Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail
Your business is great. You’ve invented something better than sliced bread. You offer such an amazing service at such a great price that people should be knocking your door down.
And they might be. But they’re all asking for a proposal.
Proposals are a fact of life. We all do them, and we’re all trying to blow our prospects away.
But most proposals are bad. Here are 10 reasons why proposals fail:
- They’re too long. Proposals aren’t meant for “shock and awe” - don’t try and overwhelm the prospect into submission. Edit and cut. Cut and edit. There’s no perfect length for a proposal, but how many of your prospects really read the whole thing? They scan and skim till they get to the price and timeline. Keep it short.
- They don’t reference the prospect’s pain. Why did the prospect ask you for a proposal? You better have a crystal clear answer to that question. Too many proposals don’t reiterate the pain properly. Skipping that makes the prospect feel like you don’t get it.
- They’re too technical. I know you’re the expert in your field, that’s why I asked for a proposal. You don’t need to inundate your proposal with buzzwords and industry-hooey. A prospect only knows a smidge of what you know about your business, and they don’t really want to know more. Your proposal fails when it sells industry mastery using language I won’t understand.
- They’re not selling benefits. Proposals that miss out on #2 and focus too much on #3 invariably aren’t selling benefits. If you’re not selling benefits you’re sunk. And for the love of everything that is holy, spell these out as clearly as possible.
- They’re not well structured. Proposals are stories. And every story has a beginning, middle and end. Think of your proposal as a story and write it accordingly.
- They’ve got spelling and grammatical problems. A proposal with spelling errors is unacceptable, it’s as simple as that. Grammatical problems may be harder to catch. Three tips: Read it out loud. Write short sentences. Have someone else read it.
- They’re poorly formatted and packaged. Style counts! On top of that, your proposal isn’t the only game in town. You want to stand out right? Take some time to format things nicely. Add some pictures. Use bigger headers, smaller paragraphs, and color where appropriate. Think jazzy. If you’ve got substance, sell it with nice packaging.
- They’re missing testimonials and client references. I’ve rarely seen a proposal with testimonials or client references. It makes no sense. Pepper in a few testimonials to spice it up and add a feeling of success. Add in some client references with contact information to give your prospect a clear message, “you know what you’re doing and you can prove it.”
- They’re missing a thank you. Proposals are personal. You’re not writing installation instructions for IKEA furniture are you? Unless you’re sending a proposal unsolicited (which makes little sense) someone’s given you that opportunity. Thank them for it.
- There’s no call to action. You submit the proposal. Now what? Um…um…um…oops. Put in a crystal clear call to action. It could be a follow-up meeting, contract signature, or something else — it almost doesn’t matter. What’s important is that there is a next step and you’ve explicitly told the prospect what it is.
Your business rocks. You work hard. You deserve more business.
Don’t let proposals get in the way. Do them right and you’ll win a lot more business.
Yes. These are the things I continue to weed out from my own proposals. Great to see this list in one place. I’m going to use it as a benchmark for continued editing on my proposal style. Thanks Ben
I agree with Dawud, great list to reference when putting together a proposal.
That is good advice. One more issue: Follow their guidelines!
We once won a big bank job because we were only one of two proposals that met the requirements carefully. (Out of close to 100)
Your competition is not all the proposals, only those that do not get weeded out because of technicalities.
This is all true, think of benefits as solutions to things that have caused pain. The most important thing is the presentation, do not drop off the proposal. Here is a link to a 7 step presentation guide.
http://www.blackinbusiness.org/2007/01/12/black-in-business-pro-opportunity-knocks-what-do-you-do/
Sadly, I’m guilty of at least half of those mistakes, mostly based on the idea of trying to “awe” and impress the client with how brilliant I am.
The bottom line: KISS — Keep it Simple, Stupid!
Your logo looks like dangling, red testicles.
11. The proposal isn’t put online. Putting the proposal online allows for collaboration, etc.
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I find it amusing that in point six, where you’re admonishing people about grammatical errors that you made one yourself.
“Three tips: Read it out loud.”
So does shouting make it better?
It is a nicely written piece, though I probably would have added another entry along the line of “Style Counts”.
They don’t reference the pain. Have you ever read “You Can’t Teach A Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar”? One of, if not the most important thing to do is concentrate on your clients’ pain. If they don’t have pain, or if your service doesn’t alleviate that pain then your proposal, sale, etc. will fail.
Agree with Don. One of the most mystifying and frustrating experiences is to see proposals that look pretty, show general competence and enthusiasm, but don’t respond to the brief. I suspect this is sometimes (often?)because a general purpose proposal is topped and tailed for a specific response - not smart.
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Thanks for the comments everyone.
I think Sam wins the day with his though. Dangling, red testicles. It’s not something I ever thought about with the image of boxing gloves in my header. But to each their own!
Following guidelines is another great point. Like many of mine they’re “obvious” but then again, so few people do them, so they can’t be obvious enough!
No harm intended about the logo. It just reminded me since I saw this article: http://www.b3ta.com/features/phalliclogoawards/
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This is a very true article. At my job, I’ve seen proposals for home owners associations and buying groups fall through because of technobabble, lack of a thank you note, and even a testimonial.
It pays to take the time and site down and make sure everything is right — And the comment about the client’s rules for the proposal is very, very true.
We won a good sized termite contract because the competitor bidding at the same time decided to ignore the client’s rules.
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Wonderful list! I sent it to a bunch of coworkers. I write Architectural and Construction Management (service) proposals for a living and many people don’t understand these.
Good job putting them into easy-to-understand terms!
Make sure you submit in time.
Sounds obvious, but a number of web designers I asked for project proposals for submitted late. If the proposal is late, you can extrapolate that to the project itself being behind schedule.
Needless to say one aspect of the winning proposal was that it was one time.
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[…] Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail : Instigator Blog Your business is great. You’ve invented something better than sliced bread. You offer such an amazing service at such a great price that people should be knocking your door down. […]
[…] a fine post at Instigator Blog: Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail, by Ben Yoskovitz. I’d like to add a few notes of my […]
Good article. Any links to some proposals that got it all right. Thx
Great article but I have to disagree with #1. Don’t you have to spec out the entire project in as much detailed as possible especially if you are associating a price to your proposed work? Check out this article about how client assume work to be done - http://clients-suck.blogspot.com/
Iloveclients — there’s a difference between a proposal and a specification. A specification is a blueprint of everything that will be done, with exact pricing and times. A specification is designed to ensure that client and vendor are on the same page. Even with a specification sh*t happens of course…
If you’re writing a proposal and the requirements are murky, just make that clear in the proposal. “Based on our current understanding of the project…”
ghopper - I don’t have any links to proposals that got it right - but that’s a good idea, if anyone wants to submit some links!
Great point. Most of the time the client themselves are very unclear on EXACTLY what they want. So do most of you out there give proposals based on your own assumption and discussion with the client and then once awarded the job write the specs? There could be a big discrepancy between the proposal and the actual specs which might greatly affect the time and cost of the project. Ben, you suggest keeping the proposal short and sweet and admit clients will skim only to see what they really want - the price. How do you handle the proposal vs. the spec and the possible difference in cost between the 2. Thanks.
[…] for all you proposal writers out there … Ben Yoskovitz at the InstigatorBlog talks about the top 10 reasons why proposals fail. A few of his most important points: They don’t reference the prospect’s pain. Why did the […]
Don’t forget that it’s sometimes okay to say “we don’t know, but part of our process is finding out”. Proposals that claim to “know it all” about what a customer needs or is thinking are self-deluding. If there’s a gray area that needs to be addressed, be honest about it and just state that your process includes requirements discovery, prioritization, prototyping, etc. That, in itself, is a valid solution.
Rob’s right on - admit that part of the project is unclear and you’re proposing what you can based on what you know.
As you get more experience finding out what customers want, guessing, questioning properly, etc. you’ll find that your proposals and specs start to get very close on price.
My other piece of advice — take what you THINK it will cost, add 20-50% and quote that.
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All of your points are very valuable. I especially like numbers 2 and 4, as they are very connected. Clearly state the pain the customer feels in number 2 and then clearly state in number 4 that your product or service will provide the best relief and solution to the pain described earlier. I believe number 4 would be best substituted for number 3. Without an effective 2 and 4, the rest of the proposal will have little value to the customer. Put them first and as close to each other as possible.
I also believe that a point number 11 would be very beneficial. Number 11 being that proposals rarely complete a sale on their own. Personal contact to generate positive people to people relationships are vital to almost all real proposal type transactions. In fact, a written proposal would be best used as the entrance document to create and establish the personal contact needed to complete the transaction.
Bill - there’s no question that a sale isn’t completed very often just with a proposal. There’s much more to sales than that - the personal relationship being critical.
Thanks for your comment and stopping by, hope to see you around some more!
Ben,
The pleasure was all mine.
With the excellent way you write and explain things, I hope to join in on the fun again.
I emphasized the personal contact factor, because I believe too many corporations and IT groups forget that people like to work with people. Obviously you fully appreciate the value of personal contacts.
[…] Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail : Instigator Blog Your business is great. You’ve invented something better than sliced bread. You offer such an amazing service at such a great price that people should be knocking your door down. […]
Ben makes the point “take what you THINK it will cost, add 20-50% and quote that.”
Sadly, that’s often the reason that proposals fail…they are over or underestimating the value of fixing that pain. My only suggestion here is to offer a prospect a ’shopping list’ of individually-priced elements (just as long as each element is profitable on its own…in case they only buy one)…a good way to reduce ’sticker shock’ and also to get a foot in the door with new clients.
Patrick - adding to your quote is a good way of covering scope creep and your own inability to quote accurately (which most people have a problem with.) Everything takes longer than you think it will…
But I do agree with the “a la carte” approach - break up deliverables and costs.
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I love this post. I have read it at least 5 times since it was posted. As a new startup we began working on creating and fine tuning our standard proposal document about two weeks before this post. This has been our check list to compare against.
So where do I send it for a little review
Ethan - email it to me, I’ll take a look.
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I highly recommend the book “The One Page Proposal” by Patrick Riley. It provides a great framework that applies many of the ideas outlined here. It’s really changed the way I write proposals, although they’re not always one page.
Great post.
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Ben, great, blunt tips here. With the help of Mark Silver(HeartofBusiness.com) and Dawud Miracle HealthyWebDesign.com) I have a fledgling website and blog site, both still in development. Your information is realistic and to the point. Thank you.
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Great post, Ben.
The same 10 points could be applied to any number of situations in the modern workplace as they are all examples of ways to practice “principles-based business.”
Make sure whatever you are working on is:
-Audience Centric
-As Simple As Possible
-Valuable Enough For All Involved
-Real / Genuine / Authentic
-At Least As Good As It Should Be
-In Some Way Remarkable
Thanks, -Adam
http://www.BadSlacks.com
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Good post - thanks!
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This is great. Thank you. Sounds like tips from a great copywriter.
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Seems there is hardly any difference between a proposal and a long sales letter.
Proposals are sales letters, so the rules and best practices applied to proposals can apply to sales letters - both long and short…
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Excellent advice! One other thing I like to do is add an “executive summary page” that highlights the key benefits, cost and ROI. Even a twenty-page proposal on a complex product or service can usually be boiled down to a page or less. Maybe that’s the best place to start writing a proposal…?
Brad - I like that approach. We know that everyone reading a proposal goes down to the end to see price + timeline anyway, so might as well put it in a 1-page summary at the front.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
[…] are some critical best practices for writing great proposals that everyone should know. But every proposal and project quote can’t be a masterpiece. You […]
Well said!
I hate reading proposals like those too.
Great advice, I would simply add, it is important to keep things simple.
Great article! Thanx, i translated it in dutch & put it on http://www.bligg.nl, and on http://www.bobex.nl.
Jurriann - Glad you enjoyed the post. I’m sure this is the first time I’ve had anything translated into Dutch.
I have seen the same thing as well. People forget some of the simple little things that would land it, and its all the technobabble mumbo jumbo that people get caught up in. Just go back to root basics. That simple.
I agree completely with points 2 and 3. In my role I continually see engineers writing proposals/ requirements that end up filled with neat ideas while missing the mark on the customer’s needs.