In the last 2 years, I’ve closed (personally) over $700,000 worth of coaching, marketing, service and consulting proposals EACH with a price tag of around $25,000.
I don’t write a proposal.
I don’t give an estimate or portfolio.
I do it with an extremely simple and straightforward call method where the customer asks to buy from me.
No clever closes, no psychological tricks.
Here’s how.
The mistake is thinking that customers want to read a full indepth proposal and paperwork before they sign anything over to you.
That is 100% false.
What customers want is an understanding of what they’re buying and what they’re paying.
They want to know that when they hand over $5, they’re getting $5 worth of cereal in this box labelled “cereal”.
Years ago when I was running my agency, I created tons and TONS of proposals.
They were detailed and meticulous.
They had nice design, were easy to read. Included a page on the investment (not the cost) and estimated timescales.
And that’s because almost everyone I spoke to who ran an agency told me that I should have a proposal.
But it became more of a hindrance than a help because my leads would say “send over a proposal” as a way to ignore me.
So one day, when I really needed a sale (like, close to-being-kicked-out-of-my-flat needed), I emailed back with “Hey Chris, I can’t send over the proposal, there’s a couple of things I need to ask you first. Let’s jump on a call.”
And it worked.
Chris got on a call with me and ran through my entire proposal with me.
He and I wrote it together.
And he closed, there and then.
So I tried it on another client.
And another.
Before long, I’d stopped sending written proposals at all.
I did (and still do in some cases) have a standard contract that I send over. But it’s never customised or bespoke.
I never use it during the sales portion of the journey.
Proposals are for closing, not for selling.
They’re more like “receipts” where we’re confirming delivery dates and next steps.
The sale is made over a call.
We go over their problems, their goals, their roadblocks.
And after I’ve dived deep into their life and business, I have a fairly clear idea of whether we can help and how.
Which is when I ask them “Do you have any questions?”
Of course they do like “How much? What’s the process? How can you help?” etc.
And I answer those questions, one by one.
Right at the end, when there isn’t anything else they want covered, I’ll ask “Where would you like to go from here?”
And most of the time (bearing in mind I’ve qualified them already), they’ll ask “How can we get started?”
“Simple” I reply “Let me take a $4000 deposit today, and we’ll set up a $2000 a month payment for as long as we work together. What’s the long card number?”
The contract is sent when they send the deposit as a statement of work.
Closed, no proposal takes about 42 minutes.
