Business Notes: The pressure of creating client proposals

Proposals

I had a phone conference earlier this week with a prospect that I wanted to land.They want to meet face to face which means this could be an account that will go back and forth for a while if they do like my ideas and decide to go ahead with me. If they don’t want to go ahead with me, then it means the proposal is not accepted and they don’t like my ideas.

I did a call for action, ie if I could send them a marketing proposal, and they emailed me again yesterday to ask about when the proposal was going to be sent. In my phone conference chat with them, I did not specify when I was going to send it in hindsight, I should have specified the date of when I would send it but I hope this is minor mistake. I emailed them back todayto say that I would send it early next week* because I want to ensure that my ideas are sizzling for them and I don’t want to deliver a shit proposal.

Creating proposals is full of pressure and it can be extremely difficult because when a prospect acts for a proposal, they don’t want a cookie-cutter template that you would send someone else – they want to know that you care about their business and what they are truly about. That said, prospects who want to see proposals are prospects who are unsure of what they are so it is important for the proposals to make sense without being too specific or overwhelming them.

I want to impress this prospect – and I know I need to step it up because they should not be emailing me to ask when the proposal is coming. We spoke on Thursday and they emailed on Saturday, we live in an instant Nescafe world where people want things now and it is crucial to have quality control while still delivering quality work as soon as the prospect/client wants it.