You've just had a good forty-minute conversation with a customer, and they're expecting a proposal by Friday. What do you send?
Watch the video
Jo uses AI to turn a customer conversation into a first draft. Watch what she checks before sending it, and how she invites her customer to improve it.
Watch on YouTube · 13 minutes · Watch the full series
The short version. Send a draft that keeps three things apart: what your customer said, what you're assuming, and what still needs to be established. Send it with one question: "What have I got wrong, and what have I missed?"
AI can make this more practical to do consistently. It can't make any of it true. That part is still yours.
Why it's worth your time. A customer who corrects your draft is telling you what matters to them, in their own words. That can mean:
recommendations built on what's actually true
earlier warning when an opportunity is heading the wrong way
colleagues who arrive at meetings prepared, so you look more credible
proposals customers recognise as theirs
ONE THING TO TRY THIS WEEK
After your next customer conversation, write a short first draft and mark three things: what they said, what you're assuming, and what still needs to be established. Send it the same day if you can, with a covering message and that one question.
The free AI prompts from the video are here: one for preparing a first draft from your transcript and notes, and one for improving it as corrections and new evidence come in.
Email me at [email protected] and tell me what came back. I'm especially interested if nothing did. I read every reply.
Peter
Want to go further?
Read on for a covering message you can adapt, what goes in your first draft, and the checks to make before and after you send it. The newsletter above is complete; this part is optional.
A covering message you can adapt
Hi Dan,
As promised, here's my first draft. I've marked what you told me, what I'm assuming, and what we still need to establish, including the questions for Priya and Mark.
What have I got wrong, and what have I missed?
Corrections are as useful to me as agreement. A few lines by email is plenty.
What goes in the first draft
Use the structure you'd normally use, as short as the opportunity allows. Mine runs in this order:
Title: the most significant outcome, in the fewest words
Summary: short, with an outline of the costs, written last
Background: brings someone new to the situation up to date
Stakeholder objectives and key results: in their words, most important first
Proposals: briefly, how you propose to achieve them
Investment: budgets, time and effort, and from whom
Return on investment: how and when it pays for itself
Customer success plan: from where they are today to the results they're seeking
Next actions: who does what, by when
Throughout, label each point:
Said: in the customer's words, with who said it and when
Assumed: your inference, labelled as yours
To be established: the open questions, and who can answer them
Checking what AI gives you, in two steps
Check everything it attributes to the customer against your transcript and notes. Ask "Where did they say that?" and check again after it answers, because AI can be confidently wrong twice. Look out for targets nobody mentioned and requests turned into confirmations.
Then examine the recommendations. Why this? What alternatives were considered? What is it assuming? Who might disagree, and why?
When the customer replies
Update the draft and show what changed. The free improving prompt can help with this:
open with a short note: what changed, and why
record each correction as theirs, with the date
keep the uncertainties visible
don't turn one person's correction into everyone's agreement
Briefing a colleague
If someone from your side needs to contribute, give them one page drawn from the proposal. It should cover what the customer is dealing with, what's established and what isn't, the questions only they can answer, and what they need to look at beforehand. Keep it as one proposal, not a second version.
If nothing comes back
Silence doesn't necessarily mean no. A short follow-up that asks about one specific open point is often easier to answer than "any thoughts?"
Recording and AI
Ask permission before recording, and explain why it helps you get the draft right. Use only AI tools your company has approved for customer material.
ONE QUICK QUESTION
