The Secret to Red Hot Business Proposals That Sell – So You Don’t have To! —by Mike Richey & Kristi Hagen

This country and your business are both built on the foundation of money. It’s the lifeblood of our economy and ironically it’s this taboo subject that people avoid in conversation…like sex. Everyone does it but no one talks about it. To put it bluntly, money (like sex) is everyone’s dirty little secret. As much as we don’t like to talk about it, your business can’t survive without it. So, today we’re going to throw back the sheets and show you exactly how to take your business proposals to the next level!

Closing the deal is logically one of the most important parts of business, if not THE most important part. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not money crazed here. I truly believe that all service providers, including myself, are honor bound to deliver quality goods and services to clients with a focus on ethical and honest business practices. For the purposes of this example let’s just assume you agree with me so that we can get right down to it.

One thing that is essential in moving your prospects closer and closer to inking that deal is the proposal. Here’s a secret that you can take to the bank – all of your clients are thinking the exact same thing – “What are you promising to do and can I trust you to deliver on this promise?”

The bottom line of your proposal is to establish a realistic outline of what exactly you are going to do, when, and for how much. It’s also an important tool to portray yourself as a professional who commands a professional fee, and will provide promised results in a professional manner.

There are many ways that you can go about creating your proposal. You can…

• Have a lawyer draft one up.
  
• Find a template.
  
• Purchase Proposal software.
  
• Go with online proposal services.
  
• Copy a competitor’s.
  
• Or just create one from scratch.
  

All of these would produce completely different end results with varying amounts of information, detail and most importantly…length! There are varying philosophies on this and believe me SIZE MATTERS. Creating large bloated proposals are a waste of time. Customers can sniff out garbage and insincerity and nothing screams that like too much small print.

Today’s business owners are busy people, multi-tasking and doing more than ever before. The one thing they can never get enough of is time! Do them and yourself a favor and create a concise proposal that details exactly what you will do for them and the benefits of each item. Nothing will close a deal faster than cutting to the chase and being clear with your intentions. Your clients will respond to your straight forward manner and see it as the confidence of a professional that knows what they’re talking about and doesn’t have time to waste.

95% of the time one page is plenty of room to outline what is truly important for the client to know:

• Complete details outlining your marketing plan.
  
• What exactly you expect the client to accomplish.
  
• A detailed timeframe of things to be accomplished.
  
• Details on how you plan to accomplish your client’s marketing goals.
  
• The cost of your services broken down by task.
  
• The realistic finished results your client can expect.
  
• The realistic time frame they should expect to begin seeing results.
  

Now there are instances when just one page won’t do. In these cases, there are plenty of places to turn for help in crafting a larger, more comprehensive proposal. Proposal Kit (www.proposalkit.com) offers a wide range of extremely affordable solutions that work on both PC and Mac/Linux. It’s a downloadable program that asks you a few questions and then generates, via macros, a very impressive proposal which you can then further customize to make it perfect for every client’s situation.

There is also an online solution called Proposable.com where you can create an online proposal and send an e-mail to your client, enabling them to view the proposal online through the Web site – www.proposable.com. They have a free trial, no credit card required, with paid versions running $19 to $79 per month. The cool thing about this site is that you can easily see how long your prospective client viewed your proposal as well as what specific parts of the proposal they viewed. This enables you to customize follow up calls…

“Hi Tom, I wanted to call to be sure that you found the proposal straight forward and easy to understand. It’s important that you feel comfortable and that I’m sure you didn’t have any questions about…(the part they’ve spent the most time on), etc..”

Another worthwhile resource, if you are a total do-it-yourselfer, is the excellent book, The One-Page Proposal: How to Get Your Business Pitch onto One Persuasive Page by Patrick G. Riley. His preference is obviously the one page proposal. And whether you are going to create your proposal from scratch or not, this book is worth the money and the time.

Remember, try to stick to one page proposals whenever possible, but when the occasion calls for a longer proposal stick to the specifics, try to cover a topic only once and most importantly keep the language as simple as possible for your client to understand. Think about it like this, the less questions they have about the proposal the quicker they’ll sign the deal.

Finally, business proposals should be as personal as you and your relationship with your client. Building that relationship, through your proposal is going to help you close the deal. You will turn your future clients into current clients by paying attention to whether they need the twenty page proposal or they would prefer a one page proposal followed by a handshake over beer at the bar after work.

Remember, quality over quantity when it comes to proposals. Bigger isn’t always better!