PROPOSAL BASICS

Accepted Proposals

Here are a few proposals that clients and I have worked on together, that have gone on to be accepted. I have since scrubbed any identifying details and made them a bit more general for the audience.

6 Golden Rules

  1. Set expectations and clearly lay out the next steps that are coming. You’re in the driver’s seat – take the wheel. It might sound like, “I will summarize our conversation and what we have agreed to in a proposal, which I can have ready tomorrow. Are you available to meet later this week to follow up?”

  2. Make it fast. Avoid putting this at the back of your queue. When people are ready to buy, move the process along. Plus, the longer you wait to write the proposal, the more you will have forgotten. Pro Tip: If you have a Discovery Meeting on your calendar, block an hour afterwards to immediately work on the proposal.

  3. Make a good faith effort to accurately represent what was discussed in the meeting. Avoid sliding in ideas that have come from left field.

  4. Make it brief. Aim for 2 - 4 pages. If your menu of service options is more than 1/4 page, then add it as an addendum, rather than placing it in the body of the proposal.

  5. Present the proposal live, whenever possible, or email it shortly beforehand. (Using proposal software is fine too - as long as you are clear with your prospect about what to expect.) Avoid allowing them to have the proposal for 3 weeks before you follow up. When unsure, ask in your Discovery Meeting if they would like you to email it to them when you’re live on the call, or the day before so they can review prior.

  6. Make it error-free, and jargon-free. Have a non-accountant review your copy to make sure it’s in plain English and absent of tipos. :)

Questions for Better Discovery Meetings

You want your Discovery Meetings to be an effective way to gather what you need to know about your prospect’s situation so that you can write a stronger proposal. Here are some questions you can ask to get to what’s important:

SITUATION APPRAISAL:

What’s going on? What’s happening?

TO GET AT OBJECTIVES:

  1. Ideally, what would you like to accomplish?

  2. If we were successful, what would be the difference in your business?

  3. If you had to pick priorities right now, which three things would you focus on first?

  4. What’s the ROI that you’re looking for?

MEASURES OF SUCCESS:

  1. What would success look like, and how would you know if we go there?

  2. Ideally, how much would things improve? What would be acceptable?

  3. How would you be able to prove success to others - what would you see, what would you measure?

VALUE:

  1. What if you did nothing, and nothing changed? What would be the impact?

  2. What if this was a home run?

  3. What if this project failed or was a disaster?

  4. What is this costing you, annually?

  5. Why Me? Why Now? Why in this manner?