How to Create a Kickass Business Proposal

by | Jul 26, 2018 | General Business | 0 comments

A business proposal is written with the purpose of offering a particular product or service to an investor. Many are the times when a business proposal has been confused with a business plan. While business proposals offer business to investors, business plans are a detailed outline of how a particular business intends to achieve its vision.

A business proposal is one among many crucial documents that everyone ought to learn how to write. In today’s world, it is a regular occurrence for entrepreneurs to write and submit business proposals that fail to sway the targets. But those who have learned the secrets and patterns of successful proposals have been able to bag investors. In this article, I am going to teach you how to write a kickass business proposal that will have investors feeding on your palms.

1. Gather information

At the instance that one discovers a potentially hot business opportunity, one may feel the urge hastily writing a business proposal and sending it out. As much as it is important to be first, one must also consider being the best. You become best by taking time to gather sufficient information. Learn about your client (possible investor) and business. This will help you gather the tools to draft a proposal that is acceptable. Simple things like meeting and complementing your clients can go a long way toward making you a favorite. Attach a personal note… such as ‘It was a pleasure chatting with you the other day.’, and work on building relationships.

2. Outline the scope of the project

Use the W-H tools to guide you;

  • Who: who is the project manager, who is responsible for relaying information to possible investors in case a problem arises.
  • What: what is the task at hand
  • Where: where is the location of the business, where will the work be done
  • When: when will the work start, what are the key milestones?
  • Why: why did you come to the choice of approaches and decisions you made.
  • How: how will the task be done? How will the work be distributed?

The answers to these questions will make up a bulk of the body of the proposal and will serve an indication of your preparedness to proceed further.

3. Estimate Labor and costs

It is important that you determine the cost of the project as early as possible. Estimation of costs will guide you in many aspects; like the availability or scarcity of raw material, business location, and total cost of the project. All will guide you in determining the kind of investors you would like to target. The simple way of estimating all these costs is through the power of imagination; taking a mental tour of the project and jotting down the realistic amount in time and money that it will take to reach a certain milestone.

4. Writing the actual proposal

Every business proposal is written in a particular template. It is important to use visual tools like maps, diagrams, photos, and charts. Below is a skeleton of the business proposal template;

  • Introduction: introduce your company and its vision and goals in a way that it is relevant to potential investors. Feel free to share a brief heart to heart story on your journey in identifying the opportunity.
  • Executive summary: this is where you find your way into the hearts of your possible investors. Explain clearly why you are the right person to run the project. Use direct and factual language, be persuasive.
  • Table of contents: Is essential for longer documents. Is meant to help potential investors navigate through the document.
  • The body: this includes the specifics of the project; the who, the what, the why and the when. Include information on logistics, pricing and other costs.
  • Conclusion: in this section, you are supposed to emphasize the details that were explained in the body. You can conclude with a call to action that encourages the readers to reach out, through a call, an email or a visit to the website.
  • Appendix: the appendix is optional, you can use it to squeeze in information that was not suitable for the body.

5. Presentation training

Presenting your proposal is a very sensitive activity. This is why it is important that you seek presentation training before your presentation. There are options available that will teach you how to lay a killer presentation. A perfect example is slideshow heroes, these tools are available in the form of PowerPoint templates and a series of quizzes and tests.

6. Presentation

Now that you have your kickass proposal, all you need is a perfect presentation to win the deal. Remember to be elegant and natural; and of course, confidence is important.

A business proposal is very important to the life of your business because it is the first document that potential investors go through before deciding to invest. The business proposal is meant to be brief, to the point, and factual. It is important to gather enough information before embarking on this process. Good luck!