March 2, 2022
Reader question from Raf L re business benefits in project proposals
Fellow list member Raf L wrote in with a question about the “business benefits” mentioned in my 5-page proposal template (shared with permission, lightly edited for clarity):
Hi Jonathan,
Firstly thanks for the content!
I’ve been following your emails for quite some time. I have not yet stepped into the world of working for myself due to "reasons".
However I have been slowly wondering, "If I were to go down that path, what would I need to understand?" so I went ahead and downloaded the template.
Whilst reading I noticed it was short and to the point, I’m familiar with providing options, and estimating, and putting in assumptions, however I found myself pondering about the business benefits.
How can I grasp the benefits for someone’s business delivering certain requirements? Also, does the benefit need to be included or could it be replaced by something else?
Cheers,
Raf
Classic question!
TL;DR:
Being able to clearly articulate the business benefits of your proposed options is extremely important.
You can’t replace it with something else if you want to stop competing on price and start to justify premium fees.
With that said, I can tell you there is some good news and there is some bad news…
The bad news is that almost everyone stinks at including benefits in their proposals. I’ve reviewed hundreds of proposals through my coaching programs and in The Pricing Seminar and my most common critique by far is that the author has failed to include compelling business benefits.
The good news is that it’s not particularly hard to learn how to get better at it. You just need to understand exactly what business benefits are, accept that you must include benefits in your proposal, ask questions to uncover what benefits the client really wants.
Covering all of these in a single message would be quite a lot, so I’m going to break it up into a little miniseries over the course of the next few days.
So…
Keep your eyes on your inbox for the following subject lines:
- Business benefits defined (with examples)
- Why you MUST include benefits in your proposals
- How to uncover what benefits your clients REALLY want
Stay tuned for the first installment tomorrow!
Yours,
—J
P.S. Do you dread writing proposals? Does it take you forever? Do you feel like you’re winging it? Like you’re just making stuff up, trying to sound professional?
The entire first week of The Pricing Seminar is devoted to learning, once and for all, how to write killer proposals in record time.
The 9th session of TPS is launching very soon, so add your name to the announcement list for a shot at the early bird pricing:
I hope to see you there!