Are you going wrong when it comes to creating proposals and the proposal percentage you give your clients? In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Ruben Gamez, founder of Bidsketch, about what agencies are doing wrong on their proposals and you can do to win new business. Bidsketch is a web application that helps create professional-looking client proposals in minutes.

Common Proposal Mistakes Most Agencies Make

The #1 mistake is talking about yourself in the proposal.

If you’re not talking about the client, the client’s problems, and solutions you can offer, then you’re proposal isn’t doing you any favors. Clients want to know that you understand their problems and that you have actual solutions for them. Those are the kinds of proposals that have the most appeal.

You also need to take the time to understand the buying process from the other side. Most companies go out and get a lot of proposals, meaning they talk to several agencies at the same time. It’s not the ideal place for you to be but it’s pretty easy to change that conversation.

Tell the client that, in order to help them, you need to talk about their problems and get as much information as possible. This will help you better determine if this is the right kind of client for you, as well as what solutions you can offer.

How to Increase Your Proposal Percentage in Closing

Ruben puts the average closing proposal percentage somewhere between 30-40%. If you fall into this range (or below), here’s a tip from Ruben for increasing your closings:

Give pricing options. Don’t just have one set price in your proposal. The only answer to one price is a yes or a no. By offering pricing options, you may be able to avoid getting a hard no.

Plus, your conversion rate will go up if you have multiple options. However, steer clear of having too many options; Ruben advises somewhere between 2 and 4.

My feeling on pricing options is different. If you’re asking the right questions and communicating with the client throughout the process, you’ll have already agreed on a price along the way. For me, you should pretty much have a “yes” by the time you get to submitting the proposal.

My advice is to use B-A-N-T:

• Budget
• Authority
• Need
• Timing

Using B-A-N-T to prequalify clients will save you so much time.

Do you want the EXACT PROPOSAL TEMPLATE that won clients like AT&T, Legal Zoom and Hitachi?

Writing a winning marketing proposal is key to winning new business. Over the past 12 years, I have created the ultimate web and marketing proposal template. This proposal is unlike other people’s proposal templates for sale because this is the actual template that won big name clients for our web, technology and marketing engagements. If you want to be able to use a proven template for getting bigger projects, that are well over $10,000, check out this proposal. This proposal template will give you insights to winning even more proposals. Check out the Marketing Proposal Template now!

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Creating the Best Agency

Creating a strong client proposal with the best proposal percentage for your agency is a step forward in creating the best best agency.

Through my own career and professional life, I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles you have and can help you with what I have learned. From bad agency clients, developing agency products as well as how you can build authority for your agency.

If you want to grow your agency even further, I have agency growth hacks, the best ways to improve management of your business as well as why building a remote team can be beneficial in the long run.

As well as this, you can learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

I also hear the experience and advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel.