The One-Page Proposal: How to Get Your Business Pitch onto One Persuasive Page

Brevity is the soul of wit.
And when it comes to business, it's the secret of success.

Lean. Trim. Clear. Concrete. In a world where decisions are made between two rings of a cell phone, this is what a successful business proposal must be. It's a lesson entrepreneur Patrick Riley learned after one too many potential partners ignored his painstaking (but long and forbidding) proposals. And now, in The One-Page Proposal, he shares his secret strategy -- the one that he has parlayed into a multimillion-dollar business career. Riley describes every important element of a successful business proposal -- from the basic message to the financial details. Step by step, he outlines how to create the perfect attention-grabbing pitch, offering dozens of strategies to help organize your research, focus your message, eliminate unnecessary language, and anticipate potential reservations. Learn how to:

• Use active, positive wording
• Compress data without losing important content
• Tactfully ask what you want
• Prioritize information, including only what's necessary
• Get the tone and voice right
• Tailor the product to your target reader

"The One-Page Proposal" is NOT just for sales and business people, but let's start there.

How many of us have, at one time or another, submitted proposals (solicited and/or unsolicited) that were written out over numerous pages, complete with graphics and all the bells and whistles, and thought, "Wow - this has got to impress my prospect", only to find out we didn't even make the first cut?

I know many sales and business people who now cringe at the thought of even being asked to submit a proposal because, quite frankly, they know they are going to spend hours and hours writing it, and then not even have it seriously considered.

This is where Patrick Riley comes in.

He will show you how to "craft" - and I do mean craft - a one-page proposal which is incredibly persuasive. Never again will sales and business people who read this book be trapped into writing long, mind-bending proposals that don't get read (and, the author, early in the book, explains why it is that so many of these types of proposals never do get read) and, instead, will be the person who stands out above the crowd.

But, as Mr. Riley advises us; don't confuse briefness with a lack of preparation. He lays out a game plan for research and preparation. The more you know in advance, the easier it is for your one-page proposal to be a winner.

As alluded to earlier, this book is not just for the salesperson asked to submit proposals, or for the business person trying to find a financial backer. It's for anyone and everyone!

What a valuable gift to give to your children looking to find a job. They will have the "unfair advantage" in their job search. It will be difficult for anyone to compete with their one-page job proposal (please do not confuse it with a resume; it's an entirely different "animal").

The person starting low on the totem pole in their company can utilize the one-page proposal to submit their ideas and begin the process of advancement through adding value.

"The One-Page Proposal" is a complete communication tool. It is benefits-oriented (the "other person's" benefits, which is what is important) and self-clarifying.

I was glued to practically every page of this book By the way, one terrific thing he (or the publisher) decided to do is to format it giant-sized in shape, while only 100 pages in length. This makes it very easy to read, and with lots of room for highlighting and note-taking, of which I know I did plenty. And, the examples of actual one-page proposals in the back are excellent, and very duplicable.

"The One-Page Proposal" will occupy a space right near my computer, as I'll refer to it continually throughout the rest of my business career. Meanwhile, I'll most likely by a lot of them to give as gifts.

This book, plain and simply, is a winner!


Big things come in concisely small proposals   June 4, 2004
 21 out of 21 found this review helpful

All I can say is that I no longer pull my hair out when a client says "send me a proposal". I have a form, which I received in this book that helps me create proposals in less than an hour (that's if I have to so some research) or I can use a proposal I previously created and just "critique it". In the past year, since the book was recommended to me, I have not been asked once to provide a "larger" proposal... this one page has been "it".

My clients don't believe how e-z it is to use, until they try it themselves. I highly recommend this book for you to write proposals that will get read, because they're short, sweet, thorough and to the point. Why not 5 stars? I found the beginning of the book a little boring. Once he got into the "guts" of the proposal making, I couldn't wait to finish.


I instantly recommended it to my clients and my friends   December 26, 2003
 15 out of 15 found this review helpful

Although it's a fast read, the One-Page Proposal is a breath of fresh air offering a new perspective on a topic others have written about in "predictable" ways.

I was so excited when I discovered this that I immediately e-mailed 20 of my friends and told them to immediately order it, and I've recommended it to all of my clients.

The One-Page Proposal gave me a totally new perspective on of my least favorite tasks. It showed me how wrong my previous approach to preparing proposals had been. It showed me how to build my proposal around what my client really wanted, rather than what I wanted to sell.

Chapter 4, "The Road Map--Putting It All Together," presents the new model of the proposal with easy-to-follow clarity. You'll learn how to spend your time planning your proposal, identifying your prospect's needs, and making it easy for them to say yes. Excerpts and annotated samples drive each lesson home.

This is not a superficial, "formula" book. It doesn't do the work for you. Rather, it teaches you how to do the work better and more efficiently. It will change the way you think about and prepare future proposals. You'll soon be preparing more proposals in less time--and enjoying the resulting additional profits.

You'll learn that proposals are not sales "closers," but can be "door-openers" to new opportunities.

I've consulted with hundreds of clients and written 37 books with a total circulation of 1.6 million copies--and I'm erasing my old proposal template and have turned into a Patrick Riley One-Page convert.


Concise and to-the-point! A great book!   May 4, 2003
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This book really cuts to the chase by showing you one means of putting information together in a way that senior manangement at many firms want to see it. It doesn't advocate skipping out on researching all the details of a standard proposal, but it does say that most of what constitutes a typical proposal today is way too much information for a decision document. Mr. Riley makes a good case for telegraphing the information down to the bare essentials of what is needed to make a decision. The rest of the detail one typically finds in a proposal will find its way into the appropriate hands once the proposal has been accepted, but is only IN a proposal now to back up the core arguments! I enjoyed Mr. Riley's method of laying out the idea, and while I found the name-dropping a bit excessive at times, on the whole think that the worth of what he is attempting to get across far exceeds the pain caused by such small matters.


From Adnan Khashoggi to Judith Regan - quite a tale in 122 pages!   July 27, 2006
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

Like a previous reviewer, I did the 'Better Together' promotion which paired Patrick Riley's "One-Page Proposal" with Tom Sant's book. How good is Riley's book? Five pages into it, I literally pitched Sant's book. Nothing against Mr. Sant's work. I was just so smitten with Riley's approach and take on things that I didn't want a competing model to diminish the clarity of it.

I have to say, Riley crafts a real "you had me at hello" moment with a riveting opening tale of how he first was introduced to the method: by none other than Adnan Khashoggi. That's what gives the method its credibility. You have to imagine a guy like Khashoggi getting bombarded with proposals, most of them long, overwrought, wordsmithed to death and - more often than not - completely ignored by their target. Khashoggi's message? "You want to get my attention, here's how."

Riley ends the book by showing you the one-page proposal sent to Judith Regan about writing a book for her publishing house, i.e., the book that you're holding in your hands. It goes without saying: the Regan pitch was another successful proposal.

So, this is more than just another boring how-to business cookbook. Any work that manages to weave together Adnan Khashoggi with Judith Regan definitely has my attention. Patrick Riley deserves your attention, too. His book is worth your time and money.