Why Your Emails, Proposals and Pitches Get Ignored

You sent the proposal three weeks ago. Nothing. You followed up politely. Still nothing. You spoke in the meeting, said something you thought was sensible, and the conversation moved on as though the room had not heard you. You have started to suspect that the problem is who you are, or where you are from, or that these people simply do not take young professionals seriously.

Sometimes that is true. Far more often, the problem is the message. Most business writing and most business speaking in this part of the world is long, formal, decorative and unclear, because that is what we were taught to admire. Clear communication is rare enough that it reads as competence on its own.

Start from what the reader is actually doing

The person you are writing to has a full inbox, a meeting in nine minutes and a phone that will not stop. They are not going to study your message. They are going to scan the first two lines and decide whether this is worth their attention today.

So your job is not to be impressive in paragraph four. Your job is to be understood in line one. Everything below follows from that single fact.

Put the point at the top

The most common mistake is telling the story in the order it happened to you. You explain who you are, how you found them, why you admire their work, the background of your organisation, and then, somewhere near the bottom, what you actually want.

Reverse it. Say what you want, why it matters to them, and what happens next. Then give the background to whoever is still reading.

Before

Dear Sir, I hope this email finds you well. My name is Chidi and I am a graduate of the University of Nigeria where I studied Mass Communication. I have been following your organisation for a long time and I am highly impressed by the great work you are doing in the community. I am writing to humbly request the opportunity to discuss how I may be of assistance to your esteemed organisation, if it will not be too much trouble…

After

Dear Mrs Adeyemi, I can cut the time your team spends producing monthly reports from three days to about four hours. I did this for a logistics firm in Lagos last quarter and I have attached the two-page summary. Are you free for fifteen minutes on Tuesday or Wednesday? If a call is not useful, I am happy to send the method and leave it with you.

The second version is shorter, more respectful of the reader, and far more confident, and notice that it never claims to be confident. It simply behaves that way. It names a result, offers proof, asks for one specific small thing, and gives the reader an easy way to decline.

Five rules that fix most writing

One idea per sentence. If a sentence has three commas and two clauses, it has swallowed a second sentence. Set it free.
Cut the throat-clearing. I hope this finds you well. I am writing to inform you. As you may be aware. Delete all of it. Begin at the point.
Be concrete. Not we deliver excellent value through synergistic solutions. Instead, we cut your report time from three days to four hours. Concrete language is checkable, and checkable language is credible.
Use short words. Use, not utilise. Help, not facilitate. About, not with regard to. Big words do not make you sound educated. They make you sound uncertain.
Say what happens next. Every message ends with a clear next step, owned by a named person, with a date attached. A message without a next step is a message that dies politely in an inbox.

The one page proposal

Long proposals are usually a way of hiding the fact that we have not decided what we are offering. Almost everything can be said on one page in five parts.

The problem, in their words. Show that you understood before you show that you are clever.
What it is costing them. Money, time, risk or reputation. If you cannot state a cost, you do not yet have a sale.
What you will do. Plainly, with the boundary of the work stated so that everyone knows where it ends.
What it costs and how long it takes. Do not hide the price. Hiding it signals that you are ashamed of it.
The next step. One sentence. A call, a signature, a pilot.

If they want detail they will ask, and that question is a buying signal. Detail offered before it is wanted is just noise you have paid a designer to typeset.

Speaking so that people listen

Writing and speaking fail for the same reason, which is that we perform instead of communicating. A few adjustments do most of the work.

Stop apologising for existing. Sorry, I just wanted to add. This may be a stupid question. I am not an expert but. Every one of those phrases tells the room to discount what follows. Say the thing.
Slow down and use silence. Speed signals anxiety. A pause before an important sentence makes the room lean in, and a pause after it lets the sentence land.
Structure in threes. Here is the situation, here is what I recommend, here is what I need from you. Structure is what lets a listener follow you without effort.
Lead with the recommendation. In a meeting, give your conclusion first and your reasoning after. Senior people listen for decisions, not journeys.
Answer the question you were asked. Then stop talking. The instinct to keep adding is what turns a good answer into a weak one.

What actually persuades

Persuasion is not a trick you apply to a weak case. It is what happens when a good case is made in a form the other person can accept.

Three things carry most of it. The first is that you clearly understand their situation, which you demonstrate by describing their problem better than they can. The second is evidence, which means a result you have produced before, ideally with a number attached. The third is a small, safe first step, because you are asking a stranger to take a risk on you and the smaller you can make that risk, the easier the yes.

And in any negotiation, know your alternative before you open your mouth. The person who has somewhere else to go negotiates calmly, and calm is the whole game. Ask more questions than you answer, never bid against yourself by improving your own offer before they have responded, and be willing to let a silence sit after you have stated your price.

Practise this week

Take the last long email you sent and rewrite it at half the length, with the ask in the first line.
Delete every instance of I hope this email finds you well from your drafts folder and your habits.
Before your next meeting, write your recommendation in one sentence. If you cannot, you are not ready to speak.
Ask a colleague to tell you the point of your last message. If they cannot, the message failed, not the colleague.

Following up without becoming a nuisance

Silence is usually not rejection. It is a person who read your message at a bad moment and intended to reply later. Your follow-up should assume that, and it should carry something new rather than simply announcing that you are still here.

A reminder of your existence is easy to ignore. A short message that adds one useful thing is not. Send the case study you mentioned, a two-line observation about something they published, or a smaller version of the offer. Three attempts, spaced roughly a week apart, is reasonable in most business contexts.

Then close the loop yourself with a message that makes it comfortable to say no. Something like this works well. I do not want to keep filling your inbox, so I will leave it here. If this is not a priority now, that is completely fine. If it becomes one, my number is below. That message gets a reply more often than any of the ones before it, because it removes the pressure that was quietly stopping them.

The two minute check before you send

Read it aloud. Anything you stumble over, the reader will stumble over too.
Cover everything except the first two lines. Would a busy stranger know what you want and why it matters to them?
Find the next step. Is there one, is it specific, and does it have a date and an owner?
Delete the three longest words. If the meaning survives, they were decoration.
Check the name and the organisation spelling. Getting that wrong undoes every other good thing in the message.

Two minutes, every time. It is the cheapest quality control available to a professional.

Go deeper

Communication is the skill that makes every other skill visible. We teach it as a discipline, not as a personality trait. Writing That Actually Works is the foundational programme and covers emails, proposals, reports and documents that get decisions made. Speaking With Authority handles meetings, presentations and the way you carry a room. The Art of the Pitch covers selling an idea to clients and investors, and Influence and Negotiation deals with the conversations where money and terms are decided. If you want the public side of this, Personal Brand With Substance is the one.

Browse the full library or join Prominence Africa. Being good at your work is not enough if nobody can tell.