When you provide a prospective customer or employer with a proposal, you are essentially providing them with information about the finished result of your future work or sold products and declaring the financial return you expect from them for your products or service.
So, do you take the time and necessary care to put together something unique and polished, or do your proposals appear hurried and generic? Sorry to disappoint you if you’ve found yourself in the latter, but nowadays, when the competition is fiercer than ever, taking the time and necessary attention to put together customized business proposals to stand out is a must.
Forbes estimates that there are already 57 million employees in the United States participating in the gig economy. This is more than one-third (36%) of the total workforce of the U.S. And even on freelancing markets like Upwork and Guru, where there is a plethora of remote work available, hundreds of individuals sometimes compete for a single assignment.
The bottom line is that you will not be awarded the job or you won’t get the contract signed if your business proposal does not stand out. Fortunately for you, whether you’re a business owner who wants to send out better business proposals or a freelancer who wants to have a head start when competing for a job, below is a list of some of the most effective strategies to guarantee that you establish a fantastic first impression thanks to having a great business proposal.
Do Your Due Diligence Before Writing
Long before you even begin to write the first word of your pitch, you should start the process of crafting a proposal that will attract the attention and interest of your audience. You need as much information as possible about the people reading your proposal, including what they desire, what they fear, how they do things, what is essential to them, and so on.
Put yourself in the position of your target audience and try to understand the problems that drive them. Then, depending on the volume of business proposals that you send out each day, in order to make things easier for you and your employees and make the process run swiftly and smoothly, you might want to consider using additional helping tools such as proposal management software to help you draft better business proposals and save precious time through using pre-made business proposal templates that your employees will only need to fill in and sent out.
Grab Their Attention Right Off the Bat
Your customer will only give your proposal a few seconds of their time before moving on to the next one, so it is essential to establish an impression immediately and inspire them to continue reading. Find several methods to start your piece to attract the reader’s interest.
Mentioning a fact relevant to the undertaking is one of the most reliable ways to grab a customer’s attention. For instance, if you are a freelance writing service, you might start your proposal with a specific tone and then continue with samples of evergreen blog articles that constantly bring traffic to the websites of your former clients.
At the beginning of your business proposal, you also have the unique option of acknowledging your customer’s pain points by utilizing the client’s words from their job description or previous offer and then explaining why you are the person or business to assist them in addressing those problems.
However, ensure everything you’re writing is 100% your material and in your own words. To avoid plagiarism, it’s best to run your proposal through professional plagiarism checker software just to ensure that you’re not copying someone else’s work.
Emphasize The Positive Aspects Of Your Proposal
What’s in it for them is the question that matters to potential customers who are thinking about purchasing your product or service when they are examining your business proposal. Check to see that the advantages of working with your company and acquiring your goods or services are articulated in a way that is easy to understand and that these advantages address the issues that are most important to the client who is considering doing business with you.
Speak In A Straightforward And Uncomplicated Manner
When making a pitch for a proposition, clarity is the Holy Grail. Business leaders place a high value on their time, and they will be grateful to you if you show the same respect for them. By communicating using language and phrases that are uncomplicated and free of any extraneous components, you are subtly indicating that you are aware of this reality as well. This will inadvertently be appreciated by your audience, which will in turn gain your proposal vital attention and memory points.
Be Generous with the Amount of White Space You Use
The human brain is structured in such a way that it causes us to pause and redirect our attention to anything that is framed; our attention is instinctively pulled to the picture or item that is located in the center of the frame.
If the text of your proposal is squeezed onto one page, there is a larger likelihood that the reader may only skim over the material rather than reading it thoroughly. However, if the text of your proposal is surrounded by a significant quantity of white space, there is a larger possibility that the reader will pause, concentrate on the content, and read it.
White space may be achieved by using the margins of your document effectively. Make sure that your proposal has enough white space, particularly on the pages that contain critical information, and follow the formatting guidelines.
Final Thoughts
You need to have a standout proposal if you want to stand out in your industry. In the end, you would need to make a good number of adjustments before you polish your proposals and begin obtaining high-quality projects or jobs—and that’s alright.
