Articulate the ways you're right for the job

Do you ever struggle to explain how you or your team are great to do business with? Many of us get tongue-tied when we have to write documents like these:

  • A high-stakes proposal that could bring in new work
  • The About Us section of a website
  • Or a mid-career resume

Try a problem-action-result (PAR) story to help people see how they'll benefit if they work with you. We recommend these stories in most of our customized trainings on leadership skills.

PAR stories describe a problem you've faced in your work, an action you took, and the beneficial results you achieved. This three-part chronological format is vivid and easy to follow, and it can help your readers see how your work could solve a problem they face.

Here's a simple example:

  • Problem: "Several customers asked if I could offer more ice cream with savory ingredients.
  • Action: "I experimented for days until I hit on a new combination of citrus and basil.
  • Result: "It became our most popular new flavor."

The PAR format always gives your readers a chronological structure:

  • A problematic beginning
  • A dynamic middle
  • And a happy ending

Any PAR story automatically demonstrates your problem-solving abilities. The problem in a PAR story can be as simple as these:

  • "The client wanted to see something new...."
  • or "A customer was not satisfied."

This storytelling format will present you as a professional hero who saved the day:

  • "Our innovative approach set the standard for two straight quarters,"
  • or "The customer was thrilled, and she placed a fresh order two months later."

Here's one more example, in the third person:

We understand that you need a new strategy to market your software. [Problem] Jill could spearhead an analysis of regional U.S. markets and suggest a three-phased marketing strategy. [Action] We anticipate that the resulting campaign will boost sales by 140 percent, and you could duplicate the strategy in your Australian and Canadian markets for similar sales boosts there. [Results]

Let us know any way we could help you use PAR stories or other techniques to make your proposals and other documents shine.

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