers, use . . .
Key statements
Headings and subheads
Bullet points
Small, standout pieces of information
Scanners – These folks typically understand the technical side of things and seek specifics with evidence to support them. They use inductive logic and may have two or three definitive pieces of information they're looking for. For example, they might only visit your project manager's resume, read about your scheduling approach, or check the safety record.
To format and layout your proposal pages for scanners, use . . .
Graphs
Charts
Visual aids
Concise and specific information
Are your proposals formatted for both the skimmer and the scanner?
When I work with clients, we typically do a proposal audit on six different categories to ensure they're including all the important, relevant information and delivering it so that both scanners and skimmers will read it.
If you're curious about proposal audits, click here to learn more.
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