Updated September 2026: in June 2020, working from home, I was given a two-week opportunity to collate slides on listed topics with a clear storyline. I built it as my manager described, and the onsite team discarded it, having never agreed that approach. I have rewritten it into advice on building a proposal storyline under a short turnaround.
I had just returned from leave and was working from home because of the pandemic. My manager messaged that a new opportunity had arrived from a familiar account team, with a two-week turnaround. His brief was to collate slides on listed topics with a defined storyline; customisation would come later with inputs from the delivery team. I put in the effort, built the storyline, and the onsite team, who had not been part of that brief, set it aside.
What is a proposal storyline?
It is the sequence of messages the proposal makes, from the client's problem to your solution to why you are the right partner, with each slide supporting one point. A good storyline lets a reader skim the headlines and understand the argument. Collecting good slides without an agreed storyline produces a deck that reads like a catalogue.
Who should agree the storyline?
The person who will present it to the client, usually the onsite lead or account manager. An offshore brief, even from your own manager, is a starting point unless the presenter has confirmed it. That was the gap in my case: the storyline was agreed between offshore people, not with the onsite team who owned the client conversation.
How do you build one quickly?
- Write the storyline as five to eight headline sentences before touching slides.
- Send those sentences to the onsite lead for approval. It takes minutes to review.
- Map existing slides to each headline, and list the gaps.
- Build only the gaps, then customise with delivery team inputs.
What makes a two-week turnaround manageable?
An approved storyline by day two, a first full draft by the end of week one, and one agreed review cycle in week two. Anything beyond that must come with a trade-off. Short turnarounds fail when direction is settled late, not when the team works slowly.
What if your manager and the onsite team disagree?
Get them on the same thread early. Share the storyline sentences with both and ask for a single agreed version before building. It avoids spending days on a direction one of them has not accepted.
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