If you want to be a small agency forever, start charging for your proposals…

Question: Should you charge for your proposals, or should you do them for free?

I mean, there are plenty of industries that don’t give away their ideas and plans for free.

Would you expect an architect to draw up plans for your new house without charging for it?

We don’t expect lawyers to give advice away for free. Their rate clock starts running as soon as they pick up the phone!

But on the other side of things, there are lots of cases where businesses are willing to propose a solution just for the chance that you’ll say yes and hire them.

So what’s the right way to go about it?

I think the main reason someone might consider charging their clients to build a proposal/plan of action is that they are tired of wasting time on prospects that are just “kicking the tires.”

I know I’ve had my fair share of those!

One time, I had a prospective client that wanted help building a website and marketing plan for a chain of mobile auto maintenance shops.  It sounded like an amazing idea, and I was really excited about it because I thought it was a service that I would eagerly use.

We met at least 5 times.  Each time I felt like the deal was getting closer and closer to happening.  The client was amazing and I really enjoyed coming up with the ideas for them.

Then, I was blown away when they hired someone else, and I could see much of my ideas showing up in their marketing.  That sucked.

I realize now that it wasn’t that spending time on a plan was bad, it was just that I sucked at sales!

I personally believe that helping a client clearly understand what you’re going to do for them is the number one way to actually get hired for the job. But, there is a systematic way to do this that can take less than an hour to do.  (Not five meetings like I was doing!)

The mistake I made (and one I see others make too) is investing a ton of time building a customized plan when it wasn’t needed to close the deal.

Here’s the bottom line:

If you want to remain small and be a “boutique” agency, then yes, charge for your proposals. 

BUT, If you want to grow and scale a team and one day has your agency run without you, don’t put a bottleneck on your sales process. Change your sales process.

If it’s higher conversion rates you are after, get better at sales!  The solution isn’t to do fewer proposals.

If you want to know more about how to change your sales process and get better results, apply for a call with our director of coaching. Let’s find a solution that works for you!