Pull out your master/generic new business proposal and find the section containing the executive bios – then cut them in half.  In some cases, cut them in half again.

I know… I know… that can’t possibly be right, I hear some of you mumble.  After all, I can’t possibly know how long your individual bios are, so how can I be so sure that they should be cut to half, or even one fourth their current length?

Well, first of all… calm down.  My overriding point here is that in oodles of cases the executive bios that appear in new business proposals look like they could be used to fill an entire hour of the television show, This Is Your Life.  They’re simply too often, too long – filled with useless, self-serving drivel that no one cares about one way or the other.

Oh, let’s see… does the firm’s Managing Partner, or Senior Vice President coach junior league soccer on weekends – well that’s just swell.  Did he or she earn a bachelor’s degree in South American Egotistical Libertarian Agriculture back in ’69?  So, well done to him or her then.  And as far as the listing of seminars he or she has attended over the last seven years… the names of his or her spouse and their children… or the fact that he or she loves competitive mountain biking in Himalayan high country mud… well, I can’t even begin to tell you.

A good, thorough executive bio for the average senior manager or firm partner should never get anywhere near 500 words in length.  As an example of length, if you started reading this very page at it’s title, at the end of this sentence you will have read only 293 words.  Even if you’re trying to communicate the complex background of an accomplished attorney or specialized physician, you can almost certainly do it very effectively in 200 words and in some cases, perhaps 100.

What should be included in an executive’s bio is the background information about the executive that is relevant to the prospective client’s needs.  Nothing more, nothing less.  This is not a resume.  It’s a bio of someone presumably important to the account’s service team.  Prospective clients are asking for you to provide bios because they want to get a sense that you’ve thought things out at your end and are prepared, structured and staffed to handle their needs and meet their expectations.  They are not actually trying to learn everything they can about Michelle Flingberry, who apparently will be answering the phone on Tuesdays and Thursdays and is the team member responsible for photocopying.

If the bio describes the person who will lead the account service team – great – but all we really want to know about that person is why he or she is the right man or woman for the job. 

Degrees, for example, are appropriate for staffers under thirty who often lack work experience, but degrees earned 27 years ago should certainly take a back seat to other information of more direct benefit to the prospective client.  If the person holds a graduate degree, such as an MBA, JD, MD, PhD, et al, you do not need to list their undergraduate accomplishments.  And, unless you’ve attended a prestigious Ivy League school, like Harvard, or… well, Harvard, it’s not important where you went.  You can simply state that you have a B.S. in Communications, or a Masters in Public Health.  The fact that you attended U of I, wherever that is, or graduated from Cal State at Pomona is not terribly important to the prospect, or anyone else for that matter, except those planning a class reunion I suppose.

Attorneys, of course, generally do want to provide their detailed educational accomplishments and there are times when it’s appropriate.  For example, a patent attorney with an undergraduate degree in biochemistry may be particularly valuable to a pharmaceutical industry client.  Or a lawyer with a business degree could be another selling point for the firm.  The point is that in every case, the criteria for inclusion in the executive’s bio is information of direct benefit to the prospective client.

Consider something along these lines:

Done.  Including his name and title, that was 78 words.  Do you need to say more?  Perhaps you do, but add judiciously.  If what you want to include will not be perceived as a benefit to the reader, “So what?” and “Who cares?”  (I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve seen bios that even a mother would struggle to get through.)

The purpose of the bio, it should always be remembered, is to convince the prospective client that your firm is the optimal fit for their needs – it is not, not, not a resume.  It isn’t there in the hopes that the reader will make the profiled executive a job offer.

Of course, for some people, eliminating information in an executive’s bio is hard to do – the “kitchen sink” crowd – “throw it in, it couldn’t hurt” is often the thinking.  The problem is that it can hurt your chances of winning the business.  When bios are long, self-serving, resume-like, and generally as irrelevant as they are dull, no one reads them and those that do, can’t remember the compelling reasons why a given executive was perfect for their needs because they’re too busy remembering that Marla, the Account Coordinator loves Golden Retrievers and attended the University of Hawaii.

Go back and re-read the John Q. Executive example above.  Now, try to imagine a prospective client reading that bio and then saying to themselves: “Hmmm… Let’s see, been with the firm for 15 years; member of the firm’s Executive Advisory Board; Senior VP; a decade of widget industry experience; proven leadership skills… hang on… wait a minute… they didn’t tell me where he went to undergrad, or if he’s the father of three boys.  Heck… I don’t even know which seminars he’s attended recently.  What are his dreams and what is his vision?  How can I possibly be expected to make a decision without those details?”

And, at the end of the day, if a given prospect wants more information than you’ve provided about a given executive, they’ll ask for it – even though this has never happened in the history of the world.  You do not have to provide them with a level of detail akin to Melville’s description of his famous whale.

As to how many bios to include in a proposal, I can only say that I’ve seen proposals with 35 pages of them – I swear it’s true; I could not make that up.  If it were me and absent any other facts, I’d keep it to no more than five.  There is no need to provide bios for people so ancillary to the client’s account that their paths are likely never to cross.

New business proposals are your opportunity to present your firm’s capabilities in their best light and as related to the needs of a specific prospect.  To be effective, your proposals need to differentiate your firm from your competitors and compel prospects to become clients. 

Always remember that a new business proposal is about “them” not “you”.  That is to say that prospective buyers of your firm’s products or services are only interested in how your firm can address their needs.  State everything in terms of being a benefit to “them” and you will quickly find that your new business proposals are a better read and read more often.

Martin Andelman is the CEO of ENERGI, a firm that specializes in helping professional service firms increase their new business proposal win rate.  He is the author of RFP NATION, a book about how to compete in writing, which explains why getting good at it isn’t optional if you want to achieve your growth objectives through new client relationships this year and beyond.

To subscribe to the series of monthly tips on how to increase your firm’s proposal win-rate, contact monthlytips@rfpnation.com