How To Get Your Customers To Pay For Proposals and Quotes

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Are you frustrated by tyre-kickers and free-advice seekers who waste your time, reduce the efficiency of your sales and marketing efforts and cut into your ability to service paying clients?

Many business owners and marketers are.  Especially if you’re in a service-based or professional service business, the time and money it takes to simply attract and convert a paying customer can significantly eat into your billable hours and therefore income.

This is probably the number one reason why many otherwise highly-skilled independent professionals and businesspeople find themselves eking out a relatively modest living (certainly well below their abilities and expectations) and wondering why they got into business in the first place.

Or maybe you’re doing pretty well, yet mindful of the fact that 10 or 20% of your productive time is being wasted on filtering out the tyre-kickers.

I was once there too.  Here’s the story of how I broke out of this particular cell of the entrepreneurial prison…

It all started back in 1928… (oops, wrong story. Reset.)

3 or 4 years ago I found that my ability to do productive work for clients (mainly developing high-ROI lead generation websites on a project basis) was being constrained by the volume of prospects who weren’t converting into paying clients.

Just 1 in 4 proposals were converting into a client engagement. Suppose that every proposal took an hour on the phone, plus 2 hours of writing to prepare – that meant that each new project was taking 12 hours of sales time to close.  Owch.

What’s more, many prospects would soak up my time for free, take our intellectual property in the form of the proposal, then either:

1. Do nothing
2. Take our ideas and (try to) implement them in-house
3. Take our ideas and give them to someone else to implement
4. Proceed with the proposed project

Only Outcome #4 was what I wanted (and only that outcome would typically produce the result the client was looking for too).

What to do?

I put a stop to all free proposals. Instead, I held a 15 minute chat on the phone to pre-qualify the client, then explained that I would prepare an Online Marketing Action Plan [note the syntax: "Proposal" is such a weak word] for them for a nominal fee of $200 + GST.   I also explained:

• an outline of the value that the Action Plan would contain
• that we would present some implementation options for them to consider
• that because they had purchased the Action Plan, they would be free to implement the plan in-house or take it to someone else to implement if they chose to do so
• that the cost of the Action Plan would be attributed to the cost of any future project

Then I asked them to go ahead.

Here’s what happened:

1. “Tyre kickers” went no further – great!
2. Serious prospects proceeded with the Action Plan, and I was happy to deliver it, putting extra effort into its preparation (although you should note that the Action Plan itself was essentially just a renamed version of the “Proposal” from before).
3. The conversion rate to full projects went from 1 in 4 (25%) to 2 in 3 (67%) – an increase of over 2 1/2 times.
4. I spent less time selling and got better sales results, while delivering more value to the prospects and clients whom I really wanted to help.

To successfully institute a fee-based proposal system, here are a few pointers:

1. Warm leads are important. The warmer the lead, the less resistance you will have to your initial fee.  One of the best ways to warm up leads is via a well-orchestrated information-and-education campaign (which can be completely automated via your website).
2. A well-defined USP that addresses the key problem your prospects are facing. You need to know the problem you’re solving for the client and the benefits you can render, and express that in a client-centric way.  (If you can’t recite you USP by heart, you probably don’t have one.)
3. You need to prepare a “mini-pitch” to sell the proposal. I purposely designed my Action Plan content and pricing, not as a revenue generator, but as a “filter” for non-clients.  Nevertheless, I did need a mini-pitch explain the value and sell the plan.
4. A delivery mechanism that is as systematised as possible. (Although the more customised you want to make the proposal, the more you can charge.  I now perform a more advanced Workshop and Action Plan that costs $3,000 + GST)
5. A seamless process to convert proposals into clients. You don’t want to wind up writing tonnes of proposals and lose site of your outcome.

“But my industry is different” / “All my competitors do free quotes so I have to as well” / “This won’t work in my business”

It’s true that certain industries may be a more “logical” fit for paid proposals or quotes, but that doesn’t mean you should dismiss paid proposals out-of-hand.

We are working with one client in a finance-related niche where EVERY OTHER COMPETITOR does everything “Free”, yet we are putting together a series of fee-based offers that are successful because they are based around additional value to the client.

Another option is to have multiple lead “streams” – a “free” stream and a “paid” stream.  Within a short time you will work out where the buyers are and how to attract and service them better.

Give paid proposals a try, or contact us and we can help you optimise your lead generation funnel by orders of magnitude.

But you should know, it’ll cost you

We work with a number of clients in finance and professional services industries.

Here’s the story of how a few years ago I increased my conversion rate of prospects to customers from 20% to 66%, and completely eliminated tyre-kickers and free-advice-seekers from my sales funnel and got PAID to do so…

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New Documentary Launches

I’ve recently been working on the marketing for a new documentary film featuring over a dozen experts in health, wellness and personal development as they explore the ancient symbol of “The Wheel Of Life” (and its predecessor, The Circle Of Life) and how this metaphor can be used to bring about positive change in our lives and in the world.

The documentary footage is under lock-and-key at the moment, so I haven’t see the entire movie myself, but it’s looking extremely promising.  If you liked The Secret or What The Bleep, you’ll be right into this.

The official launch is scheduled for Thursday November 13, with both physical DVD or Vividas Pay-Per-View options.

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Lead Generation Survey Of 324 Australian Small Business Owners Released

Earlier this year I conducted a survey focused on Australian Online Lead Generation practices, in collaboration with Dr Marc Dussault of Platinum Programs. The results were telling but not particularly surprising – most Australian SMEs don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to generating leads over the Internet.

And that’s understandable.  I don’t know how to perform brain surgery, build a house or prepare a company tax return because that’s not my core business.  But if I want to do any of those things, I find someone who can do it and outsource it to them.

The Survey:

324 Australian Small to Medium sized businesses from a diverse range of industries were dissected, scrutinised and thoroughly examined via an online survey of 28 questions. 81% of the study participants came from organisations with less than $1 million in annual revenue.

Key Findings:

The findings expose the fundamental reasons why a deadly ‘heart attack’ is almost assured for the majority of Australian small business websites and what needs to be done to stop the bloodshed.

• SMEs understand the importance of online marketing – 77% assess their website as being moderately to critically important for generating enquiries and influencing sales at the present time. A WHOPPING 98% predict that their online channel will be moderately to critically important for generating enquiries and influencing sales within two years’ time.
• 82% suffer from marketing blindness because they don’t track any KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for their website. 65% aren’t tracking ANY conversion rates such as newsletter opt-in rates or shopping cart checkout rates.
• 83% suffer from acute traffic depression and are either moderately dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the traffic volume their website receives.
• 86% admit they have no clue about their Search Engine Optimisation results and can only estimate their Return On Investment in ballpark figures
• A staggering 83% suffer from major cellular damage, running with online promotions that are actually eating their profits. They never realise the consequences of their actions because they don’t TEST to optimise results when they introduce new website features or content.
• 58% suffer form an embarrassing memory loss that’s costing them tens of thousands of dollars in lost profits, as they hardly ever or never send email broadcasts to their suspects, prospects or clients, thus missing out on a major revenue opportunity that could boost their constitution in a matter of days.
• 96% of respondents assess their website as being only minimally to moderately effective at achieving their revenue generation goals.

Dissection of the answers obtained from this extensive survey lead to the conclusion that one of the main problems lies in the lack of systems, strategies and processes that can create and sustain a profitable online lead or sales generation pipeline.

Most Australian SMEs are not doing the basics right (testing and tracking, keep-in-touch marketing, optin-and-followup), let alone the advanced strategies required to get outstanding results.

From a therapeutic standpoint, we recommend that Australian businesses begin taking a much keener interest in the health of their Internet marketing. Prevention is better than cure and as the saying goes, “An ounce of perspiration is worth a gallon of blood”.

A diet high in well-targeted online advertising with attention-grabbing headlines and clear calls to action that leverage proven Internet marketing strategies such as opt-in email marketing, information and education, testimonials, “proof” elements and sales process automation will ensure a long, healthy and prosperous life for any small business.

The full internet marketing survey diagnoses the source of the ailments and proposes several potential cures, providing that the unsuspecting victims are warned in time and take proactive action to protect themselves.

Download the Full Lead Generation Survey Report Here (PDF)

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Why Can’t I See My Own Google Adwords Ads?

I got a call last week from a client who spends big $$$ on Google Adwords every month:

“I’ve checked my main keywords half a dozen times today and I can’t see my ads anywhere!”

That may be the problem… One of Google’s anti-click fraud measures is to lower the ad position of ads when you search from the same IP address.  If you click a few times on your own ad to “check that it’s working”, you may find that you can’t see your ads when you check and check again.

A better way to check on the status of your OWN ads is to use the Google Adwords Ad Preview Tool.

Not only will you not mess with your impression/click data, but you can “test” ads without incuring cost.

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