“Know your audience” is true and useless until you break the reader into three things you can estimate: expertise, stance, and stake. Move the dials to build a specific reader, and the proposal on the right rewrites itself for that person — concession, evidence, vocabulary and ask all shift. Same claim throughout: this unit needs one float nurse per shift.
Build a reader
Expertise—
What do they already know, and which words can you use bare?
PublicNew gradColleagueExpert
Stance—
Are they inclined to agree, undecided, or resistant?
ResistantUndecidedAlly
Stake—
What does saying yes cost them — time, money, workload, status?
Costs nothingSome costLands on them
The stake sentence
Before you draft, finish this out loud. If you cannot fill the blank, you do not know your reader yet.
Stake is the variable writers forget, and it is the one that decides whether anything happens.
The proposal, written for that reader
First-mention test. For each specialized term, ask whether this reader has met it before. Tap a term to gloss it inline in six words or fewer — and watch what the feedback says if you gloss for an expert.
Under-explaining loses the reader. Over-explaining insults them and buries your point under material they will skim past.
Objections this reader will raise
Predict them before they are raised — and answer the strongest one in the draft, not in the reply.