How to Create Your First Business Proposal

If you’re new to the services industry, you may wonder why you’d need a proposal when wooing a potential client. Isn’t  a quick email with the price included enough? Sometimes your sales proposal is the only thing that differentiates you from the competition, so it’s important to create a professional proposal. You want to show that you’ve done your research on your potential client, and that you have solutions that will benefit him. Let’s get started.

What to Include in proposal

Business proposals vary from industry to industry, and each company has its own preferences of what to include. At a bare minimum, you want to have an overview of what your company does, as well as explain how you plan to help the client with his problem. You’ll want to also, of course, include a quote for what the project will cost to complete.

Depending on how in-depth your proposal should be, you can also discuss your process. This might cover the basic steps you take with a new client (analyze the problem, build solutions, implement them, create reports, etc).

Your proposal should also give an overview of the proposed project or scope of work, including deliverables and milestones. You may want to list deadlines for each milestone if the client asks for it.

Where to Talk About Pricing

Prices are a key component to your proposal. It’s important to list out each product or service you will provide the potential client, with as thorough an explanation of each as possible. You may charge by the hour or by the project, or you may ask for a retainer to cover a set of services each month. Specify how you charge in the proposal.

In your Terms and Conditions section, you can discuss your payment terms. For example, if you require 50% of the fee up front, and 50% upon completion, this is where you can outline it. If you have a cancellation policy, list it clearly, along with any fees that the client will be responsible for should he cancel services before the contract ends.

Nice to Haves

Your proposal doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles, but a few additional features can help make it stand out.

• Some clients need a little push. Consider adding a To Get Started section that gives them specific instructions on what they need to do if they want to proceed in working with you. Here, you can ask for the client to sign the agreement and send it back to you to get the project rolling.
• You may want to provide additional proof of the quality of your work. You might add a mission statement, cover letter, or executive summary to help make you look good.
• If you will need certain items to complete the job, add a section for equipment or setup preferences to ensure you have the necessary tools to do your work.

Many businesses include the service agreement in the initial proposal to keep everything in one place, although you can separate the two documents. Your goal when writing a proposal is to neatly outline what your company can do to help your client, and make it easy for him to say yes.

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