First sentences are difficult. As they go, that one wasn’t particularly memorable. I went to journalism school where they drummed it into you that if it was longer than 25 words and didn’t summarise the story in a compelling way, you’d failed. Every now and then the tutors – grizzled, embittered ex-hacks one and all – would come across an intro they liked and they’d read it aloud during class. Perhaps they did it to inspire, but I think they did it to remind us of our own ineptitude. Anyway.
First sentences. They embody the cliché ‘first impressions count’. You read a news article, you pick up a book at an airport bookshop, wiling away the hours before flying home for another dispiriting Christmas. There it is. The sentence as lasso. A cast into the still pond: ‘Read this. And keep reading. I’ve got you now, you bastard. Read to the end.’
And first sentences are especially difficult if there’s money riding on them. For many agencies, proposals are their lifeblood. Each one bears the hopes and dreams of a studio full of bearded designers and bespectacled pixel-pushers. Proposals can be definitive. To say that they’re an opportunity to impress a prospective client underplays them. Your proposal is what sets you apart, and makes your agency unique in the clients’ eyes. It’s what convinces them to say yes. Your proposal is your agency’s first sentence.
Last week we launched Beagle – a tool designed with and for agencies to help them create more compelling proposals, faster. We spent six months uncovering the problems around the proposal process and, together with agencies across Europe, set about designing the solution.
Beagle will improve your proposal process – and your bottom line – by making it easier and faster to:
-
Find and reuse existing proposals and specific content quickly and elegantly – no more searching on servers and desktops or in emails for the latest version
-
Refine and improve your proposals together with your team – no more endless email chains, tracked changes, or complex versioning processes
-
Customise the look and feel, preview, and send to your client – ensure consistently great-looking proposals and eliminate the need for multiple tools
We believe great work starts with great proposals. And we believe Beagle gives agencies the best chance of creating great proposals.
