A lot of coaches are unclear about what they should include in their proposal for corporate prospects.
As a result, they spend a lot of time (and worry) on writing a document that ends up not getting them a quick YES!
Proposals that have a higher than average chance of converting (i.e. over 50%, mine convert approx. 82%) all contain seven must-have components and in a series of 4 posts, I will set out the four most vital ones and what to include in each (the other ones are useful but more self-explanatory).
The 4 vital components are:
#1 Overview (summarizing the challenge this proposal addresses – from the client’s point of view)
#2 Objectives (translating the client’s requests into outcomes of your work)
#3 Opportunities (the immediate and long-term value of resolving your client’s challenge)
#4 Recommendation (giving them 2-3 options of how they can work with you)
Let’s dive deeper into the first section (the others follow tomorrow)
The overview
✅The first section in my method is the overview section.
Some people recommend having a summary of the whole proposal here, but there is a danger for your prospect to form their opinion to say yes or no based on that summary alone, which does not set out the full case for your proposal.
That is why my method uses an overview section that builds the logical case for working with you.
In this part, you should state the background of your proposal in one sentence i.e. why your prospect needs your help with what their challenge is, and what results they want from working with you.
It is important here to describe their challenge in the way that THEY see it – not what you *think* it is. 😉
The easiest way to do that is to use some of their own words and phrases that you learned during your conversations with them.
Be specific – how does their challenge impact them?
In the overview section, you also start to quantify how their challenge impacts them and their business and what resolving the challenge will mean for them.
Let me give you an example; If you are a coach that helps the team communicate better, you will most likely help them become more productive and thus be able to meet deadlines more easily.
(You should have this information from your discovery/strategy call – if you are unclear how to get this information please comment below and I will link to a post on this).
So you could say something like: “Currently, your team struggles to reliably meet monthly deadlines, which causes stress for your team and means you cannot effectively focus on strategic priorities.
Resolving the underlying communications issues has the potential to reduce this stress, remove the need for long working hours and enable you to make progress towards bigger goals”. (Of course, the more specific, the better!)
It works like magic drawing the attention of your prospects.
Tomorrow I will share the next vital component, Objectives!
Contact me
But if you don’t want to wait, ping me for a chat on how to get higher value corporate clients – and fast!
