An effective proposal is essential to closing deals. Find out how to create a highly converting web design proposal.
Jeremy Moff founded his website business in 2000 but was struggling with it for a long time. He knew things needed to change and so he decided to work with us.
A couple of years ago he enrolled in our Blueprint course and in Jeremy’s own words:
I was super impressed with it. Literally by the second module, I was telling associates that if I stopped now, it’s paid for itself already.
Jeremy has been a Agency Mavericks member ever since, and during this time, he has drastically changed the way he runs his business.
So, what was it that made such a difference?
You see, he used to feel that his business was running him. He felt he was in a constant rat race. But now, Jeremy has complete control of his business.
There's no reason why you can't have similar results.
The best way to get there is to leverage systems. And one of the most critical has to do with your proposal.
The Two Things That Your Proposal Template Needs
When you spend your money, you do it based on trust. You believe that what you buy will make your life better in some way. That’s precisely how all of your clients think, too.
Your proposal can make or break your chances of closing the deal.
If you’re losing clients to the competition, it’s not because they’re better than you, although it’s an all-too-common conclusion. Rather, they’re simply better at articulating their value.
That’s why your proposal matters so much.
There are two things in particular that you must focus on.
The first is your Solution section. It shows the client how they can achieve their goals with your website. But rather than just listing the features, show how those features will create a positive outcome. As such, you need to focus on all the benefits.
This is what sells your service. You must really get it right if you want to get a client interested.
The second thing that you must have is an FAQ section. It can be an absolute game-changer!
FAQs proactively handle objections that your client might have. If you’ve been building websites for a while, you can predict the most common objections and questions.
So, why wait for the client to ask them? Give them all the information in the proposal.
Take your time to think about the most common objections that you might hear. And then, make sure to account for all of them in your FAQ section.
The Proposal Mistakes That You’ve Got to Stop Making
Now that you know what sections you must include in your proposal template, there’s another thing to keep in mind:
The way you structure everything makes a difference.
It’s something many WordPress consultants don’t get right. And with that, here are some of the most common mistakes you need to avoid.
1. Creating a New Proposal Every Time
As mentioned, taking charge of your business means creating systems. You don’t want to waste your time on mundane and repetitive processes. But this is precisely what you’ll do if you create proposals from scratch every time.
Having a template minimises the time necessary to churn out a proposal. But, you need a tried-and-tested template that can deliver results.
With such a template, you can land more clients and with less effort.
2. Listing Out Features (Instead of Focusing on Benefits)
If your proposal looks like a specs sheet, you can’t expect someone to get hyped about working with you. It may be crucial to show the features of your service, but you must frame them properly.
In other words, you need to focus on the benefits rather than the facts. For example, instead of saying:
‘Blog with categories and tags’
Say something like:
‘Drive more traffic to your site from search engines.’
Now your potential client is paying attention instead of yawning.
If you structure your features as benefits, your chances of closing the deal will jump.
3. Failing to Do the Groundwork with the Client
Before you send out a proposal, you must know exactly what the client needs from you. If not, you won’t be able to emphasise the benefits of working with you.
Your proposal should outline why someone needs a website from you. The best way to do this is to use the information from your discovery session with the client. Work out the most compelling reasons for them to join you and use that in your proposal.
Create a Winning Proposal
Now that you’ve seen what a strong proposal should look like, it’s time to compare that to what you have at the moment.
Identify what you can improve on and you might want to implement the changes for the next proposal. Remember, your proposal should summarise and highlight the reasons why someone should work with you. Articulate these reasons and you can expect a higher closing rate.
Of course, you don’t have to do it all on your own.
We estimate that our proposal template is responsible for generating somewhere between $50MM and $100MM a year in consulting fees collectively for our clients.
