Why do good proposals get ignored?
Because the reader never recognized themselves in it.
The offer can be right. The price can be right. The work can be right. If the document reads like it came from your world instead of theirs, the reader has to do the translating, and most people will not do that for a stranger.
You wrote it in your language. They read it in theirs.
What the reader is doing in the first ten seconds
They are not evaluating your offer yet. They are deciding whether you understand their situation well enough to be worth the next five minutes.
The only evidence available at that moment is the words. Not your experience, not your results, not the credentials further down the page. The words on the first screen.
A physician, a general contractor, and a title officer describe the same problem in three different vocabularies. Write to all three the same way and at least two of them feel talked past.
The step to add before you send
Hand the proposal to AI along with one detail you already have: what the recipient does for a living.
Tell it who the proposal is for and what field they work in. Ask it to rewrite the language so the terms are the ones that reader already uses every day. Keep your argument, your scope, your price. Change the vocabulary the argument travels in.
It takes under a minute, and it happens before the document ever leaves your desk.
What the research supports, and what it does not
There is real evidence that matching your reader's language moves a business outcome.
A study in the Journal of Marketing analyzed 18,682 Amazon reviews across 591 books over 17 weeks. Reviews written in a linguistic style closer to the norms of that book's own interest group converted better, and the effect held at p < .001. Writing the way a group writes measurably changed what that group did next.
Two things that study does not say, and you should know both before you use this.
It measured style, meaning function words like pronouns, articles and prepositions, not trade terminology. And separate research runs against the obvious misreading of it. A study of 650 readers found that jargon lowered how easily people processed a message and raised their resistance to it. A 2025 study of 1,826 people found the same pattern in workplace email.
So the target is recognition, not vocabulary. You are not trying to prove you know their words. You are trying to make the document easy for them to read as one of their own.
How to run it
1. Name the reader, not the company
The document is read by one person. Give AI that person's role, not the organization's name.
2. Give it the field, not the title alone
"Orthopedic surgeon in private practice" produces different language than "doctor." The more specific the field, the more usable the rewrite.
3. Ask for vocabulary, not tone
Tone requests produce flattery. Ask it to replace your terms with the terms that reader already uses for the same thing.
4. Read it back for anything you would not say out loud
If a phrase would feel strange coming out of your mouth on a call, cut it. Borrowed words that you cannot defend in conversation cost you more than they gain.
5. Keep the version
The rewritten language for an industry you sell into is reusable. The second proposal in that field starts from the first one.
What this does not mean
It does not mean loading the document with their jargon. The research above says that backfires, and a reader who deals with your field every week can tell the difference between someone who understands their work and someone who swallowed a glossary.
It also does not mean the offer stops mattering. A clear proposal for the wrong work is still the wrong work. This changes whether the right work gets read.
The decision
Take the last proposal you sent that went quiet. Read the first paragraph out loud and ask whose language it is in. If the answer is yours, that is the fix, and it costs you a minute on the next one.
Sources
- Ludwig, de Ruyter, Friedman, Brüggen, Wetzels and Pfann, "More Than Words: The Influence of Affective Content and Linguistic Style Matches in Online Reviews on Conversion Rates," Journal of Marketing 77(1), 2013, 87 to 103. 18,682 Amazon reviews across 591 books over 17 weeks; linguistic style matching against the product interest group's own style raised conversion, p < .001.
- Bullock, Colón Amill, Shulman and Dixon, "Jargon as a barrier to effective science communication," Public Understanding of Science, 2019. N = 650. Jargon significantly lowered processing fluency and increased resistance to persuasion.
- Bullock and Bisbey, "Jargon in the Workplace Reduces Processing Fluency, Self-Efficacy, and Information Seeking and Sharing," International Journal of Business Communication, 2025. N = 1,826, randomized, jargon-heavy versus plain-language workplace email.
- Jeff Fargo, Fargo Factor Insight: How to Make ChatGPT Emails Sound Like You
Transcript
Verbatim from the Fargo Walks clip, as recorded.
If you want to get one of your proposals accepted, stop talking to the person and talk as if you're one of them. Use AI and put in whatever job sector or industry they're in and say, this proposal is for John Doe, John Doe, the doctor. Please use any type of phraseology or terms to make him more comfortable and make him more likely to engage with what I'm sending him. It works. I'm Jeff Fargo. I help streamline and scale your business with AI. Go forth.
Jeff Fargo is the founder of Fargo Factor and host of Fargo Talks. Fargo Factor advises established businesses on AI Search Authority, AI Decision Systems, and selective AI-enabled implementation.
WHEN THE DECISION MATTERS
The proposal was never the problem.
Fargo Factor helps established businesses put AI on the work that repeats, starting with the documents that decide whether a reader keeps reading.
