Each marketing consultant wants a go-to consulting proposal template as a result of proposals are an anticipated and important a part of the consumer acquisition course of. Whether or not you’re crafting a proposal for a particular mission or seeking to land a long-term consumer, the method of drafting a proposal can appear somewhat daunting, particularly for those who don’t have a consulting proposal pattern which you can reference.
That’s precisely why we’re going to run you thru all the things you might want to submit a proposal with confidence. We’ll discover the important thing elements of writing proposals, navigating the method together with your potential shoppers, instruments that can provide help to achieve an edge on the competitors, and give you a consulting proposal template.
Desk of Contents
What Is a Consulting Proposal?
Methods to Use a Consulting Proposal Template
What to Do Earlier than You Create a Consulting Proposal
Methods to Write a Consulting Proposal
The Greatest Consulting Proposal Instruments
Good Consulting Proposal Examples
Prime Tricks to Assist You Draft That Successful Proposal
Consulting Proposal Template FAQs
What Is a Consulting Proposal?
A consulting proposal is a doc that outlines all the things that you just, as a marketing consultant, would ship for a possible mission or consumer, whereas additionally working double obligation as a advertising proposal that showcases why your experiences and expertise would make you the precise marketing consultant for the job.
Methods to Use a Consulting Proposal Template
An exterior consulting proposal template, just like the one included on this information, might help you get began within the proposal course of. It’s all the time simpler to have a transparent imaginative and prescient of your endgame when you will have examples you’ll be able to reference.
Upon getting your first proposal created, you’ll need to save a model as your personal template. This pared-down model will have already got the weather of your proposal that keep the identical from consumer to consumer. That approach you’ll be capable to simply and shortly spin up a brand new proposal anytime you want one, growing the ROI on the time and power you spend creating proposals for potential shoppers.
Don’t Skip: Methods to Get a Consulting Job in 6 Steps
What to Do Earlier than You Create a Consulting Proposal
The consulting proposal comes in the direction of the tip of the consumer acquisition course of. To efficiently flip a possible consumer into a brand new consumer, you need to comply with these steps earlier than you pull out your consulting proposal template.
1. Get Them on the Telephone or Meet in Particular person First
You must do your finest to get your prospect on the cellphone, and even higher, meet them in particular person earlier than you even speak about submitting a proposal. Listening to your voice or seeing your face will do wonders for constructing belief together with your potential consumer.
Timing is essential. Solely ship a consulting proposal after you’ve had a profitable preliminary cellphone name or assembly with the prospect. If somebody’s asking you to submit proposals with out having spoken to you first, the probabilities of wowing them are very low. Whereas a consulting proposal generally is a highly effective software for profitable shoppers, it’s not the one one, or the primary one it’s best to attain for.
Observe: There are occasions when an organization will put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) throughout which anybody can submit a proposal with none contact with the corporate beforehand. Clearly, in these circumstances, competitors is fiercer and your probabilities of profitable are decrease.
2. Guarantee You Totally Perceive Your Potential Shopper’s Downside, Desires, and Wants
You’ll want to perceive your prospect’s true needs. It’s not nearly what they inform you they need (a brand new web site). You’ll want to dig deeper to search out the motivation behind the mission (a brand new web site for them to showcase and promote their art work extra effectively).
Take notes so that you could reference your consumer’s drawback and their needs within the proposal. This exhibits you had been listening to them and that you just perceive what’s mandatory to ensure that the work to achieve success. Doing so might also provide help to profit from a psychological phenomenon generally known as the chameleon impact, the place one particular person mimics the opposite to realize empathy. It happens in social conditions the place persons are making an attempt to construct rapport and, curiously sufficient, is the rationale some folks choose up the accents of the locations they journey to or stay in.
3. Create a Worth Proposition That’s as Particular as Potential
If you happen to haven’t already, take a while to develop your distinctive worth. The right proposal will embody a transparent, particular, and actionable worth proposition. Don’t make the error of stuffing your proposals with accolades and fluffy jargon that make your work sound essential.
On the finish of the day, the consumer desires to know what you’ll do for them. So as a substitute of claiming, “Utilizing my patent-pending enterprise streamlining formulation, I’ll conduct a enterprise evaluation that generates your optimum productiveness and group workflow,” attempt, “After completely reviewing your enterprise, I’ll create a method doc that can prevent 20 hours a month in misplaced productiveness.”
4. Correctly Consider the Undertaking Scope/Timeline and the Worth You Present
Clearly outlined expectations will set you up for a productive consumer relationship and provide help to keep away from mission scope creep. It should additionally provide help to to precisely present estimates in your consulting charges.
You’ll be able to achieve a correct understanding of the scope of a mission by first sending a questionnaire that addresses an summary of your potential consumer’s wants. When you’ve developed a broad understanding of what the mission entails, the following step is to make sure you schedule a cellphone name to realize a extra nuanced understanding of what’s wanted and anticipated.
5. Be Open to Making Errors
If you happen to’re new to consulting or freelancing, you in all probability will make errors on the subject of evaluating scope and timeline. That’s a pure a part of the consulting studying curve. As you get your mission reps, you’ll develop the expertise essential to precisely estimate how lengthy the work will take you.
The identical goes for the proposal creation course of. As you write extra proposals and collect extra information about your workflow, it’ll get quicker and extra correct every time. Be open to creating errors; you’ll be taught shortly from them.
Methods to Write a Consulting Proposal
A consulting proposal could make or break your budding relationship with a possible consumer. As you construct your consulting enterprise, you’ll be able to profit from making a consulting proposal template which you can replace and modify for every potential consumer.
Each nice consulting proposal ought to have the next components:
- Cowl web page
- Government abstract
- Undertaking define/scope of labor
- Timeline
- Charges, billing, and fee Phrases
- Shopper necessities
- Expiration date
- Third-Occasion Price Disclaimer
- Contract Phrases
- Indemnities
Cowl Web page
A canopy web page is precisely that, a canopy in your proposal that shows your organization’s model, the consumer’s identify, mission, and date for reference.
Government Abstract
An government abstract supplies a one-page overview of your entire mission. The manager abstract ought to broadly spotlight the consumer’s points and challenges, and the way you propose on tackling or addressing them. Consider it as a distillation of crucial info, a “too lengthy, didn’t learn” abstract for executives who may not have the time or inclination to learn the total proposal.
Undertaking Define/Scope of Work
The mission define states what you’ll (and won’t) do for the proposed charge. Clearly describe the scope of labor, together with the scope and amount of deliverables, time frames, and another mandatory expectations for the work. You need to be ultra-specific as a result of for those who encounter scope creep, you’ll have this doc for reference.
If you happen to’re being employed to write down for a consumer’s weblog, make sure you define what number of phrases you’ll write, what number of revisions are included, and so on. If you happen to’re being employed as a life coach, specify what number of teaching calls are included, how lengthy every name will probably be, if there will probably be any e mail assist allowed, and so on. You don’t need to go away any room for confusion right here otherwise you may lose out on money and time.
Deliverables
You may also discover it mandatory to stipulate deliverables. Deliverables are the identifiable finish merchandise you’ll be “delivering” to the consumer.
Whereas there will be a variety of overlap between “deliverables” and “mission define/scope of labor,” the distinction between the scope of labor and deliverables may be finest defined with an instance.
Let’s say you’re a contract copywriter being employed to write down an book to generate leads for a corporation. Your scope of labor part may embody issues like studying extra concerning the firm’s model, researching rivals, writing the book, and revising it.
Your deliverable, nevertheless, may be a ten,000-word book, absolutely formatted and delivered by way of Google Docs.
Timeline
An excellent consulting proposal manages expectations so no undesirable surprises pop up. A part of that requires outlining if you anticipate to finish the mission.
In your timeline part, reply the next questions:
- When does the mission start?
- When does the mission finish?
- Are there any milestones in between?
With lengthy initiatives, it may be useful to have checkpoints for accomplished work. This might help you handle your time and construct confidence within the consumer that issues are going as deliberate.
You can even use milestones to launch partial fee of funds. Simply be certain to not pin your self down with too many milestones, to permit some flexibility in your workflow.
Charges, Billing, and Cost Phrases
Make it clear what your charges are and what they embody. Additionally, specify due dates, accepted fee strategies, and fee phrases. For instance, for those who require a 50 % preliminary fee, be sure to clearly state that you’ll not start work till the consumer has submitted the primary fee.
In a schedule/addendum to the contract, it’s advisable to all the time embody:
- Billing milestones, due dates, and quantities
- Billing strategies
- Late charge coverage and assortment prices related to having to pursue late funds
- An overview of your pricing construction, any quantity reductions, periodic rebates, and agreed
fee playing cards beneath the contract
Study Extra: Consulting Charges: How A lot Ought to You Cost as a Advisor?
Shopper Necessities
Many occasions, when there are delays on consulting initiatives, the bottleneck lies with the consumer. For instance, each net developer is aware of the ache of being stalled on a construct as a result of they’re ready on belongings from the consumer. If any a part of your job might be stalled as a result of consumer delays, ensure to record it within the consumer necessities.
Expiration Date
Placing an expiration date on the proposal protects you from having a potential consumer come to you three months later wanting to simply accept your proposal. By that point, you may be absolutely booked or your costs may be larger. A consumer can’t moderately anticipate you to drop all the things and fulfill the mission in your proposal in the event that they don’t act shortly. That’s why it’s strongly really helpful that you just present the consumer with a proposal expiration date.
Third Occasion Price Disclaimer
Chances are you’ll typically end up in conditions the place you prescribe third get together instruments for the consumer that your workforce makes use of to handle sure facets of their digital ecosystem equivalent to google advertisements,
advertising automation, and so on.
You don’t need to get stung with having to be the license holder for his or her information, so it’s suggested you will have a clause to make sure the consumer is paying for these companies instantly, and that you’re not liable if the third get together service fails.
In your third get together disclaimer make it clear that:
- The consumer is chargeable for the fee of third get together prices
- The consumer won’t be able to terminate the contract for those who didn’t ship as a result of the consumer
didn’t pay third get together prices - The consumer’s prior approval is required of the instruments you plan and put ahead.
Contract Phrases
Some consultants will ship over a proposal for the consumer to signal and approve first, then will ship over a separate contract for the consumer to signal. Having your proposal work as a contract, too, can prevent time and power—two important commodities for any entrepreneur.
If you happen to select to make yours a proposal-contract mixture, add any phrases and circumstances right here. Widespread phrases embody cancellation, fee phrases, and an impartial contractor clause. If you happen to need assistance, use a proposal template from any of the companies talked about above.
We’ve created this helpful jargon-buster, which outlines among the commonest phrases that you could be encounter when negotiating an company contract
together with your prospects and is introduced in alphabetical order.
Indemnities
Safety is a two approach road, and making certain the indemnities aren’t skewed to 1 get together is essential. Indemnities defend one get together from a contract from struggling monetary loss in relation to sure eventualities. Indemnity clauses are present in all kinds of authorized agreements, and that is one space that events typically spend a substantial amount of time negotiating.
An indemnity clause is usually the trigger for disputes and compromises of two key components:
- The set off: an outline of the particular occasion or set of circumstances triggering
the indemnity. - Cost and an outline of the sorts of loss which the indemnifying get together
needs to be answerable for.
So, be sure to:
- Undertake a danger evaluation to completely perceive the dangers you’ll be assuming.
- Perceive what you might be anticipated to do.
- Perceive the results of breaching the indemnities you comply with.
- Verify for any liabilities not lined by your insurance coverage supplier. Contact your dealer or
insurer on to double test.
Consulting Proposal Template
Observe this template to shortly draft your first consulting proposal.
Cowl Web page:
[Your company’s name/branding]
[Client’s name]
[Project name]
[Date of proposal]
Government Abstract:
[Provide a brief overview of the proposed project. Highlight the client’s issues and challenges, along with how you plan to address them. Limit the summary to one page or less.]
Undertaking Define/Scope of Work:
[Clearly state what you will and will not do for the proposed fee. Be as specific as possible.]
Deliverables:
[Outline the identifiable end products you will deliver to the client.]
Timeline:
[State when the project will begin and end, along with any important milestones in between.]
Charges and Cost Phrases:
[List your fees—and indicate what they do and do not include. Specify due dates, accepted payment methods, and the payment terms.]
Shopper Necessities:
[If any part of your job could be stalled due to client delays, make sure to list it here.]
Expiration Date:
[Provide the date when the proposal will expire.]
Contract Phrases (Elective):
[Add any terms and conditions here if you choose to make yours a proposal-contract combination.]
The Greatest Consulting Proposal Instruments
Whether or not you’re drafting a pattern proposal, proposal letter, or simply researching proposal software program, these instruments might help.
Eversign
Each proposal wants a signature and Eversign makes it simple to get your paperwork e-signed. You’ll be able to both kind, draw, or add your signature to the service after which “stamp” your signature onto any doc.
If you happen to use the free model, you’ll be able to signal as much as 5 paperwork for signing each month. That restrict is lifted with their Primary plan which prices $9.99 a month, or $7.99 if billed yearly.
AND.CO
AND.CO lets you draft proposals and contracts (it has free templates for each), which you’ll be able to then e mail to your consumer by way of its platform. As a bonus, you’ll get e mail notifications when your proposal is considered, and your consumer can e-sign and pay you on-line.
AND.CO gives a free plan which helps 1 consumer and their branding watermarked in your paperwork. Their PRO plan lifts the consumer restrict, removes watermarking, and lets you edit their contract templates for $18 a month.
Honeybook
Honeybook is a paid service that permits you to create proposals and contracts, ship them for e-sign, get notifications once they’ve been considered, and settle for funds on-line. It’s somewhat extra dear at $40 per 30 days or $400 yearly, nevertheless it actually is an all-in-one answer.
Bonsai
Bonsai is one other paid all-in-one suite of companies with proposals, invoicing capabilities, contract signing, and consumer CRM options which might be just like Honeybook. With Bonsai, you’ll be able to create proposals, e mail them to be signed, obtain notifications once they’re considered, and receives a commission on-line. Their freelance service proposal templates are fantastically designed, and there are a selection of decisions.
Bonsai’s primary “Workflow” plan prices $19 a month and gives all the things you might want to get going.
Higher Proposals
Easy but highly effective, Higher Proposals is a paid proposal writing software program that’s fashionable for its trackable proposals and exquisite, trendy consulting template design. You’ll get notifications when your proposal is considered and e-signed, and you may get paid on-line.
Their Starter plan permits for 10 proposals a month at simply $19/mo. That restrict is elevated to 50 proposals of their Premium plan for $50 a month.
Any Phrase Processor
If you wish to maintain it low-cost and no-frills, you’ll be able to merely fireplace up Microsoft Phrase, Google Docs, or another phrase processor, and sort up your consulting proposal. Google Docs really gives just a few actually nice mission proposal templates of their Template Gallery.
From there, merely export it as a PDF and signal it in Eversign.
Good Consulting Proposal Examples
Now that we’ve gone over the steps to making a consulting proposal that’s stellar, it’ll be useful to see real-life examples. Evaluate these good consulting proposal examples to find what makes every of them particular.
PR Consulting Proposal Instance
This public relations proposal template from PandaDoc showcases a powerful cowl web page. It begins with addressing the consumer and their wants, outlines the PR marketing consultant’s distinctive expertise and the way that can assist the consumer, after which closes with expressing confidence within the marketing consultant’s talents. Get the total PR proposal template right here.
Inside Design Consulting Proposal Instance
This inside design proposal from PandaDoc combines the Scope of Work and Timeline into one easy-to-read desk. Get the total template right here.
Net Design Consulting Proposal Instance
This net design proposal template from Proposable shows the distinction between the Scope of Work part (right here, known as “Undertaking Particulars”) and the deliverables part.
Whereas the scope of labor will embody issues equivalent to figuring out the positioning hierarchy, creating web page mock-ups, and coding the positioning, the deliverables are a completely useful web site and a WordPress characteristic that enables the consumer so as to add weblog posts.
You will get the free net design proposal template right here.
search engine optimisation Consulting Proposal Instance
This search engine optimisation consulting proposal features a contract on the finish, whereupon signing binds the consumer to pay and units phrases for termination. You will get the free search engine optimisation proposal template right here.
Content material Advertising and marketing Consulting Proposal Instance
That is an excerpt from a free template from Proposify. I like how they broke down the charges within the “Your Funding” part and clearly outlined the phrases of fee (“A deposit of $2,000 is due upon signing”). You’ll find the free content material advertising proposal template right here.
Prime Tricks to Assist You Draft That Successful Proposal
Now that you just’ve realized the weather of a profitable proposal and seen some examples, you may nonetheless have just a few hesitations as you start drafting your consulting proposal. If you happen to take nothing else, maintain these parting phrases of recommendation:
- When unsure, maintain it easy: Lots of the examples on this information embody colourful, high-design proposals. If that’s too overwhelming, maintain it easy with a phrase processor. Whereas design can definitely be eye-catching, it is a enterprise proposal at the beginning. The content material of your proposal is crucial aspect.
- Anticipate negotiation and requests for edits: It’s extraordinarily widespread for a consumer to need to ask questions concerning the proposal and even edit it. That’s okay! Be open to negotiation, and don’t fear if the proposal must undergo a few rounds of edits.
- Observe up, it doesn’t matter what: If you happen to ship the proposal and listen to crickets, don’t panic! Observe up in an e mail to the consumer and ask if they’ve any questions or want to hop on a name. Typically, a consumer might want to rigorously overview the proposal, share it with colleagues, and focus on its contents, so it’d take a while. That’s why, as we talked about earlier than, it’s best to put an expiration date in your proposal so issues don’t drag on for too lengthy.
Hold Studying: Need to Turn into a Advertising and marketing Advisor? Right here’s Methods to Do It
Consulting Proposal Template FAQs
How lengthy ought to a consulting proposal be?
There is no laborious and quick rule concerning the size of a consulting proposal. Nevertheless, it wants to incorporate a canopy web page, government abstract, scope of labor, deliverables, timeline, charges and fee phrases, consumer necessities, and expiration date. We recommend making a proposal that displays your model and, concurrently, is personalized for a consumer. For instance, for those who’re serving to seek the advice of with a enterprise proprietor you’ve got labored with earlier than, the proposal will be easy. Whereas for those who’re pitching an organization for the primary time, you may need to add some additional particulars.
What ought to I do if the consumer has questions or considerations about my consulting proposal?
Most probably, they’ll, and that is a superb factor. The extra you’ll be able to make clear your relationship earlier than beginning the work, the much less doubtless you’ll have mishaps throughout a consultancy. Be open, sincere, and clear about what you’ll be able to ship. If the potential consumer is not happy, you may be higher off shifting on.
How ought to I current my finances in a consulting proposal?
As clear as you probably can. No person likes working with a marketing consultant that sends an bill with an surprising charge. Embrace due dates, fee strategies, and phrases. It is useful to incorporate case research of earlier work, so your potential consumer sees the entire value of your worth. For instance, for a similar-sized enterprise, I spent three months and helped 10x their promoting program. The overall quantity of that consultancy was 30 hours at x {dollars} per hour.
Construct Your Consulting Company
When drafting your proposal, take into account the place your consumer is now and the place they need to be. Consider your proposal because the plan that outlines the way you’ll get them there. Do that, and also you’re one step nearer to touchdown your subsequent consulting consumer. To discover ways to begin and develop your digital company or consulting enterprise, watch our coaching on foundr+ for $1.
