A bank, a board, a funder or a client. Each one reads for something different, and a document that satisfies all four usually satisfies none of them.
Business plans and feasibility work. Proposals, tenders and bids. Concept notes and funding applications. Company profiles and capability statements. Policies, standard operating procedures and staff handbooks. Board papers and reports.
And the systems underneath them: the templates, the sequence and the checkpoints that let the next version get produced without starting from nothing.
A bank is testing whether you can service the debt. It reads the numbers first and the narrative only to check the numbers are not fiction. Optimism in the projections is a mark against you, not for you.
A board is testing whether the decision is defensible. It wants the options that were considered and rejected, the risks named plainly, and a clear recommendation it can be held to. A paper with one option and no downside reads as a document written to be approved rather than to inform.
A funder is testing fit against a published set of criteria, often scored. It is looking for its own language and its own priorities reflected back, with evidence attached. Most rejected applications are good projects described in the wrong terms.
A client is testing whether you understood the problem before you proposed a solution. A proposal that leads with your credentials rather than their situation answers a question they did not ask.
The first thing we settle is which of these is reading it. Not the topic and not the length. If it is going to more than one of them, that is more than one document, and we will say so.
Most organisations we work with do not have a document problem the first time. They have it the fourth time, when the proposal has to go out again with different numbers, the handbook needs updating and nobody can find the version that was approved.
So where it makes sense we build the template and the sequence alongside the document. What goes in each section, who signs off, what gets checked before it leaves, and where the current version lives. It is unglamorous and it is the difference between a document you paid for and a capability you own.
It is priced on the build. A three page concept note, a full business plan for a bank, and a set of standard operating procedures for a team are different jobs. Tell us what it is for and who is reading it, and you have a figure in writing before anything starts.
We build the document and the argument around the numbers, and we will tell you plainly where the numbers need an accountant rather than a writer. Where a lender or a funder requires certified financials, that is work for your accountant and we will say so rather than take it on.
Usually that is the better starting point. Send the existing version, the criteria or template you have to meet, and the deadline. Where the existing document is sound and the problem is fit, that is a different and cheaper job than starting again.
It helps a great deal. A published scoring sheet tells us exactly what the reader is required to look for and how much each part is worth. Send it with the brief.
Yes. Client information, figures and documents are not discussed outside the engagement, and writers work from anonymised briefs by default.
Across the Caribbean, primarily Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. Everything runs by WhatsApp and email. We quote in TTD, GYD or USD and tell you how payment works for your island before anything is agreed.
Tell us what you have and when it is due. We will tell you plainly whether we are the right people for it.
