November 30, 2022
The Trick To Writing Good Proposals
The real trick to writing good proposals has nothing to do with the document itself.
If you are good at your craft, AND you know who your ideal clients are, AND you understand the business benefits that you can deliver, THEN the core message of your proposals could basically be:
I will deliver $businessOutcome to you for $dollarAmount or I’ll refund your money.
If you boil it all down, that’s really the crux of it.
Now... before you hit reply to yell at me or tell me it’s not that simple or try to explain to me how “it’s different” in your industry (or country or demographic), take a few minutes to imagine what your life would be like if you could deliver proposals with a crystal clear core value proposition like this.
Seriously.
Think about it.
What would it be like if you were so confident in delivering valuable business outcomes to your ideal clients that you could offer a money-back guarantee?
- What would that be like for client satisfaction?
- What would that be like for your referrals?
- What would that be like for your pipeline?
- What would that be like for your close rate?
- What would that be like for your revenue?
- What would that be like for your profits?
- What would that be like for your lifestyle?
I’ll tell you what it would be like:
It would be amazing.
Assuming that the business outcomes you are capable of delivering are significantly more valuable to your ideal client than it costs you to deliver them, you’d basically be printing money.
And, oh by the way, you’d be making your client’s lives way better in the process.
Here’s the thing...
My guess is that you’re good enough at your craft to deliver valuable business outcomes to the right clients.
So why would it be hard for you to write proposals with this level of clarity?
I can think of two possibilities:
You either 1. don’t know who your ideal clients are, and/or 2. you don’t understand the business benefits that you deliver.
If you solve for both of these variables, you won’t have to worry that much about the mechanics of proposal writing.
Yours,
—J