The free proposal template I swore would never work actually landed me a $3k project

For years I used these long custom proposals with fancy graphics and a ton of detail. Thought clients wanted to see I put in the effort. Then last fall a buddy in Denver told me he uses a simple one page template with just the problem, solution, price, and timeline. I laughed at him honestly. But I was tired of spending 2 hours on every proposal and only hearing back from half of them. Finally tried his approach on a web design gig three weeks ago and the client replied within 4 hours saying yes. Didn't even ask for changes. Now I wonder how many projects I lost because I was overdoing it. Has anyone else dropped their long format and seen better results?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_daniel16d ago

oh man that reminds me of something that happened with a friend who runs a bakery. she spent weeks designing these crazy detailed menus with photos and ingredient sources. then one day her oven broke and she had to write a quick one-page order form on a napkin basically. clients loved it because they could actually read it lol. @mitchell.avery you nailed it - clients just want clarity not a show. its like when you overexplain a joke and it dies. keep it simple and let your work speak for itself.

mitchell.avery16d ago

Cut the fluff and see what happens... I did the same thing with my own business stuff and started closing more deals once I stopped trying to impress myself. Clients just want to know if you can fix their problem and how much it costs, everything else is noise.

kellyallen16d ago

Yeah @mitchell.avery I read something similar on a business blog the other day... makes a lot of sense.