You will be able to write a proposal that a buyer could forward to a colleague who missed every meeting.
Rachel liked the demo. She told Hafiz so, asked for a proposal, and forwarded it the day it arrived to Kelvin, her director, who had not been at any of the meetings. Kelvin opened it on his phone between two other things. The first page was about the software company. The second listed features. The price was on page four, with no explanation of what it covered. Kelvin replied to Rachel with one line: "What exactly are we buying, and why?"
Every proposal will be read by someone who missed the meetings. In a business that might be a director, a finance manager or a business partner. In a household it is often a spouse or a parent. Write it for that person, and the buyer who was in the room will find it clear too.
A proposal that works for a cold reader has four parts. Leave one out and the reader has to guess, and guesses rarely go your way.
Open with the buyer's situation and what they want to achieve, in a short paragraph. This is the same playback you used at the start of your presentation in lesson 1.1, Start the presentation with the buyer's own situation, written down.
It may feel redundant, because the buyer already knows their own situation. But Kelvin does not know what Rachel told Hafiz. Without that paragraph, the proposal is an answer to a question he never heard. With it, he can see the problem, its cost and the goal before he sees anything about the product.
Hafiz's rewritten opening: "Your drivers' overtime is calculated by hand from timesheets each month and goes wrong most months. Corrections take your admin team about two days a month, Rachel spends Monday mornings on pay complaints, and an experienced driver who left last quarter mentioned pay errors. A night shift starts in two months, which will make overtime more complex. You want payroll done in one day with no corrections, and fewer pay disputes." Every figure came from Rachel, and she had confirmed them in writing after discovery.
Next, describe what you will do, what the buyer will do, and when each happens. Most proposals cover only the first.
The buyer's side matters because projects stall on it. If Hafiz needs three months of timesheets and a list of shift rules before setup can start, that belongs in the proposal, with a date. Otherwise the buyer signs, nothing happens for a fortnight, and both sides blame the other.
Write it as a short sequence. Hafiz's: in week one, Rachel's team sends the timesheets and the overtime rules, and Hafiz's team loads them. In week two, the payroll clerk gets two training sessions. In week three, they run the new system alongside the old one for one pay cycle. From week four, the new system runs payroll on its own, ready before the night shift starts.
State the price clearly, then what it includes, what it does not include, and the payment terms.
The exclusions are the part sellers skip, and they cause the most trouble later. If setup covers two training sessions, say so, and say what extra training costs. If support is by email on working days, say that too. A buyer who discovers an exclusion after signing feels misled, even when it was never promised.
Payment terms belong here as well: monthly or yearly, when the first payment falls due, and how long the contract runs. If there is a minimum term or a notice period to cancel, name it. Kelvin will look for it anyway. Better that he finds it stated plainly than buried in a contract.
How to talk about the price itself, and how to set it against the cost of the problem, is the subject of module 3. In the proposal, the job is clarity.
End with the next step: what happens if the buyer wants to go ahead, and by when. "Reply to confirm the option you prefer, and we will send the agreement and book the first setup session."
If the offer depends on a date, say which date and why. Real reasons are fine. Hafiz's team needs three weeks before go-live, and the night shift starts in eight weeks, so a decision within five weeks keeps the night shift on the new system. That is a real constraint, explained honestly.
What does not belong here is a deadline you invented to rush the buyer. "This price is valid until Friday" with no reason behind it reads as pressure, and buyers know it. Lesson 6.3, Closing tactics to drop, and why, covers the difference in detail.
The fastest check is the one Kelvin did by accident. Give your proposal to someone who knows nothing about the deal and ask them to tell you what the buyer is getting, what it costs and what happens next. Wherever they hesitate, a colleague of the buyer would hesitate too.
Find your last proposal before you start the activity below, and read it as if you were the person who missed every meeting.
Review your last proposal against the four parts and list what a colleague of the buyer would not have understood.
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