People around you who could use your product or service are everywhere. This need is met by business plans. They might be able to connect you with potential customers.
A strong proposal can show what you can do for a business or organization and why they should work with you. Let’s look at how to write a business proposal and how online stores can use templates and examples.
What is an online store business plan?
A business proposal for an online store is a formal document that a business or online store makes and gives to a prospect in order to make a business deal.
Many people think that business plans and proposals are the same thing. The purpose of the proposal is to sell your product or service, not your company. A proposal doesn’t help you find investors to fund your business. Instead, it helps you find new clients.
Different kinds of business plans
Business proposals can be different depending on the service and type of project being proposed. However, most of the time, they fall into one of three categories:
- Formally solicited proposals: These are proposals that you send when the company you want to work with has asked you to do so in a formal way. They are often made in response to specifications that a business looking for bids has made public.
- Informal requests for proposals: Most of the time, informal requests for proposals come after talks between possible customers and providers. In this case, the customer usually doesn’t want to compete for offers, and the criteria are usually less clear.
- Unasked-for proposals: These ideas are more general and often come in the form of a marketing pamphlet. When a business wants to find new customers, it often uses unsolicited proposals at trade shows or other public places.
- Not every idea will fit neatly into one of these groups. Some proposals may start out as formal requests but end up being unsolicited.
What a business proposal should have
The beginning of a proposal could be scary. But the process of writing a proposal is much easier to start if you break it up into sections. Here are the parts of your business proposal that have to be there.
Proposal Cover
The cover of the proposal is the first thing your prospect will see, so it needs to stand out. Simple is always better than flashy, but it still needs to be well-designed. All of the important information should be on the proposal cover.
The Bottom Line
A common mistake about proposals is that people think the executive summary is a summary of the whole thing. It’s not. Instead, it shows why your choice is the best. It tells a possible customer why they should choose your business over others.
Problem and Statement
This part is the best place for you to show how hard you worked. Find out what problems and issues your potential customer is having, whether they are aware of them or not, and describe them. This will make it easier for them to trust you and show you how important it is to solve their problems.
Ideas for Fixing the Problem
Describe the steps your team took to solve the problems your prospect was having. You don’t want it to look like you sent a template proposal and just changed the name of the lead, so avoid making a generic pitch and be as specific as you can.
Results of a Project
Tell the potential client what the proposal is about and what they can expect from you. You have to give a detailed description of each deliverable. Don’t assume that your lead already knows what each service is and how it works. You can avoid future misunderstandings about expectations if you are clear and open from the start.
Project Milestones
By breaking the project up into stages, you can let potential clients know what to expect and when. Then, you can make a list of each event’s deliverables, including how long it will take, who will be in charge of what, and what will happen after each milestone.
Budget
The budget section goes over everything about prices. It goes over everything, from fees and taxes to discounts, so that potential customers can know exactly what they are paying for. Before, this part wasn’t thought to be important, but now it is.
About Who You Are
Give a short summary of your business, including who you are, what you do, why you’re in business, what you specialize in, and what you’re selling. List all of the services and products you offer, not just the ones that are relevant to this proposal. It could be a chance to sell something else to your customers, or it could at least show them what else you have to offer.
Proof of Society
Social proof shows that you are good at what you do, while proposals explain what you will do for a customer. No matter how often you tell a potential customer that your business has “vast experience,” if you don’t have a case study or some other kind of social proof to back it up, those words may be useless and unsafe.
How to Put Together a Business Plan
This is the most important part. How to put together a business plan. Let’s check it out!
Pick a template.
With a business proposal template, you can make a well-thought-out and professional proposal. The structure of a proposal is usually the same, but there may be specific requirements in your field.
For service-based businesses, Microsoft Office has free proposal templates that can be used to make proposals. Or, you can use the proposal templates in the next section.
- Look at what’s needed
- Think about these questions for yourself:
- What goals does the customer want to reach?
- How is my business in a better position than others to help clients reach their goals?
- Are the goals, budget, and schedule of the project realistic?
Then you can decide if you want to do this project. If you get a “call for proposals,” you don’t have to send in a proposal. However, you should thank the customer for considering you for the job.
Talk to the Client about
If you haven’t already, now is the perfect time to talk to the possible client. Maybe you got an RPF in your email. Set up a phone call or face-to-face meeting to talk about the client’s real goals for the project.
It’s also important to find out if another company has tried the idea before, what didn’t work, and why. Also, the customer may have already seen some proposals that were turned down.
Think of ways to fix things
Right now, you need to decide how you will meet the client’s needs. Figure out with your team, if you have one, the steps you need to take to reach the end goal and the order in which they should be taken.
Look at the pros and cons of each of the suggested solutions, as well as how long they might take and what resources they might need. Use what you learned from the conversation with the client.
Propose Your Value
In the summary of your proposal, you should explain why your company is the best one for the job. After all, a proposal is a sales document that is meant to get you the job and beat out the competition. Find out how much more your business is worth than those of your competitors.
Focus on the goals and problems of the company, not on your own. The customer wants to know how you can solve their problems, not just how successful your business is.
Fill in the Blanks
You wrote the most important parts. Now is the time to fill out all the boring details in your proposal templates, like the date and the terms and conditions. Jump down to the section that talks about what a typical business proposal has.
Look over and change
Now that your proposal is done, look it over. Think about:
- All of the requirements listed in the RFP are met, right?
- Does it answer every question the client raised?
- Is the organization fair and easy to understand?
- How well do you spell and write?
- Does it look polished and of good quality?
Ask a member of your team to look over the proposal to make sure it meets the above standards. Use your spelling and grammar checker as a safety net. The executive summary (or overview) is especially detailed because it is often the first part a potential customer reads and, because of that, it should be one of the most polished parts.
Read more: How to Make a Good Business Plan for Dropshipping
Templates for business proposals
Do you need a little push to start writing? Here are some examples of well-known business proposal templates that you can use as a guide when writing your own.
Proposal for Web Design
Want a template for a proposal that is less noisy? This color scheme of only beige makes the room look and feel really nice. The soft graphics also go well with the rest of the design of this proposal. To send this to a potential customer, all you have to do is change the content of the template.
Template for an eCommerce proposal
Want to craft a compelling proposal? It’s best to use this template for an eCommerce proposal. Important parts of this proposal template stand out because of their bright red color and black-and-white photos with transparent black-and-white overlays.
SEO Proposal
Adding a few flashes of color to this business pitch is a smart move. The magenta and gray colors used in this design let the colors stand out. You can use this proposal template for any kind of business or service because it has several well-made parts.
Template for a business proposal
This corporate proposal template is another great option for more expensive clients and projects at the enterprise level. Because it looks and feels professional, everyone you show it to will know that their project is in good hands.
Template for a strategic marketing proposal
Another well-done proposal template that your potential customers and clients will like. The serif font in the headers makes them look more traditional and fits well with Enterprise business.
Business Proposal Examples
Now that you know how to write a business proposal from start to finish, let’s look at some examples.
General Business Proposal Samples
Let’s say you want to see what a standard business proposal looks like. Then you can look at BPlan, which gives you instructions, examples, and templates for the paperwork you need to plan and run a small business. This can be a good place to start if this is your first time writing a business proposal and you need a simple, general example to follow.
A Sample RFP
When writing a solicited proposal or RFP, you might want to use a business proposal example that makes it clear that this proposal was asked for. In this case, you might want to download one of the RFP templates from Template Lab.
These business proposal samples from Template Lab will have things like terms and conditions, schedules, and points of contact that are more common in RFPs. Template Lab has versions of its templates in both Word and PDF.
Services or Software for Making a Business Proposal
Use a service like Proposify or PandaDoc to get the most up-to-date, ready-to-use samples of business proposals. These programs let you choose from a list of professionally written and detailed business proposal samples (which are often specific to a certain industry) and change the template to fit the needs of your business.
Last Words
The parts of your business proposal will change based on what the prospect wants and what kind of business you have. We hope that this guide gives you all the information and pictures you need to help you through the process.
With a polished, personalized business proposal, you might win your client’s business and impress them. On dropship-empire Blog, you can find more tips that will help your business grow.