Sponsor Proposal Contents: Information Overload

If you speak with sponsors who review a lot of proposals they’ll tell you that with the majority of them they don’t get past the first page. Most sponsor presentations are overloaded with information (think of the Powerpoint presentations we see in meetings that put us to sleep).

• Some take the approach that you should answer every single question that could come up by filling the proposal pages with every bit of data.
• The problem with this approach is that you unintentionally turn the audience off by not telling your story in a simple and easy to understand format.
• You lose their attention as you are trying to gain it.

The average adult has a limited attention span; some experts say it’s just a few minutes. So instead of jamming your proposals with info, we recommend the opposite. Once you’ve gathered the information you think should be included, edit out the majority. Here are a few tips to think about as you are deciding what information to include:

• Gather all the information that you think is pertinent and then set most of it aside.
• Don’t include a bunch of personal info like hair and eye color, height, favorite movie, etc. Nobody cares.
• Don’t include all the series and team data you can find. Most of us can only retain so much data, so leave the majority out.
• Stick to the basics of storytelling. Who, what, when, where and why.
• Get to the point and tell the audience, up front, what benefits they will receive.

Photo: Corbis