How to Develop a Consulting Proposal That Successfully Closes the Deal

In this guide, I’m going to show you how to develop an effective consulting proposal template in a fraction of time and increases your close rate with it.

Step1: The Preparation Before Writing Your Consulting Proposal

It’s easy to fall for the mistake of putting together your proposal without discovering what the client wants. Here are a few tips you must follow before writing your consulting proposal

Tip 1: Set Up a Meet or a Phone Call

Sounds like an obvious first tip right, but make sure before you even begin writing your consulting proposal, sit down, and talk to your prospects about their needs.

Because you know the secret to winning more and more deals lies in understanding the client’s behavior, discovering what exactly they want by asking questions (there you go), and then presenting that information in the order that guides them to make the deal.

Tip 2: Let Them Do the Talking

Listening is the most critical thing in writing a winning consulting proposal. So be attentive, focus on the client with high concentration, and be interested in what they have to say. But this doesn’t mean just literally sit back and listen, throw in some words in between, and show that you understand and you’re interested as a gesture of support. It’s a subtle form of reassurance.

Tip 3: Choose the Right Proposal Template

More than having some ready language, the consulting proposal template helps you set the

• Clear structure to your proposal that is easy for your prospect to navigate your understanding of the client’s problem, your proposition, approach, capabilities, timeline, showcase other work and quotation,
• The right tone that makes easy for your prospect to see that you are already involved with him/her to solve the problem
• The right visuals which enable the prospect to subconsciously engage you for the next stage.

Step 2: Ask questions to discover the client’s needs

Discovering a client’s needs is a challenging process but if you come up with customized questions, you can seek the right information from the client. 

Use the following questions to get to know your prospective client,

1. What does the client’s business do?
2. Who are their decision-makers?
3. Which industry do they belong to?
4. What’s their ultimate goal to accomplish with this consulting campaign?
5. What is a proposed timeline?
6. What would be their available budget?

Here’s a checklist for the process of consulting proposal creation

Step 3: Include these 9 essential elements 

All consulting proposals should include certain details in order to be clear and effective. Even though the exact format of consulting proposals varies depending on the company and the project, the typical sections you should include in your proposal are these:

Cover Page

You only get one chance to make a first impression and the cover page of your proposal is your only chance. A cover page of your consulting proposal should look neat and should be easy to read. A good cover page typically includes,

• Name of applying organization and logo
• Project title
• Date
• Contact Information (personal contact name, address, country, phone, email, website)
• Name of the client you are applying to

Cover Letter

The cover letter in your consulting proposal sets the tone for the rest. The best practice of writing an impressive pitch is using your prospective client’s words to them. This means simply describe the problem they are facing. Your cover letter should include,

• Opening paragraph
• Reason for the pitch
• Showing you understand the problem
• Baseline metrics ( before and after)
• Goals

Scope of Services

This section should include the details about your approach. However, the details should only be about the approach and not about the solution.

• The key here is to give a rough sketch of the method you will use for the execution.
• Include the list of the specific consulting services that are being offered.
• You should be ultra-careful about not going into detail.

Implementation Timeline

You must break down all the key steps and the timeline for your client in your business proposal template. Providing an accurate timeline with deliverables allows you to set the client’s expectations early.

• List of activities to perform
• The dates on which the activities should be completed (start and end time)
• Expected duration required for each task

Your Investment

Keep things short and to the point and use a pricing table with a range of options that let your prospect or customer edit the quantities, select the services that best fit their needs, and allow them to customize your solution.

Why Work With Us

You can fill out this section with the expertise you have, the awards you won, the big list of your happy clients.

• Introduction 
• Name, faces, and credentials of the people who will be working on the campaign
• Client benefits

Case Study/Testimonials

In this section, you can make your clients visualize themselves working with you by telling the past clients success stories with similar issues.

• Project goal
• Solution
• Result

Terms of Services

• Payment
• Warranty
• Termination 
• Agreement

CTA

It is where you need to explain in-depth what you want your client to do next to get things rolling. You can include something like,

• Sign the proposal (digitally with e-signature)
• The initial amount to be payable while signing the contract
• Schedule the next meeting call to discuss further steps.

Step 4: Add graphics to your proposal

A messy and unattractive consulting proposal can be a real turn-off to your prospective clients. It sends a message that you didn’t care enough to make your proposal look good. So, make sure you include the following elements in your business proposal,

• It is sometimes overlooked but is still a major part of a proposal design. All consulting proposals must include a table of contents as it gives readers a route map to go directly to a particular section.
• Visuals such as maps, graphs, infographics, screenshots, and photos complement your business proposal to another level. You can also include the video testimonials of your other happy clients.

Wrap Up

If you follow the process and the format above, you won’t face any challenges and you’ll find yourself writing an ideal consulting proposal, the one that pulls together all the required information concisely and helps the prospect to make an informed buying decision.

Learn more about the advantages of using a template for consulting proposal