Hiya all,
I am new to this field. I use to work for a corporate company and they use to send large tenders/proposal to clients, some of which would span 50 pages on their services (heavens knows what was in there).
I only saw them when they were send off. I was wondering if anybody had experienced on this, and what actually goes in these proposals. I don’t really want to market myself by cold-calling, as I normally frown on people who do this to me.
Kind Regards,
Sega
Even though I am a web designer, I am in the process of opening a company. These proposals will be sent to clients which ask for further information on our services.
I don’t know if this is a R.F.P., it might be. When I was working in that organisation they also felt like it was a lottery ticket way of submitting and much of it was to do with reducing the price in order to clinch the client.
a prospective client IMO, a situation where you tend to call the shots and control the sales process.
IMO? Forgive my ignorance, but I really don’t know what this is? I checked on Google but I could not find it’s meaning.
I’ve never really done direct marketing (like you I hate it happening to me), just relied on S.E.O. and word of mouth.
What I was hoping to do, is to send letters off to companies I think would be good clients. Alongside with a letterhead and a flyer on a introductory promotional deal. I only currently have one real client and he is a friend really. The trouble is you cannot really ask for cash in-advance from friends and family. It somewhat feels wrong.
What do you think? Am I think of it all wrong?
Thanks… I will take a read of the notes and see how I get on. I don’t have as many commitments as yourself, but nevertheless I will probably have similar commitments in the future. Things were certainly different 20 years time.
Can’t answer that, 20 years ago I could live off £300/month, now I have wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, I need £3000/month just to cover the basics.
I’d personally aim to try to get at least one new client each month, and also try to offer ongoing services, like hosting, support, SEO etc - plus always keep in touch with your clients and suggest great ways they can improve their site. That way during the quiet months you can fall back on your existing clients to top up the income. Selling to an existing customer is a lot easier than selling to a stranger.
I will certainly read through the book since it’s free and make some notes on it, I also have plenty of time on my hands too. I will research on direct mail campaigns too, see what I find.
In your opinion, completely different topic, how many clients would one need to survive? It’s a bit of a off question, but I feel it would give me more of an idea. I am a one-man band at the moment, but I hope to expand.
Not entirely sure what your question is. As a web developer you’ll probably receive RFPs (requests for proposal) every now and then, either randomly or through contacts you may have.
RFPs can be anything from half a page up to 20 or 30 in my experience, either way I usually pass, they tend to be complete lotteries, big waste of time and resources.
That said, some companies exclusively respond to tenders and do quite well with them. But they’re a completely different beast to dealing one-on-one with a prospective client IMO, a situation where you tend to call the shots and control the sales process.
I don’t really want to market myself by cold-calling, as I normally frown on people who do this to me.
Work on your web site SEO, PPC etc. Do some web sites for friends and family, build the online portfolio. You’ll get plenty of enquiries if you target local businesses via search engines, it’s not hard to get a decent ranking on ‘web design city name’ - once you have a few clients under your belt, word will get around. I’ve never really done direct marketing (like you I hate it happening to me), just relied on SEO and word of mouth.
An RFP is what a prospect (potential client) might send you, it will be a document that lists their requirements and will ask for you to send back a detailed proposal containing your proposed ‘solution’ and all costs etc. From a prospects’s perspective this can seem quite an attractive way of finding a suitable vendor; create a requirements list, send it out to xx number of developers, sit back and wait for the responses.
For a developer, it can be too detached compared to the experience of dealing with a prospect in a more personal one on one situation. Here you can better dictate the terms of the sales process, and ensure you discover any ‘show stoppers’ before you waste too much time with them unnecessarily.
Personally I tend to avoid sending out ‘proposals’ willy-nilly. If someone wants an idea of price, I’m happy to send out a quick breakdown of estimated costs for their suggest spec, but if they want a detailed proposal, my response is typically that suggested by Gill Wagner (read the whole book, it’s free, but that chapter covers proposals really well, IMO).[URL=“http://www.honestselling.org/books/your_name_here/chapter13.htm”]
IMO? Forgive my ignorance, but I really don’t know what this is? I checked on Google but I could not find it’s meaning.
In My Opinion.
What I was hoping to do, is to send letters off to companies I think would be good clients. Alongside with a letterhead and a flyer on a introductory promotional deal.
No harm in trying - try everything at least once, the key is to ensue you measure how effective each marketing method is and also try to do A/B testing on the letters you send out; i.e. 100 letters written one way, 1000 letters written slightly different, different offers etc.
There’s plenty of info on the net on how to create a great direct mail campaign. I think the book I linked to above also has some good stuff in it about this.