Attention, Web Designers!
Once you have launched your web design career, most of your decisions are driven by your right-brain thinking because you are obviously a very creative person and your expression manifests itself in artistic and aesthetic beauty.
You have become a web designer to create great sites and give form to great ideas but for your business to continue to grow, you have to ensure that certain left-brain centered activities such as paying bills, making invoices and even writing proposals for your clients, get done.
To ensure that your organization remains profitable and reliable, you cannot overlook the whole concept and idea of scientific thinking and administrative tasks that make up your entire web designing business.
First things first, WHY IS THERE A NEED TO MASTER THE ART OF WRITING A PROPOSAL?
It’s simple and short. You need to pay your bills and to do so, you need revenues which you can generate only by acquiring more and more clients.
Sounds easy enough?
Here, I am going to make it very simple for you and tell you the perfect way to write a winning web design proposal.
Anatomy of a Proposal
Do you remember, back in high school how you had to make speeches which were persuasive and alluring enough to get more and more people to vote for you over your competitors?
Writing a web design proposal is similar to that. You need to make a proposal in a way that the reader cannot help but choose your services over others. It should be so impressive and logical that the reader must be convinced about 2 factors :
1.That he needs the product you are selling, and
2. that you are the best for this job.
A foolproof proposal includes the following:
- Problem Statement
- Proposed Solution
- Price Information
- Call to Action
Let’s break it down one by one –
1) Problem Statement
The very first element that makes a winning web design proposal is defining the problem. You need to make sure that the client
- Recognizes that there is a problem or an opportunity for their business
- Knows that you understand their problem and their needs
The best proposal one is one which is a driver of the clients needs and necessities and one which makes the client feel and believe that you can solve it.
Let’s take an example here:
XYZ company wants to go ahead and redesign their website in a way that it is able to add a chat button and a way to make it easy for the customers to contact the company.
An inefficient problem statement would look like this:
“XYZ company is planning to redesign their website and include a chat button and an easy access to the company’s contact details.”
An efficient problem statement would look like this:
“XYZ company is a leading company in the market but is recently facing fierce competition. The competitors have a modern, well built website which are pulling some of XYZ’s clients towards themselves and in order to avoid a situation like this and to retain all your customers and attract new one to your website, fresh redesigning is needed.
The redesign should include a chat button and an easy way for the customers to contact the company”
Notice the difference? This is what I am talking about. The clients are not going to come and tell you their problems, you have to dig deep into it and acknowledge them.
2) Proposed Solution –
Now that you’ve dug into the client’s company history and identified their problem, you need to put forth a solution. You must recommend solutions that directly addresses their needs.
While doing so you must also ensure that the solution is very business-centric and does not have any scope of diversion.
A mediocre solution :
“XYZ company needs to redesign their website. This will include a change in their logo, positioning, colors… “
A superior solution would be :
“In order to retain and increase XYZ’s customer base, a redesign is required. To get kick-started with this, a needs analysis session is required which will cover the key elements of the website. These elements include the logo of the company, positioning of the logo on the website, colors used on the website, a call to action button in the form of a chat bubble and a direction button to direct customers to the company’s contact details.”
You need your clients as to how will you provide a solution to their problems and meet all their needs.
3) Price Information –
This element of the proposal is a tricky one. You should make sure that it is written in a manner that is easy to understand and digest for the client. Avoid using technical terms which makes it tough for the clients to comprehend. This section is called the Fee Summary section.
The lousy way :
| WordPress Installation | $300 |
| SEO and SEM audit | $200 |
| Theme purchases | $100 |
| Customisation cost per page | $500 |
| Total Cost | $1000 |
Why is this a lousy and bad proposal? Because it has a lot of technical information and words which the clients may not be aware of and may just create unnecessary confusion.
The pleasant way :
| Customer website creation | $700 |
| Website content creation | $100 |
| Result tracking | $200 |
| Total cost | $1000 |
A short and specific pricing information makes it easy for the clients to grasp the details and go ahead with further procedures.
4) Call to action –
This an important element. Here you must let your client know what is required to be done once the project is in motion. What are the steps that the client needs to take and what are the steps that you are going to take.
Make an online proposal for your client. This helps the client to have digital access and are just a click away.
Final thoughts :
As long as you are able to identify your clients needs and are able to dig into their problem, you have acquired the initial step to acquiring them. You just then need to give them a descriptive, business-centric solution which can thrive their business and give them an accurate price information for easy understanding.
Follow these steps and you’re good to go!
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