How to Craft Winning Proposals At Your Agency
Going from a great meeting to sending the proposal needs to not only be timely, but it also needs to impress the potential client. So, a good place to start is by identifying what makes your agency unique and demonstrate your expertise. Thought leadership and a niche will land you leads but is the real problem your proposals?
I’ll admit, my proposal game wasn’t strong a few years ago. Proposals are vital for landing new business, so they can’t be half-assed. A good discovery call is excellent, but not what closes the deal. It’s up to your proposal to turn a potential client into an actual client.
Ready to land more clients by simply improving your proposals? This post contains everything you need to know about creating winning proposals.
Start With A Client Analysis
If you ask good questions and take notes in your discovery call with a potential client, you can create a fantastic client analysis. Use verbiage the brand uses when you talk to them. You can also glean information from their website.
Speaking of a discovery call, optimizing that piece will improve your proposal crafting. According to HubSpot, these are the questions you should ask during your initial meeting with a prospect to enhance the proposal that you will ultimately send.
What are your revenue goals for the upcoming quarter or year?
What metrics are you personally measured on?
What were your goal last year/ quarter and what did you do to achieve them?
What resources do you have to meet your current goals?
What challenges have prevented you from reaching your previous goals?
What other priorities exist that might take precedence over reaching these goals?
Would you revise the goals or the timeline if the goals were not being met?
By conducting a client analysis, you increase your chances of winning the deal because brands are willing to pay more for an agency that “gets them.”
Find or Create a Proposal Template
There is no reason for you to reinvent the wheel every time you need to submit a proposal to land deals for your agency. Finding or creating a template will save you a lot of hassle.
There are so many templates that you’ll find with a simple Google search. However, this one from Better Proposals is the best free template I’ve seen.
If you want to go with something super simple, I recommend this one from HubSpot.
Crafting the “Meat” of Your Proposals
As I just mentioned, don’t reinvent the wheel with every proposal. Crafting the meat of your proposal just means that you create some of the content that will be used in all of your proposals.
This includes things like information about your agency, case studies, value propositions, etc.
Then, you just have to go in and add the unique verbiage specific to the brand you’re trying to land.
Crucial Elements of a Proposal
Let’s get down to the good stuff. Here are all of the elements to include in your proposal.
Cover Page
So you have a template you change a bit for each prospect. When it comes to the cover page, it obviously needs to look professional, so definitely enlist the help of a graphic designer.
While a simple thing, adding the brand’s logo to the cover page instantly gives it personalization, and brands are all about personalization.
About Us
Highlight all of the things that make your agency unique. This can be things like headshots of team members, industries you specialize in, and services that you are proud of.
Keep this section short as it’s necessary but from the prospect’s POV, it’s kind of boring.
Executive Summary
This section of the proposal is comparable to being in a bookstore and reading the back of the book to see what it is all about.
The executive summary simply outlines what you learned in your discovery call and what your proposal will entail.
Goals
Show that you understand the potential client’s goals and explain how you will meet those goals.
If you feel strongly about your capabilities, you can even predict the impact that you believe your agency will have on these goals.
Provide Social Proof
This is arguably the most important section of your proposal.
Social proof provides the third-party recommendation of your agency that brands crave. This can be in the form of case studies, testimonials, earned media, social shoutouts, etc.
Services You Will Provide
When outlining the services you plan to implement, elaborate on how those services solve a pain point for the brand.
Keep it simple and to the point by listing the services that will accelerate their business. Add 1-2 sentences on what those services entail. Remember that some of the audience reading your proposal you may have had a call with. However, it’s likely they will also share it with other team members. The point is, there needs to be a balance of describing your services so that everyone can understand but not hitting them with a proposal that is a wall of text coming at them.
Timeline
Obviously, the timeline will look differently if it’s a one-time project, hourly, or a retainer.
Brands want to be able to look into the future and know what to expect from their partnership with your agency.Include any assets that you need from the brand so that they’re held accountable just like your agency is.
KPIs
Based on the brand’s goals, call out which metrics you will report to them. As a springboard, you should outline what their current KPIs are and how much you think you can increase them.
Keep what you already know about the prospect’s goals and be realistic about what you can achieve for them.
It doesn’t hurt to offer to meet weekly or monthly about KPIs.
Pricing
Pricing is always at the end of the proposal because you want to emphasize your expertise before throwing out a price.
Something to consider that has worked well for me is to give them options. Provide per-project rates, a retainer rate, an hourly rate, etc.
5 Best Practices When Writing and Sending Your Proposal
Make sure the brand is the hero of your proposal, demonstrate what you know about them, and don’t make the whole proposal just be about your agency
If the potential client is willing, it’s best to go over the proposal together via a screen share
Use the word “investment” instead of “cost” or “pricing” as it sounds more positive
Include data wherever it makes sense and this can be in the form of industry data or data from past work you’ve done
Have a co-worker be a “second set of eyes” to ensure that there are no typos in the proposal and that it’s engaging
Following Up and Closing the Deal
Your proposal has been in the hands of the prospect for a few days, but you’ve not heard anything. It happens all the time.
There are ways to keep in touch with potential clients without hounding them. Send thought leadership emails that link to helpful resources and case studies. You can also email them and ask if budget is an issue and iterate that you can be flexible.
If they ghost you, it’s their loss. But I would keep following up until I get an answer.
It has worked for me to ask exactly what is holding them back from coming on board with my agency. Sometimes, the reason is something you can fix.
Bottom line: communication is everything.
Final Thoughts: I’m Ready to Knock Proposals Out of the Park!
It’s old news that agencies need to craft and send great proposals. What’s new is the strategies I’ve outlined to improve the proposals that your agency sends out.
As the CEO of The Campfire Circle, I offer free proposal audits and am happy to do one for you. Just contact me here.
Do you have a tip for other agency owners when it comes to crafting a winning proposal? I’d love to read your tip in the comments below!
