Using Columnist Brilliant Tactic in Props
"He even developed a trick which he passed on, which was to plant some obvious firework into a column which would have to be removed, but leave a depth-charge in the hope that nobody noticed before it went off. It was a brilliant tactic."
- Douglas Murray on Rod Liddle upon his death.
The recently departed voice in question was indeed pugnacious and boundary-pushing, inevitably even labelled "controversial". Revelling in those not sharing his views completely missing his point. Brutally taking down stances through the (hilarious) biting satire of seemingly supporting them.
I was struck too by this further observation.
"In a society in which everyone is meant to say the same thing, the person who refuses to do so is at a premium. If that person is also driven not by a desire to shock, but by a desire to tell the truth, then they are even more valuable."
Taken together these prove a rich seam for the striving solution seller.
For starters, when all sellers on a bid say the same thing, then who wins?
Our aim is to be unique. To earn the signature we must show so. There is a reason we ought be the preferred choice. And we must let that difference not be merely glimpsed, but unmistakably shine bright.
I'm also reminded in part of the Door in the Face close.
Where you ask for something outrageous first, get rejected so instantly follow-up with a 'smaller' request (which you wanted all along) that duly gets accepted.
Manufacturing such moments of rejection whether on a close or in a document is what buys the rest safe passage.
When it comes to our long form writing, I will pepper such Proposals with such 'obvious fireworks'.
Numbers you know shall raise an eyebrow. A cunning ambiguity thrown in. Quotes of the mess directly attributed.
No single line is necessarily the depth-charge here. Plant enough fireworks and some get caught, some go through. Timeline selling is what most salespeople reach for first. Pushing urgency, by hinting sign-up should've already occurred. But it's an example, not the mechanism.
When laying out the situation as-is, I'll even state co-authorship with a key insider in the footer of each page. They nearly always ask me politely to make it just my name.
Which helps reveal the bid marker. Like a cheeky x-ray for how deep they're invested in you. Which is all part of the collaborative glory.
A successful, sustainable solution sales process will have its pre-submission 'final Prop' check stage built in.
If the prospect didn't ever 'edit', then can it truly be a shared, jointly owned endeavour?
And as the famed ol' (HG Wells) wisdom runs, 'no compulsion in the world is stronger than the urge to edit someone else's document'. So let's use that to our advantage.