True story: A client of mine visited one of his clients, a director of public works. It was simply a “touch base” call—Hi, I’m alive, just thought I’d meet and we could talk.

On the way out my client asked the director “Oh, by the way, I’m curious—what do you like to see in a proposal? What really gets you excited?”

The director smiled and turned to a stack of proposals sitting on a side table in his office and picked the one off the top and held it up for my client to see. The artwork on the cover was arresting—simple yet very attractive, with the whole concept of the project arrayed in a readily recognizable graphical form.

“This is what I like,” the director said. “I spied this as soon as it came in. I haven’t read it, but the cover tells me that it’ll probably be good—well thought out and easy to follow. When it came in I immediately put it on top of the stack. I’ll read it first.”

The moral of the story: First impressions count. With the competition as stiff as it is, every detail makes a difference. The cover is the first thing they see, and if it looks drab, or hastily put together, or routine, the reader will likely think that that’s what the content will be like as well.

Spend time on the cover art. Here are some tips:

If you don’t have a graphics person on staff, hire a freelancer. The amount you spend for her services will repay big dividends.

Start early. If you wait until the end of the proposal cycle, you will come up with a cover that will do, but that will not really communicate your message.

Invite your graphics specialist to sit in on strategy sessions. This way, she can get a sense of what you’re trying to convey. Then she can develop a way to conceptualize this.

Build in reviews of the cover art all along the process. Have the graphics designer sketch out a few concepts and review them. This way you won’t wait until the end to see a finished piece of art that may have to be re-done if you don’t find it acceptable. Serious waste of money.

Give the designer some free rein. You may have some pre-conceived ideas about what looks good, but she probably has better ones. It’s her business, after all. I have seen many good design concepts go down the drain because the boss has said something like, “That’s not how I would do it,” and then suggest a collage of project elements that ends up looking like covers from the rest of the firms proposing.

You need to make your proposal stand out from the crowd, and this is a place to do it.