How Do I Write A Simple Proposal For Services

How to write a business proposal (The modern way)

Nothing speaks to a customer's directly needs similar a well-written business organisation proposal.

But how do you make sure that your proposal is engaging to every potential customer?

This twelvemonth, nosotros analyzed nearly 570,000 proposals sent in 2021 through the PandaDoc platform for insights on what works best and what doesn't.

Here's what we learned about writing business organization proposals.

The basic construction of your proposal

Encompass page
Encompass letter
Tabular array of contents
Executive summary
Proposal and solutions pages
Pricing
Nearly us
Testimonials and social proof
Agreement and CTA

The bones structure of your business proposal

Building a business concern proposal is similar edifice a house.

While there are certain elements that are always necessary — like the foundation — a house varies based on location and the architect or homeowner's preferences.

In the same way, the components of a business proposal can vary based on industry, company size, and many other factors.

Just like writing annihilation else, a well-written proposal begins past gathering data and assessing the problems that your potential client is trying to solve.

With that in listen, the following items are what readers are looking to glean from your proposal. Recollect of these as the roof, walls, and foundation of your document:

Information about your company. Your background, your qualifications, and why y'all're a ameliorate fit than the rest of your competitors.
Demonstrated knowledge of the trouble. Proof that you've listened and done your research. You know what the client needs and you lot have a viable solution.
Pricing and methodology. How y'all plan to solve the client'southward problem, information about your proposed solution, and how much information technology'south going to toll.

In the next department, nosotros'll take you through how to draft a concern proposal using our social media proposal template as an case.

If you lot're not a social media company, don't worry.

While the template nosotros're using is an case of a simple project proposal, the basic structure applies to nigh every concern proposal — no matter how complex they might be.

You tin download this proposal instance and hundreds of other business proposal templates on our website.

Hither are the nine elements of a business proposal , and what to include in each section.

Before you lot start, a quick note on length

Based on our assay of proposals on our platform, we found that the average proposal length is about nine pages.

But, every bit several of our own account executives and sales squad members were quick to betoken out, longer doesn't e'er mean improve.

"Short and sugariness has a high conversion rate," said Josh Gillespie, from Upmarket Sales. "Fewer pages and less fluff is ameliorate. Ideally, a proposal should exist fewer than 10 pages for transactional proposals below $10,000, and never more than fifty pages."

Artyom Voronetskiy, Account Executive with PandaDoc, agrees:

"Keep it short, on-point, and middle-catching. Practice not write more six to ten pages unless your product is extremely complicated."

While you should brand certain to include all relevant information that prospective clients volition demand in gild to make a determination, have intendance to avoid overcrowding them with irrelevant details.

01. Cover page

This department includes basic information like your company'due south name and contact data, your visitor logo, your client's proper name, and contact data, the date, and a title.

A strong title folio makes the project proposal look neat, organized, and well put together.

It'southward as well the very commencement thing that your prospective customer volition see when they open up your proposal, and everyone knows how important that start impression can be.

Studies have shown that you have as little as 50 milliseconds to make a good showtime impression when designing visual content like websites.

The same holds truthful for your encompass folio.

Unlike the residue of your document, a cover page is a place where you can place graphics and visual content to gear up the tone before the reader dives into the meat of your proposal.

But don't get overboard with complicated graphics and logos on this page. According to a study by Google, users love simple and familiar designs, peculiarly at a first glance.

This is besides a not bad style for you to stand out. Based on our data, simply most 13% of proposals we see use cover pages. Take reward of this missed opportunity and use it to stand out from your competitors.

02. Embrace letter

Y'all wouldn't walk upward to your potential customer and dive into projection specifics without introducing yourself, would you?

A cover letter is that introduction.

Include a i-liner near your company, short groundwork information near how your company came to exist, and a brief overview of what makes your visitor better than the residue.

Make information technology friendly and encourage your reader to reach out with whatever questions. Close it with a thank you and a signature.

Embrace letters don't have run on to the betoken of burnout. They can be simple, short, and sugariness. In this example, the text is just over 100 words, just you could make it even easier to read past using bullet points.

Check this out:

Dear [Client.FirstName]

Thanks for considering [Sender.Visitor] for your social media marketing needs.

Enclosed, you'll find a proposal based on our agreement of your social media expectations. Briefly, nosotros suggest:

An expanded social media strategy beyond currently unused platforms and channels
A comprehensive distribution strategy designed to generate original and unique content
Improved post automation for increased audience date during peak times

Our methods and procedures are based on all-encompassing assay, an intense study of social media trends, and the application of specifics unique to [Client.Company].

We are confident in delivering effective results within your social media channels.

Thanks again for considering united states of america, and please don't hesitate to get in touch with questions.

My contact information is beneath.

Your cover letter can take on many forms, and yous tin can use those formats to make your proposal stand up out from the oversupply.

In our proposal case, note that nosotros've too used an paradigm to keep things fun and interesting.

This is critical throughout your proposal. In our inquiry, we institute that a proposal with media similar photos and videos included is 34% more likely to close.

As you're designing your proposal, don't be afraid to add graphics and images to keep readers engaged. A winning business proposal is more than but blackness text on a white page.

As yous're designing your proposal, don't exist afraid to add graphics and images to keep readers engaged. A winning proposal is more than just black text on a white page.

03. Table of contents

Unless your proposal is very cursory, include a tabular array of contents that outlines the basic construction of your document.

A table of contents is an of import, only often disregarded, part of whatever longer document because it helps the reader know what they can wait to find in the proposal.

Most word processors generate a table of contents automatically using the headings in your certificate. Equally yous're writing, accept the fourth dimension to set the formatting for your headings and then simply generate a tabular array of contents from those headings.

A tabular array of contents isn't ever necessary, but it can make whatever proposal much easier to parse as your certificate is passed around to all advisable parties.

Recall: Proposal documents may not be read chronologically. Different decision-makers will care nearly dissimilar things and will bank check your proposal to run into how it addresses their unique pain points.

Don't lose a bargain just because stakeholders couldn't notice what they were looking for!

04. Executive summary

Your executive summary sets the scene for the rest of your proposal by providing a high-level overview that summarizes the contents of future pages.

If y'all provided a few of these details in your cover letter (like the bullet-point example shown higher up) this is your opportunity to go into greater item and summarize your overall strategy.

Using our example, our potential clients are primarily realtors in the greater Chicago area looking to reach new clients through social media marketing, so your executive summary might read like this:

This proposal outlines a coordinated plan crafted with the intent of building John's Real Estate social media presence, primarily including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Vine, and Twitter.

Past engaging an audience through social media channels, our team volition demonstrate the power to generate awareness, widen your company'southward potential reach within your target market, and contribute to driving more website traffic, which volition ultimately result in top-line growth.

We help realtors identify, target, and communicate with their ideal clients through each of the post-obit:

Creating Engaging Social Content
Posting Company-Related Updates
Promotions & Social Campaigns
Integrating Social Media Activity into Other Marketing Plans
Monitoring
Analytics

While our competitors work to serve multiple industries and target audiences , we specialize in the real estate industry. Our co-founder Tom Lancaster also has a background in both social media and existent estate , giving him a unique perspective on the needs of the market place.

Your ain executive summary volition shift depending on the duties yous're performing for the client, and what kind of industry they're in.

Your tone might also change. If you're targeting a young travel startup run by college graduates, you lot might utilise a more casual tone peppered with industry jargon and humor.

Jump Social Media Marketing offers full-service social media services for the real estate manufacture. Our team ensures surface area realtors are targeting their core market place with an accurate bulletin across the best channels possible.

Leap Social Media Marketing will piece of work to identify, target and market place to your ideal customer through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Vine, and Twitter channels. Our team estimates we will abound your social media followers from your combined 214 followers to over 5,000 in the adjacent vi months and generate additional leads for your business.

We know that today'south realtors are also tasked with marketing homes and their own real estate firms. With a background in real estate and social media , Jump Social Media understands the unique needs of your industry.

While writing, keep in mind that your executive summary isn't designed to explain every item or sell your entire RFP response by itself!

Don't get lost describing deliverable logistics or strategic plans. Focus on the client's needs and the outcomes they specifically wanted to accost in their asking for proposal.

Let your executive summary present a high-level overview and leave the other pages of the document to explain the details. This will forestall your summary from getting overcrowded or bogged downwardly with specifics all-time handled elsewhere.

05. Proposal and solutions pages

The proposal department is a full general overview of the custom-made solution your company has devised for your potential client.

This department gets into the specifics.

Anticipate their questions, and take them through the process and so they know what they're signing up for when they hire you lot.

As Josh points out, this section of the proposal is disquisitional considering information technology demonstrates the relevance of your production or service to a specific product.

"Quick delivery and relevance to your specific prospect are two of the about important items in any proposal," he said. "Prospects demand to know what you lot're selling, how it will aid them, and how long it will take them to go it."

Describe exactly what deliverables they can await and when they tin can look them.

A timetable that pairs deliverables with their expected date tin can make your document more visually highly-seasoned, and your data more digestible.

You might besides pause down your main objectives fifty-fifty further by describing how you programme to execute a given strategy.

In our example, we touched on half dozen primal goals during our executive summary. Allow's expand on those hither.

1. Creating engaging social content

Kickoff with quick and thorough planning/grooming, our team will programme out a dynamic, ongoing social content calendar to guide you lot to your goals.

We will abound an increasing social audience and follower base of operations using each of the post-obit techniques:

Hashtag campaigns
Potent employ of keywords
Sharing/retweeting relevant news
"Liking" posts
Staying updated within the industry
Contributing our ain unique content to broaden accomplish.

2. Posting company related updates

Our plan is to engage your social media audience past sharing company news, printing releases, events, employee spotlights, and more than.

Nosotros will also pay attending to industry trends, and share them. This will help to proceeds exposure to your target marketplace.

iii. Promotions and social campaigns

Nosotros will utilize social channels to connect with your follower base and appoint them with promotions to get them excited about both current events and the brand itself.

These campaigns may exist as brusk as a twenty-four hours or stitch to 6 months. We'll analyze the results from each campaign, and then we volition provide a written report of its success.

Results of campaigns can exist compared so the nearly effective promotions, offers, or contests can be replicated.

four. Integrating social media activity into other marketing plans

With clear communication and monthly brainstorm meetings, we'll exist able to consolidate the marketing initiatives to fit your goals and promotional material.

Campaigns via social media are more important than just sharing about giveaways, sales, contests, and/or promotions. We volition agree on a schedule for a series of posts to go on up the heady momentum for all prospective customers.

5. Monitoring

It is of import to regularly maintain marketing activity for maximum growth.

We will continually monitor each aqueduct and volition reply to any questions, comments, and posts within a 2-hour time menstruation. 2 hours volition allow usa to confirm that accurate data is relayed dorsum to the person asking.

6. Analytics

We will provide you with each of the post-obit:

Daily and weekly analytics. Follower growth, reach, demographics, comments, "likes", shares, retweets, and additional metrics as provided by each platform and our own internal tracking data.
Reporting. Summarizing diverse results and activities over each quarter.

We volition likewise fix a monthly meeting to go over the results and then tweak our approach appropriately.

Your own content may wait dissimilar than this depending on your proposal writing skills and services, just y'all can still use the example as a framework. Add in more details equally needed.

For case, a cybersecurity company would need to include information on penetration testing and how often it would exist done to look for possible intrusions and hacks.

Breaking up this section

While writing your proposal content, keep in mind that this department is both the virtually important and the near flexible section of all.

Your entire proposal doesn't demand to exist arranged into a single, long section. It tin can easily be broken down into smaller sections such as:

Strategic Assessment
Implementation
Goals & Outlook

There are other combinations you can try, depending on your proposal and how your solution should be explained.

If you lot're offering a complex solution to a client trouble, breaking your proposal into bite-sized chunks is a dandy way to ensure that readers understand your solution.

The importance of good information

Leveraging proficient data is disquisitional when creating an effective business proposal.

Use details surrounding touch on and ROI around your products and services to prove your worth and add value to your proposal.

Consider these two phrases:

"Our customers dearest us!"

"To date, our products and methodologies have helped more than 700 companies increment their sales by 35%!"

Which sounds ameliorate? Which is more compelling? Numbers and figures grab the eye and assistance readers build trust. By demonstrating a proven tape of success, with numbers and information, you lot're calculation tangible details that help to justify your costs.

This is especially useful when competing with other solicited proposals, especially if y'all can include these data points every bit visual representations (charts, graphs, etc.) of your success inside your proposal certificate.

06. Pricing

This is the section where clarity and specifics are key — and nearly every member of our sales team agreed.

Create a pricing tabular array that clearly identifies each product or service, and pair information technology with the virtually accurate pricing data you can provide.

Spring Social Media Marketing operates on a monthly billing wheel. Here'south a layout of the pricing and services for John'due south Real Estate.

While edifice the proposal, all yous'd demand to exercise is set up the price for the item and the quantity of distribution.

If y'all were sending an hourly contract, the quantity becomes the estimated number of hours invested at a predetermined rate.

For recurring payment schedules, you lot'll need to structure the document in a way that reflects your monthly workflow.

Transparency is critical in this section. Potential customers desire to know how y'all're charging them, what they're being charged for, and over what period they should await to pay.

Be sure to include all details in a clear and authentic fashion.

07. Most united states

While you already said hi with the cover letter, this department is where yous become to explicate what makes your visitor unique.

If you're a small concern or a new company, get personal and give your potential client a take chances to go to know you and your team members. Include brief bios and photos of the people they'll be working with.

If your company has a unique backstory, a mission, or a cause that your company stands for, share that with readers. For example:

Too often in social media , skillful things come at a cost. At Jump, paying for followers or favorable reviews of products is tantamount to criminal activity.

Authenticity is important in today'south online world, and Jump Social Media Marketing makes this our No. ane priority in your social media space.

The data included on this folio doesn't have to be a stodgy company average or a cleverly designed sales pitch.

Equally the onetime saying goes: People buy from people — and then don't be afraid to allow your team's personality shine through.

08. Testimonials and social proof

No sales proposal is consummate without data near your past successes, awards, and jobs well washed.

Oft, this comes in the form of social proof, such equally customer testimonials and brusque example studies.

Why exercise y'all need this? Because social proof matters!

According to data, 92% of customers are more probable to trust earned media, similar recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advert.

By including recommendations from satisfied customers and industry awards that bear witness your expertise, you tin earn additional trust from prospective clients.

Here'southward a practiced instance of how Bound Social Media Marketing might leverage the accolades they've received:

Jump Social Media Marketing has received major public recognition for our work.

Nosotros've been named as Chicago's Best Social Media Bureau for Pocket-sized Businesses by the Chicago Tribune for the past three years and accept been recognized as a recommended partner by the National Association of Realtors .

We likewise grew the Chicago Real Manor Solutions Facebook page from 0 to 5,000 in six months , secured 250 new leads in that time frame , with 25% converting to sales .

You can also provide testimonials from past clients who tin can speak to your approach and how it worked for them, like so:

Lively and humorous testimonials like these can add together additional personality to your company while building trust and rapport with potential clients.

Nevertheless, continue your industry in mind when compiling testimonials and do your best to detect user feedback that fits the mood.

If your industry has serious clients, a humorous arroyo may not be appropriate. If you're working with a 3D manufacturing company with B2B clients, the messaging and tone they take with their own clients — and what they expect from the businesses they work with — may follow dissimilar expectations.

Exist certain to plan accordingly.

09. Understanding and CTA

Depending on your business proposal, you lot may include an agreement, a call to activity, and terms and conditions at the end of your certificate.

Your signature below indicates acceptance of this social media marketing proposal and entrance into a contractual understanding with Spring Social Media Marketing beginning on the signature date below:

Depending on your goals and your sales procedure, y'all demand to be very careful in this section. In many jurisdictions, proposals are considered legally binding contracts if they meet the criteria for a contract.

By adding legal language and/or an electronic signature request at the bottom of your document, y'all might be inbound into a contract earlier than expected.

This may not be ideal if your proposal is only intended to provide a rough estimate of costs or bring the client into further negotiations.

If you don't intend to create a legally binding contract from your proposal, be certain to annotation that in your certificate and prompt the reader to contact you lot to move the procedure frontwards.

On the other hand, well-built proposals can double equally complete contracts with all the terms and conditions necessary to start piece of work immediately.

If you lot're confident in the telescopic of work and you lot're set up to take on the additional work, let the client know by promoting them for a signature.

How does a business concern proposal look?

First things first: We're well past the turn of the century. Nobody likes getting thick envelopes in the mail.

Modern business proposals are sent electronically, and this is more than convenient for both yous and your potential customers.

While it'southward possible to e-mail a proposal created with a discussion processor like Microsoft Word, platforms similar PandaDoc are a better fit. Our tools help you create a collaborative environment for negotiation, feedback, and electronic signature.

Regardless of how you lot choose to send your proposal, be certain to pay close attention to the expect and feel of your certificate. Specially because your proposal may exist your first impression with several key stakeholders, it's essential that you follow expected formats and make a practiced impression.

Visuals

If yous search for business proposal examples online or take a await at our template library, you lot'll observe that most proposals rely on the structure described above to emphasize their value propositions.

Taking care to create a visually highly-seasoned proposal will help you communicate your ideas more easily. It'southward also something that your competitors are doing and something that many clients are beginning to look.

In our research, we found that roughly 80% of proposals included an image and 20% included a video. We also saw higher close rates when these multimedia tools were used compared to when they weren't.

Exactly how a proposal is designed still has some flexibility, depending on your make and what you're trying to accomplish, just go along in mind that it can accept a big touch on on success.

Proposals with pages of blocky text are much harder to navigate than proposals with charts, graphs, images, and bullet points.

Information technology's of import to spend fourth dimension beautifying your proposal," points out Jared from PandaDoc Sales.

"A proposal that are can draw the middle directly to relevant content and go along the reader engaged is a powerful tool when trying to close a deal."

Rather than writing a 1000-word About Us section, consider including team member headshots and a brief bio.

Rather than adding highly technical language nearly operational processes and leaving stakeholders to figure it out, provide visual aids that summarize the information in a clear and easy manner.

Writing

Clearly defining your milestones isn't the just reason to pay careful attention to how your proposal is written.

While there can be legal ramifications to poorly written proposal content, perhaps the virtually of import consideration is the impression that your proposal leaves behind.

Your proposal introduces your client to the quality of work they can look from your business. If information technology's full of typos, spelling, and grammatical errors, or simply seems sloppy, yous're unlikely to close the deal.

Read and re-read. Be sure to proofread every passage for errors before yous send it to prospective clients or save information technology as a template.

You can likewise offset some of this tedium, especially on smaller deals, past focusing on creating a curtailed offering rather than a long-winded document.

Every bit Quincy Berg, Enterprise Account Executive for PandaDoc points out,

"For smaller, transactional deals where yous would like to mitigate prospects from suggesting edits to your terms and conditions, consider embedding your Privacy Policy, Master Services Agreement, etc. into your website and hyperlinking them into your proposals."

If these aren't assets that you accept on your staff, consider hiring that skillset onto your team or hiring a freelancer to assist with proofreading and correction.

While many clients will overlook a devious typo or a misplaced comma, besides many errors volition land your proposal in the discard pile.

A word about costs

When you're creating proposals, information technology's easy for costs to add upward. Costs for customized professional business proposals can take hours of research, consultation, and preparation — all with no guarantee of success.

That'southward why savvy companies do everything they tin to lower the price of proposal preparation. Typically this is done by generating a template for business proposals — an outline or skeleton that someone tin fill out quickly to save time and expedites internal company processes.

Information technology'southward an effective way to continue overhead low. Based on our inquiry, an average of 20 documents are generated from each template y'all create .

That'southward a huge time saver for any business.

After you hit 'Ship'

Once you've sent your proposal, your next step will depend on the process. Based on our data, about 65% of proposals containing a signature cake close inside 24 hours.

However, your mileage may vary. RFPs tend to be competitive processes, so you may accept to wait until the submission window closes before you hear a response.

Don't forget to follow upwards and ask your potential customer if they accept any questions. Based on the proposals we looked at, you are 30% more than probable to close a deal if you lot transport a series of reminders to go along your proposal top of mind.

PandaDoc and other proposal software tools can assist you lot monitor your proposal using document analytics so that you know exactly when to achieve out.

These tools let yous know when your potential customer viewed your proposal, how many times they opened it, and which sections they spent the near time on.

With these insights, you tin can anticipate their questions or objections and have your responses prepare to go.

Gratuitous business proposal templates

Set up to get started but don't know where to brainstorm? PandaDoc can help with some neat examples of business organisation proposals.

In the proposals that we looked at, those created using our templates regularly created high-performing results for customers with minimal editing time.

Take a look at some of the metrics effectually the peak professional business proposal templates currently in our template library.

Proposal proper name	# of docs sent in 2021	Close charge per unit	Avg. creation fourth dimension (minutes)
Digital Marketing Proposal	4301	25%	40
SEO Proposal	2810	23%	23
Social Media Marketing Proposal	2416	xix%	73
Spider web Design Proposal	2158	27%	26
Sales Proposal	1934	34%	12

Once you've fitted an existing template to your personal needs, you can save it as a fresh template in your content library for even faster reuse.

In doing so, you can slim the unabridged business organisation proposal design process downwardly from hours to minutes or spend more time refining your proposal for maximum appeal.

To see the true power of the PandaDoc editor, exist sure to check out our community gallery for expertly designed templates from real PandaDoc customers.

If yous're a PandaDoc user, you can eve swipe these proposals and load them directly into your PandaDoc editor with a single click.

Information technology'due south just that piece of cake.

Last thoughts

Ultimately, your business proposal should exist focused on your client's needs and how your business plans to fix them.

No matter how you choose to build your proposal, never lose sight of that goal.

The RFP you receive will take nigh of the information you demand to build a bang-up proposal.

Accept things step-by-step, and apply the opportunity to show your client that your business is the right fit for the job.

Originally published October vi, 2016, updated February eighteen, 2022

Ofttimes asked questions

Typically, the point of a business organization proposal is to describe in detail how your product or service will run across a customer's needs. Depending on those needs and the industry that you occupy, the content included in a standard proposal volition fluctuate.

For example, at PandaDoc, many of our proposals are customized to fit the unique needs of enterprise-level organizations that are too big for our smaller plans.

If you were to compare our sales team to that of a construction company submitting a proposal to construct a edifice, the deviation in requirements becomes clear. The proposal required for building construction is probably longer and may include far more business concern proposal topics than what our sales representatives would include when endmost a deal.

However, despite the differences and manufacture requirements, each proposal volition still follow the standard proposal format depicted above.
The traditional format of a business proposal is equally follows:
- Title page
- Cover alphabetic character
- Table of contents
- Executive summary
- Proposal & solutions pages
- Pricing
- Almost united states of america
- Testimonials & social proof
- Agreement & CTA
Based on our research into over 566,000 proposals created on our platform, most proposals are around nine pages in length .

To become a closer look a how to get started and how to bring your business proposal ideas to life using these sections, check out each department of this article.
Your business organization proposal should include everything you lot call back you demand in order to sell your product or service.

This includes all of the bones headings and subheadings you'll see in a traditional proposal, as well as any supplemental documentation to justify your costs and reinforce your proposed approach to solving the client'south problem.

In addition to basic information nearly your product, you should also consider including the following:
- Contact data
- Value statements
- Pricing tables
- Client testimonials
- Examples of by work (case studies)
- Images, graphics, and related multimedia
If you're sending your proposal electronically, you should likewise consider including an electronic signature block so that decisionmakers can quickly and easily seal the deal when they're ready to proceed.
All business proposals are essentially the same, but your submittal method may vary depending on the blazon of business concern proposal you demand to send.

Solicited proposals are proposals that a company has asked you to provide for their consideration. The potential customer has reached out to your business organisation and requested a proposal. This normally falls into ane of ii categories:

Formally solicited proposals are typically competitive and follow a standardized (formal) process. The prospective customer sends out an RFP detailing the scope of work and requests that your business formally submit a bid to consummate that piece of work.

Informally solicited proposals are typically created based on conversations between a prospective client and a vendor that they desire to work with. In that location might not be any formal documentation, and there may exist no competitive process. This work can frequently pb to a sole-source, non-competitive contract.

Unsolicited proposals are documents that your company sends to a prospective client who hasn't asked for 1. They are not submitted in response to an RFP or an information request. Such proposals are typically created based on a market opportunity — oftentimes one that the customer is either unaware of or hasn't yet acted upon.