How to present a proposal on a call instead of sending a PDF

Something I’ve learned recently that’s been super helpful is a new way of proposing to clients. For my whole career doing client work, whenever I sent proposals, I did what’s expected. We did a discovery meeting, I took some notes, and then I came up with a proposal. I found the template on my computer that I used before, filled in the slides or the PDF document, and it’s 5 to 20 pages long. I even polished it up and made it look nice.

Then I shot it off to them, wiped my hands clean, and hoped for the best.

Why the proposal you send stalls

Sometimes that works. A lot of times what happens is they defer reading it, because it’s a big task. It’s a big thing to look at. They want to take time to read it, but nobody’s really good at sitting down for an extended period of time and tucking into a PDF. It’s expensive to pay attention to something, and it better be worth our time.

So usually it takes them a few days to even look at it. Meanwhile, you’re wondering when to email them and ask if they read it, without sounding desperate. So you send off an email a week later with an extra little insight. “I saw that this happened. This would be a great time to talk about this. Let me know if you have any questions about the proposal.”

Two days later, they’re like, “Yes, totally. Sorry, last week was busy. We’re looking at it this week, and I’ll get back to you by the end of next week.” You’re waiting another week. Then two weeks have gone by, and it’s fizzling out.

You’re always trying to push it back up to the top of their inbox, to finally get them to say something. We reviewed it and it’s a yes. Or we reviewed it and we want to negotiate. Or we’ve decided to go a different direction. But it takes a long time to get to the answer.

Maybe two months ago, I sent off a big proposal. I was super pumped about it. A lot of research and thought, and two or three days of actual human effort on top of it, making sure it was just right. I sent it off with a Loom video, which was my way of making it personal, and I could see if they’d opened it. It was about a week before the video was even opened. It was buried in their inbox.

It took about four to six weeks from beginning to end to get, essentially, “It’s not in the budget right now. Let’s revisit the conversation in the new year.”

The DOPE Proposal

Then I came across Dan Mall’s technique, the DOPE Proposal. It’s a free video, you don’t need to buy anything to get access to it, and he even has a template in it. I tried it on my next one, and it was so much better. I wouldn’t do proposals any other way now.

The proposal is about one page. It’s not a big proposal. It’s just your three options. And you pitch it on the call. You don’t send it to them. You say, “Let’s arrange a meeting. How about next Friday at this time?” You get on the meeting, you have your presentation, and you read the slides. Maybe it’s one to three slides.

I thought it was going to feel weird, like I was reading them a slide they could just read themselves. But it was so much better received, and you get instant feedback.

Get the value of the project on the first call

The way it works is you do your call before and figure everything out. You ask them all the right questions.

The big thing Dan mentions is to get the value of the project, and there are lots of ways to measure value. Is it going to make them $100,000? Is it going to save them $100,000? Is it going to eliminate a really frustrating pain? A combination of it? You get these numbers on the call as much as you can.

How much does the business make right now doing this? Let’s say $50,000 a year. And what’s the goal? “Well, I want it to make $200,000 a year.” Do you think that’s realistic and reasonable? And what’s holding you back from that?

Or, how much time do you spend on this? How many people do that? How many hours a week? How frustrating is it? If you could wave the magic wand and make it go away, how important would that be?

There are lots of questions you can ask, and they’re happy to answer them.

Three options, a pause after each price

When you get on the call, you say, “I’m going to walk through the slides here and read them out. Interrupt me anytime. I’m going to give you three options, and I just want your gut reaction to which feels right. I’m not asking for commitment just yet.”

Then you start with what you learned. Here’s what you said. Here’s the problem. Here’s the goal. If you were to do this over three years, it would be worth this much to you, in sales and savings or a combination of it. What I’m going to show you is how we can help you get there. It’s not a promise, I can’t guarantee it’s going to happen, but this is the North Star.

Then you show the biggest option first. That’s the Papa Bear option: everything they need and want, plus the things they didn’t even realize were important, and the value of that. Then the price.

Then you wait. You give it a bit of quiet silence, let them react to the price, and respond to what they say. Then you go to the Mama Bear option. That’s what they actually need and probably what they’ll choose. It’s scoped a little smaller and tighter, at a good price. Then the Baby Bear option: the smallest, tightest version you could do for a small price point.

Then you ask, “Which one of these feels closest?” Not “I’m signing you on the dotted line.” Which one feels closest? They might say the second one is more like what they need, but they don’t have the budget for it right now. Or that the second one is more in their range, but the big one is actually what they need, so is there any way to combine the two?

Lock the next step before you hang up

If they say option B, you get some sort of verbal response, or a loose commitment: “Is that something you’d want to move forward with?” If they say yes, great. “I’ll send you the agreement with the deposit right away. Does that sound fair?”

If they say they’re not ready yet, ask them why. What’s holding you back? If it’s budget, ask if there’s someone else you can talk to for budget approval, or when they’ll have it. “The meeting’s next Friday.” Cool, do you want to meet the following Monday? Let’s set it right now.

Have your link ready, or send the invite right away. Book the meeting from the meeting, so you have a next step, rather than “I’ll follow up over email” and then weeks go by and it fizzles out.

What it was like the first time

The first time I did it, I decided I wasn’t going to critique it. I wasn’t going to say, “That’s weird, that’s a long pause, I feel weird, I’m going to change it.” I was just going to do it that way.

Before the call, the person asked, “Can you send it to me and I’ll review it?” And I said no. I’ve got to talk it through with you. I was only chasing them for a call, not for “Did you review it?”

I had a little talk track so I knew where I was, and I could go off script and back. I showed the first option and the price, and in that space I was curious what would happen. The person just said, “Cool, yeah, that makes sense.” On the second one I did the pause and she asked questions, so we went off script for a bit. Then the last one.

I didn’t even have to ask which one felt right, because the slide asked it. She said, “I think we need to go with the second option.” And I asked, “Can I send you the Stripe deposit and the agreement right after this?” She said, “Yeah, let’s go.”

That person notoriously doesn’t respond in a timely manner, and there are time zone differences. It probably would have been a month, and by then priorities would have shifted. Instead the invoice was paid and we were off to the races.

I did another one yesterday, and I totally broke the one-page rule. It was 14 pages, because it was a large scoped project, but it was still only about a 15-minute presentation. They said, “That was really professional. You did your homework. We have our budget meeting and we’ll get back to you.” So I asked when that was happening. This week. Cool, let’s meet again next Friday at the same time.

It’s never perfect, and it’s never on the spot that you just sell them. But you get instant feedback and an instant direction.

When they’re getting other proposals

One of our coaching members asked how this works with a lead who’s fielding proposals from several companies.

First, find out if they’re the decision maker. If you can get the decision maker on the call, that’s ideal. If they’re a first line of defense who’s going to pass a PDF along anyway, your presentation falls on deaf ears. You can still send it, but know it’s probably going to bounce off the wall.

Second, ask if they’re shopping around. This proposal is meant to be “This is my thing for you, and this is what I’m going to do for you.” It isn’t a free strategy document for them to take to some cheap freelancer and ask, “Can you do this, but cheaper?”

If the answer is yes, ask them, “What do I need to say or do to make everyone else go away?” It’s a cheeky, bold question, and they can answer it honestly. It might be, “Nothing, I’m just price shopping.” Then you know where you sit, and you can say, “I appreciate that, I just don’t think we’re going to be the right fit for this project.”

Or maybe they say, “There’s another guy who can do it for $10,000 cheaper, but I’m not sure he can do this part you mentioned.” Then you go, “Great, I’ll do that part. Do you want to set a meeting and I’ll present it to you?” And you have more of their commitment before you even start.

Make it your version, whatever works best for you. But I couldn’t recommend it enough.

This came out of a Build with Brad call.