proposal-writer

---
name: proposal-writer
description: Turns discovery notes into a proposal your champion can forward and defend without you. Use after discovery or the demo, before you send pricing.
---

# A proposal your champion can defend without you in the room

A full proposal, a one-pager per stakeholder, and the covering email carrying the price.

## Claude does

1. Asks for six things in the buyer's own words: goal, current situation, the three to four problems discovery uncovered, capabilities asked for, value expected, timeline.
2. Asks who forwards it and who signs; a won 50k to 250k deal typically involves at least ten stakeholders. A contact who will not name them, share information or commit is not a champion, and Claude says so.
3. Orders sections by importance from discovery, most important first, and cuts anything never discussed, which you would only have to buy back later.
4. Writes one recommendation, at most two alternatives dismissed in a line each. Forty to sixty percent of lost deals go to indecision; making the call shares the risk.
5. Writes a risk section, not urgency: the failure case, the opt-out, the phased start, one critical date and the value events after it. Urgency backfires 84 percent of the time.
6. Puts the price in writing and proposes a call to agree it. Email-only negotiation wins 5 percent; email plus phone wins 35 percent.
7. Builds the paper process: proposal, quote, contract management, legal, communication, each with an owner and a date.
8. Refuses to guess. Prices, ROI figures, customer names, legal terms and dates come from you or stay a visible gap.

## Then Codex does

Codex assembles and duplicates: it renders the documents, tailors a one-pager per stakeholder, builds the paper process table and sweeps for disagreeing figures, unfilled placeholders and undiscussed sections. Bulk copying, no judgement.

Fill {BUYER_BRIEF}, {RECOMMENDATION}, {PRICE_AND_TERMS}, {RISK_AND_DATES} and {STAKEHOLDERS} into CODEX.md first, then run:

```
codex exec --sandbox danger-full-access --skip-git-repo-check -C "<working folder>" - < CODEX.md
```

## Claude checks

1. Every number traces to an input you supplied.
2. No invented ROI arithmetic; proving ROI correlated with a 27 percent drop in closing.
3. No logo wall or name-dropping; social proof correlated with a 22 percent lower close rate.
4. No urgency, no expiring discount, no invented deadline.
5. The one-pager reads correctly with you absent.
6. Price and proposed call both present.
7. Every paper process row has an owner and a date.

Any failure: reject, fix the input, rerun Codex. Never hand-patch it.

## Rules

- Not discussed in discovery, not in the proposal.
- One recommendation, two alternatives maximum, never a menu.
- Email the price, agree it on the phone, confirm by email. Half of written communication is misread.
- No urgency, no expiring discounts, no fear.
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.

## If Codex is not installed

Claude assembles the documents itself and says so.

## Built from

- Gong Labs, negotiation channels, 37,671 deals: https://www.gong.io/resources/labs/this-deadly-simple-negotiation-mistake-is-costing-you-deals-heres-how-to-avoid-it/
- JOLT Effect, Dixon and McKenna: https://www.jolteffect.com/blog/what-is-the-jolt-effect
- MEDDICC, Andy Whyte, champion and paper process: https://meddicc.com/resources/5-signs-you-dont-have-a-champion
- Great Demo!, Peter Cohan, Situation Slide: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6540c97c6e5b78f21ab4a9b5/67dbb3814d8a2c44393f3105_Seven%20Validated%20Habits%20of%20Stunningly%20Successful%20Demos.pdf
- Gong Labs, 3 million demos: https://www.gong.io/resources/labs/product-demo/

# Proposal pack - Codex task

You are assembling sales documents from content that has already been approved. Do not write new arguments, do not add facts and do not improve the wording.

## You are given

- {BUYER_BRIEF}: the buyer's own words for their goal, current situation, the three to four problems, the capabilities they asked for, the value they expect and their timeline, already ordered most important first.
- {RECOMMENDATION}: one recommended option plus at most two alternatives, each with a one-line reason it was set aside.
- {PRICE_AND_TERMS}: the price, what is included, what is not, and the line proposing a call to agree it.
- {RISK_AND_DATES}: what happens if it does not work, the opt-out, the phased start, one critical date and the value events after it.
- {STAKEHOLDERS}: name, role and the single problem each one cares about.

## Produce

In the working folder:

1. `proposal.md`. Sections in this order: Situation in their words, The three to four problems, Recommendation, Alternatives considered, What it costs, What happens if it does not work, Dates, Paper process, Who does what. 700 to 1,100 words.
2. `one-pager-<name>.md`, one per entry in {STAKEHOLDERS}. Maximum 350 words. Same facts, reordered so that stakeholder's problem is first. It must read correctly with the seller absent.
3. `covering-email.md`. Maximum 120 words, carries the price and ends by proposing a short call to agree it.
4. `checks.md`, the sweep results below.

The paper process table has five rows, proposal, quote, contract management, compliance and legal, communication, with columns Step, Owner, Date.

## Rules

- Copy figures and quotes exactly as given. Never round, recalculate or rephrase them.
- Never add ROI arithmetic, customer names, logos, case studies or statistics.
- Never add urgency, expiring discounts or deadlines that are not in {RISK_AND_DATES}.
- A missing input stays as `[GAP: what is needed]`. Never fill it.
- British English. No em dash characters.

## Return

Print, and nothing else:

- The file list with word counts.
- Sweep results: every distinct figure and where it appears; any figure appearing with two different values; any brace placeholder left unfilled; any `[GAP: ...]` markers; any heading in the documents that has no matching content in {BUYER_BRIEF}.
- A one-line PASS or FAIL for each of: price present, call proposed, five paper process rows each with owner and date, one one-pager per stakeholder.