Episode 59 · February 19, 2023
4 ways to make proposals easier
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In this episode
This is a coaching call with a client who told me she'd rather scrub the toilet than write a proposal. Her pricing was moving with her mood, she was writing proposals with no real idea what the company could spend, and then resenting the ones she won. We work on all of it, including the part most people skip, which is saying the number out loud on the call. At the end I tell you how long she's been in business and what she grossed last year, because I think it'll surprise you.
What you'll take away
- She'd rather do the laundry and scrub the toilet than write a proposal. Her words. They stack up, everything else takes priority, and then they get shoved to late at night when she's already tired.
- The same kind of work went out at $8,500 one month and $20,000 a few months later. She'd put no expiration date on the first one and she knew they could have paid more. She named the real problem herself: what's my number today?
- A value-based price isn't something you calculate. It's something you decide. So price it once, and let the client show you whether they're your client.
- Say the number on the call, before you write anything. Build the bridge first, for companies your size or for CEOs facing this, and then: here's how I do it, that starts at 26,500. Does that sound like what you were expecting?
- She's been in business eight years and grossed a million dollars last year. I tell you that because I hear these exact things at 150K and at 750K. They don't discriminate.
In this conversation
The full transcript, in sections. Open any one to read it.
Valentine's, and falling back in love with myself
0:02
literally, I think that's a huge part of my block. Leah with writing the proposal, because I'm like, I don't know if they can afford this. I don't have enough information. I didn't do enough digging, so then I don't even know if I'm wasting my time.
Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process. Get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share.
Hey there, Leah here and thanks for tuning into this episode. I hope that wherever you're listening to this, wherever you are right now, you're having a great week, making some good progress on your business, and also taking time for you. So it's almost Valentine's Day, unless you're listening to this like way later, then it's not Valentine's Day at all. But it's Valentine's Day right now. And I was walking down the street of my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and I walked past, I guess it's like a part yoga studio, part home store. I'm not totally sure what their deal is, but they had a little sandwich board sign outside that says, Hold on. What did it say? Okay, one sec it said, Roses are red, violets are blue, your truest love should always be you. And at first I was like, Oh, that is so cheesy. But then, like a split second later, I had this other thought that was like, actually, that is true. And you know it because several years ago, before I met my wife, I was getting out of a what was a really dysfunctional relationship, and I had totally, completely lost myself, like you wouldn't even recognize me and how I was back then, I had just completely lost everything about myself, and in the wake of that, after, you know, flailing around a little bit and through lots of therapy, I decided that I was going to not date anybody and just spend time falling in love with myself and really reconnecting to the things that I loved and I loved about myself. I spent a month in Nashville with my grandparents. This is back when they were still living. I saw friends that I hadn't seen in ages. On the recommendation of one of my friends, I made a list of 10 things I love to do and how long it's been since I've done them, and then I just did them one by one. And that process, as simple as it was, was amazing. And I moved to DC to be around family. That's where my sister and her family lived, and that's where my parents spend a lot of time. And it was all to really intentionally fall in love with myself, not date anybody, just fall back in love with myself. And it was an incredible process. And then while I was falling in love with myself, not paying attention to anybody else, really, that's when one day, I walked into a bar to meet some friends for trivia, and I saw the woman who would later become my wife. We saw each other from across the room. It was an instant connection. We spent about an hour or so for the rest of trivia just staring at each other. And when trivia was over, I walked up to her and started talking to her. But I really believe that I had to go through that process of falling in love with myself before I could love anybody else. And so as cheesy as it is, you know, Roses are red, violets are blue, your truest self should always be you. It is true, and I think it's an important lesson that all of us can use as we run our businesses and as we work with our clients. So anyway, I just wanted to share that with you and Happy Valentine's Day. So I'm really excited to share the conversation that you're going to listen in on today with you, because it touches on the part of getting clients that every consultant has to do, and that is proposals. So many of the women I talk to feel a way about proposals, love, hate or somewhere in between. And the woman that you're going to hear me talk to today is no different the client I'm talking to in her work. She works with the C suite and very senior leaders, and she has a great reputation and a fairly big platform. But the situation is this, she has people coming her way and companies coming her way, wanting to work with her. She's getting on the phone with them, having conversations, and the next step is to write proposals, and then that's where she hits a block. She just doesn't want to do them. She doesn't want to do the proposals. But the reason she doesn't want to do it is. Is different than you might think. And what I love about this conversation is that we start talking about one thing, but as we go deeper, we find out it's not actually about that thing at all. Because on the surface, this is about proposals, right? But as you're going to hear, it's really about so much more. It's about pricing, it's about messaging, it's about discovery, calls, and it's about confidence. And by the end, what we find is that it's not about proposals at all, and it just goes to show how connected each of these pieces are. So if it's ever taken you a long time to write a proposal, or if you've ever felt like your pricing is all over the map, or if you've ever just not felt like doing a proposal, you're going to find a lot in common with the client I'm talking to today. So I want to send a huge thank you to this client for allowing me to share this conversation with you. Take a listen, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business. Do you have an actual sales process. I'm talking about not a general sense of what you should be doing, but a real process where you know
exactly what step comes next, who to follow up with, and when, and you can see at a glance where every potential client stands, if the answer is no, or if yours feels clunky, or you're reinventing the wheel every single time I made something for you. It's called roadmap to clients. It's a free 20 minute video course, and in it you'll map out your customized sales process step by step, from the very first contact with a potential client all the way to a signed proposal. It's the same foundational process we use with every Academy member, and it's completely free. Go to smart gets paid.com/roadmap to get started.
The proposals are stacking up
6:48
I had kind of a breakthrough over the weekend, and I I think Leah, I'm realizing I have a mental block with proposals. I have a my I have a mindset issue, and that is why the proposals are, are stacking up, and I'm not getting them done. When I get them done then, then it's something like, you know, someone says, oh, I can't afford. They want to do business with me. But then I just don't even go back to it, because I'm like, now I got to come up with a different price. And part of the block is to because then when I screw it up, I resent it. Like, when I was in I was in Michigan all day yesterday, I had to leave it. I'd be up at three. I had to leave at 4am because it was a two and a half hour drive to this client in Michigan. And then I didn't get back till five. And it was a the day I only built for $8,500 because it was back like in November, and I never put a expiration date on it. And I know they could have afforded more. I kind of I screwed myself, and with that $8,500 I had to pay my videographer, because he came with me. So it was, it was a waste, right? I mean, I shouldn't say it's a waste, but like, Thursday, I'm flying in and out of New York, and it's a $20,000 day, and, yeah, I've got a hotel and a flight, but it's still like, there's a big profit on that. So I, I'm just giving you all that information, because there's a couple of things happening. Is things happening. Is. One, my pricing is all over the place. Two, I have a mental, I don't wanna say disorder block. I have a real like therapy thing, where I'm just not I don't wanna write them. I don't wanna, I don't wanna write them at all. I like having the conversation. I don't want to write them. It doesn't get done. Everything else takes priority before it. And I don't know what to do like. I don't know if I'm at a point where I just need to hire like an expert, to literally just write my proposals, or if I'm if this is fixable, I don't know if I don't know. So that's me.
What do you feel like? I mean, what? What does it feel like? I mean, talk to me about that. When I'm
A day in Michigan she'd priced back in November
8:46
training, I want you to know like I am so in my zone, I'm I'm like, when I'm training, I'm good, like, immediately I get emails afterwards saying, that was great. Our team loved it. You know, we want you back. I do a great job. But it's the proposal, it's pricing, it's it's valuing my time. And then when I get a, oh, I can't afford that. Or we, we got, we got proposals like the the agency last week saying we got proposals from two to 5000 and your proposal was 20,000 like but they're also not comparing apples to oranges. They some of them, I'm guessing a 2001 was maybe a three hour on Zoom or a two hour on Zoom. So that's not my issue. You know, they're not comparing the right things. But when I hear that, I'm kind of like, want to go in my shell and be like, but I know I half of me says, Well, fuck yeah, I'm the $20,000 person, you know, because she, she also said, you're at a different level than those other trainers that we got prices from, so and she wants to work with me like she wants me, you know, but I so I don't know what it is. I it's hard. I think that proposals can be overwhelming because it's a lot of work. And also, my day is not stacked for that, like, my day is stacked for, like, meeting with clients. So then it's, it is shoved off to late at night, and I'm just tired, so I'm, I'm not carving out the time. There's one logistics. I'm not carving out the time. I'm not allowing it to happen during work hours. And it has to be, I really, I'm excited about, like, coming full time, because maybe I can now that we've created a system where I'm taking the notes in that Google Doc, in that grid. Now she'll be able to take their words and literally write it up, because she's also being trained by you to know this is the right way to do it. So I'm grateful that she's in on this so she knows, like, literally, we need to talk to this. So I don't, I don't know, and I, I am going to talk to my therapist at 332 about it. I do need to bring this up, because she's also a business owner, and she does really well, and she's been raising her prices, I need to find out, like, is this, is this something that is ingrained? Is there something from childhood, or whatever, that I feel like I'm blocking it for myself?
Why am I the way I am
10:54
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's certainly a lot to unpack, right? A lot of sort of threads you can pull, and I'm such, I love that you're like, why am I the way I am? Right? Like, I am so curious about that in general, right? Like, you know, why are we the way we are, or what messages do we hear, or what experiences do we have that makes, I don't know, sending a follow up email or setting your pricing today, so challenging, right? So I love that most of that right, you're right, happens with a therapist, but it's, I think it's good to sort of shine a light on it in these conversations, so we can talk about, there's like, that element, right? There's also an element of, you know why? Maybe there's something around, like, not only is it something you don't want to do, but like, you tried your best and it still didn't work. And like, how frustrating that is. Yeah.
Can't I just hire someone to write them?
11:50
And then, you know, I'm in this network with all these people, and they're like, we do all these worksheets, like I came out of a works last week, and they're and they very much teach on who, not how, like hire your who, and just, if there is something that you don't want to do, you shouldn't be doing it. And that's why I like come to the thing is, like, I don't want to write my proposals. I I don't want to do it. So why am I doing it? Can somebody else do it? So I guess I'm also asking you, like, is there a person who's at a certain level who can just do these and I don't have to worry about it anymore, and because I don't want to do it, yeah, yeah. Well, do that for any of your clients
like, well, so no, but not exactly in the way that you have framed it up. So because what we've done so far is we've talked about, well, hold on. Before I even get there, there are a lot of other like, little threads to pull on this, right? One of the threads is, how can we make your pricing just your pricing, so that you're not making it up, making it up every time, right? If you if this is just what it is, then it is what it is, right? Yeah. And so you're not going through this exercise of having to re evaluate every single time and revalue yourself
What's my number today?
13:11
that recently. What's happening is I feel like every day I'm like, What's my number today? What am I worth it? And that's almost like putting yourself on a scale like, what's my number today? Absolutely, and that's a fucked up way to live totally.
And it's, it just, it's so dependent on how you happen to feel that day, right? You had a great day. You got off stage, you know, the adoration was just washing over you. You're like, fuck yeah, I'm the you know, I'm the shit. Like, I'm gonna price myself up here. And then you get one person who pushes back on you, and then the next day, you're like, Well, that was maybe I'm an 8500 person, right, right, right, right, exactly, all right. So that's so that's another thing, right, like having to re value yourself, because honestly, I mean the proposals, you know, writing the actual proposal itself, like probably isn't that hard, especially since what we've done so far is we did the conversation framework, right, which helps you essentially fill in the blanks of a great proposal, right? The proposal sort of writes itself in a way, yeah. And as you do, as you guys do more and more of that, it'll get easier. But I think there's another thing we have to look at, which is making sure that you are getting on the phone or getting these opportunities from the right people and the right clients, right because if somebody listen this, the person who's evaluating you at 20k and Somebody else at $2,000 that that was never your client, right? They were never your client, no matter what you just knowing, even the range that you've considered for your pricing, like they this, this company was never your client, right? And so making sure that you're attracting the right people. People, and messaging sort of signaling the right people and the right opportunities through your your website, through what you're putting out on LinkedIn or any other social channels, right? Because if you're like I do, then you're going to get anybody who wants but if you say, you know, I help. Let's just go with the example that we worked on last week. Okay, so here she and I are talking about her painkiller statement we worked on, which, for privacy, I'm editing this part out, but just suffice it to say, her new painkiller statement is much stronger. All right, let's get back to it.
You're right, and I think I didn't even realize that, like I've really specialized, I now know I just don't want to do X, Y and Z
Signaling the right people
15:45
people you're you're totally right, like not everybody who needs is your ideal client, right, right? So now we have to signal the right people, you know, and the right companies, or at the right level, or the right problems to solve, right? Because getting is not a problem, right? That's not, that's not a problem that we're solving. That's a tactic, right? It's a tactic that you do very, very well, but you your value is so much greater, so we have to start the conversation there. Got it makes sense?
Yeah? Like today, talking to they specifically are coming to me because their CEO is trying to figure out what is the next chapter of his life, and it's teaching the EVP how to take the opportunities they've had in the last two weeks, because the spotlight's been on them. So it's, it's a much higher level, bigger scope than I do, right?
And so maybe the next step of this is after we sort of work on the pricing and the proposal process is working backwards, right in thinking, all right, well, how are we going to message? How are we going to signal that in a lot of things, in our messaging, in our content, in you can even signal that in your Contact Us form, you can signal it in a lot of ways so that the right people see themselves in it, and they the wrong people keep scrolling or, you know, move on. So that's another really important part of this.
I just what happens is I feel like I've in my head every time somebody comes to me with another issue that they need handled. I'm not seeing it as, here's a day. I'm seeing as, oh, here's a new project. So I need to, it's a different project price and look, because everyone has a kind of a different need, like this bank that I have today. So I need to, instead of thinking like, Oh, now I've got to create a whole training for her, but instead, I have to think about like, the proposals, it's $20,000
Well, not everything is going to be cookie cutter, and we don't want it to be, but let's say that we sort of put some boundaries around your pricing and the scoping, like we've been doing, even if that solves half of the issue, okay, even if that takes half the proposals and makes it easier and more streamlined, right? Okay, then that would take, you know, big weight off your shoulders, right? That means that you don't have to revalue
yourself every time
I do it, every single time you have to do it half the number of times, okay? But then, you know, it really comes down to that value based pricing that that we were talking about.
You don't calculate a value-based price
18:29
Now, can we talk about what's appropriate for my time, or is that really, no one's ever gonna there isn't a number. There isn't one number because, like, I talked to my CPA, and they said, we'll make the goal if I'm at 16,000 a day, if I and I get these, at least one of those a week, right? He said, like, if you just get given one of those a week, like, you're golden, you know, you want a million gross, like, you're going to be fine. Like, we got that. But there's part of that too that I don't like not being able to help certain people. Like, I go the Oh, but I really want to help her,
and that's okay, you can, you can still do that. Yeah. So well, so I think what's making this hard then is sort of going back to the question, how much is my time worth? Yes, because we're not going to price based on time. We're going to price based on value. Yeah. So when you start attracting and talking to the people who have the real problem you solve, right? Not the tactical problem you not the technical thing you do, but the real problem you solve, and you do great discovery, then they're going to tell you what the value is to the business. And that's how you start to say, or this is the price of this work which will achieve the value that you want. Does that make sense? So what is the value of being able to capitalize on every single opportunity to unlock, you know, even more business initiatives or partner. Ships or whatever, right? That's pretty big. So is charging 26,000 or whatever? I think your last proposal was, is that too much to achieve that value?
No, not for a bank.
Yeah, right. And the challenging thing is that value based pricing isn't something you calculate. It's something that you decide, yeah, so is, is the number that you've put down on paper? Is it wrong? Is it bad? No, it's It's right for the right people. It makes sense. Yeah, you're gonna know. And the pricing comes from you, right? This is your price. Whether they had something different in mind. That's up to them. Yeah, right. Your pricing comes from you. Can we talk about this number? Because nobody
tells you the number like, okay, great, thank you. You're not your head.
Saying the number on the call
20:54
Oh no, you're reminding me a whole other part of this is making sure you're talking about price on the call.
Oh, shit, I'm not even close. How do we do that? I'm shy about it. When I'm like, I'll send you something. You know, they're like, Well, can you talk about the price? I'm like, Well, I've got to go over and go over everything that we talked about, and I'm going to noodle this a little bit, and then, and then I'll send you the proposal tomorrow. And I heard your podcast or something, and you, you kind of say something like so for this, in my, you know, in the past that this is, I've done this range for this, how does that sound, or will that fit what you're looking for? You know, you said something like
that very close. So what I what it takes is a little bit of just fluency in the pricing, right? You don't have to have, to have like, every single bullet point or whatever, but some fluency, and the first step is number one, create the commonality, which is for clients who are into a similar situation, or companies your size, or companies With a turnaround like yours, or CEOs facing this problem, right? Create some type of like bridge, right? This is why this pricing is relevant to you, or right? This by the scope, there are a couple of ways we this is, this is literally how I do it. That starts at 26, five. Does that sound like what you were expecting? And if they said we had $5,000 in mind, then they're not your client, and you're not writing a proposal. Yes. But if they said, right, but if they said we had 20k in mind, then we're talking, yeah, right. And then you get to decide, do I pursue this or not? Does that make sense? Yeah, because
then now, because, literally, I think that's a huge part of my block. Leah with writing the proposal, because I'm like, I don't know if they can afford this. I don't have enough information. I didn't do enough digging, so then I don't even know if I'm wasting my time once I have this. Because now I bought you've alleviated so much of the with the questions of, like, what's missing, what's broken. You know, all that has been so helpful with writing the top, but now this is going to help with my block with, I don't know if they can afford this. Should I do it at eight? Should I do a 20? I don't know, because I didn't gather the
information, right? And that's why you know, if you add that on top right to this whole I have to value myself every time I sit down to write a proposal, and I'm doing it with no information and I'm just guessing. Right? No wonder it's so hard. No wonder, right? You're like, I would rather, you know, scratch my eyes out than do this.
I'd rather do the laundry, scrub the toilet and I do and that's why I'm like, don't get them done. Because I'm like, I'll go do this
totally so we're going to price it once and let them show us whether or not they are our client. Okay, right? And only then once we have agreement, right, are we in the same ballpark. Then I'm writing a proposal, and I don't have to revalue myself every time. All right, does that make sense? Yeah, I can't do this therapy here, but I can do the proposal and the pricing here. I think,
yeah, I think that was, that's the one of the biggest chunks of it is, I'm just guessing here. Okay, cool. So now I don't have to guess, and I can actually sit down and have some real information before I write it. I'm less likely to strike out, because I'm going to know exactly what the price they can afford or that they expected Absolutely.
Your price is about your life
24:43
So there are a couple of things that we've talked through. There's a few key pricing principles that we want to bring in to this. One of them is, your price is not about money. It's about your life, right? This, the price is about the types of clients you want to work with, the type of life you want to lead.
Totally, I It's specifically about my the life I want to lead. If I was single and if I didn't have husband and I didn't have kid, I would literally be just like working to death, and I would take on everybody, because I want to help everybody. But my the value of my time has become exponentially greater, yes.
And so if we could get you getting paid twice as much and take on half as many clients, right? That's the goal here, right? Yes, it's
not about me. Like, it really, I'm not trying to, like, I need 5 million in the bank for retirement. It's really just so I can work a little less, yeah, because I don't want to be working weekends, and I'm not, which is great. I've set a huge boundary in the last two years, which is, I don't talk to clients on the weekends like they used to roll right on into my weekends. Like two or three years, like was soon she was born, as soon as I was really pregnant. But now the next thing I need to do is set the boundary. I don't think, like, proposals are done and set by three o'clock on Friday, because I can't bring this anxiety into my weekends, exactly.
Don't negotiate against yourself
26:04
The other thing is, another pricing principle is that you have the right to charge whatever you want, period full totally people. There are people out there who are charging a fraction of what you charge. And they have that right totally. And there are people who charge way more, and they also have that right, you know, you have the right to charge whatever you want, and your price comes from you. And the last is, don't negotiate against yourself. What? What is I see it in your face, what's going on?
I do that. I mean, I know I do that. I talk myself out of it, like I put down a number, and then I go down by 2000 and then I kind of go down by another I'm like, Oh, can I do this little because, but again, it goes all back to what questions you just gave us. So I can get the number I need to get. I need to get their ballpark, because I have no clue what I'm going in with. I don't need their ballpark. Sorry. I need to make sure that their mindset matches what my number is, right?
That you are in the same ballpark. And so it's the client's job to negotiate, Yeah, but you're not going to negotiate against yourself before they even see the number. How are you feeling? Did I just throw another log on the fire or or, what is it? Did I make this easier, worse or the same easier? How to
talk about that, though, like, I don't know. When they do ask. Well, how did you come to that pricing if they ask, because I have been asked that before, I need to just say, that's the value of the of the coaching. I don't need to say, well, there's the flight and there's this and my videographer, I have to just say that is the value of the coaching, right?
Like this. This is the how did you come to that? Well, it reflects both my time and expertise. It reflects, you know, 25 years of doing this. It reflects being able to make sure that I can get your people ready. It reflects the additional coaching that you get. And the thing is that we are always teaching people how to think about us and our work. We and we teach people based on our reactions to things, right? So I don't think that people will ask, how do you come to that? I don't hear from when you know when I use this framework, or when I use this approach in my in my work, and when my clients use it in their work, they're not often asked, how'd you come to that? Because they teach people that this is it, this is this is the price, right? Like you teach people through the confident way that you state the price,
yeah, and especially because you said, well, for clients in a similar situation, a similar size, who have CEOs who are going through this, there are a few ways that we work together. Because I've already said, like, you're in this club, and this is what they've paid, and I've already planted that seed, and they don't want to be like the ones going well, I can't, I don't want to pay that like I've already said, this is what your colleagues were doing together.
Yeah, exactly. All of these are ways that we teach people. So back to your question, what happens if they say, how'd you come to that price? Well, you know, if you answer it, not that you would sound like this, but if you answered it like, well, you know, it's like the photographer is like X amount, and then the flights usually about this much and blah, blah, blah versus, you know, over the past 25 years, I've developed a proven process, and you know, to do that, it takes this many sessions, and so that I know that on day one or whatever, you guys will be confident and ready to go. You know, that's how I came to that. Yeah, which one teaches people how to think about you as an expert? That one, yeah, it's great. Exactly, yeah, you have more power in this than you think.
I know, I know. Now you're right, you know. Yeah, it's cool, because, as I'm becoming more comfortable in these conversations, like, what's neat is they want to work with me, it is becoming easier now, for sure, than three years ago.
Yeah, yeah, good, yeah. And I know it sucks to, like, send a proposal and have somebody come back and say, This is too much, right? It's like, soul crushing, right? But I can prevent
that by these new questions.
My take: eight years in, a million last year
30:43
There you go. We're going to prevent the soul crushing. Wow. I mean, we touched on so much in that call. And I want to pull out a lesson that you can apply to your business. But before I do that, I want to call out one thing the woman you heard from in this episode, my client, I want to ask you, like as you were listening, how long did you assume that she's been running her business, and how much do you think she's making in her business? Like in your mind, if you had to guess, what did you assume? Or what would you guess that her annual revenue is? So hold both of those in your mind. Okay, here's the answer. She's been running her business for about eight years, and she grossed $1 million last year. And the reason I bring that up is because the things that she's struggling with, they are so universal. You might be struggling with them too, or just sort of working through them in your business, because the issues that she's talking about, you know, pricing is all over the place, feeling like she's making it up, feeling like she has to value herself every time, sending proposals out and getting a no, wondering if her pricing is actually good, underpricing herself and then ending up resenting the client. These are issues I hear from the women I work with at every stage and at Every Size, and they don't discriminate. So we see them if you've been in business for two years or 10 years or 20 years, they're there whether you're selling to small clients or big companies, and they're there if your pricing is in the 10k range or if it's in the 100k range. And that's why, actually, I get to work with so many women across different sizes of their company, different lengths of how long they've been in business. Because these things are so universal, because I work with women in the messy middle right that time in your business, after that startup period, when that first wave of clients has slowed down, and the things that you were doing to get those first clients start to not really work anymore, and you realize then that you have to do something else to get you where you want to go. And that's when getting clients, getting the right clients, and getting paid well, gets harder. And that messy middle period lasts a long time. It lasts years. It's the longest phase of running a business. And so, you know, sometimes women ask me, what size business do you work with? You know, like, I'm at 150k Will your stuff work for me? And then someone else is like, I'm at 750 K, will your stuff work for me? And I say yes, because these issues are universal. They're not specific to one stage of your business or one size of your business. So in light of that, I want you to know that if you're struggling with the questions that we talked through today, you're not alone. You're not doing something wrong. So don't beat yourself up for, you know, not having figured it out already, and give yourself some compassion, because it's never too late to figure these things out. But the other thing I want to leave you with is this. So in this conversation, we started talking about proposals, and for a lot of women, proposals take a long time, and they can feel challenging, and you might feel like you're making it up every time. But what I want you to know is this, proposals aren't the problem. Proposals are never the problem. Proposals are always a symptom of the problem. The real problems are one or many of the ones that we touched on in today's call. The real problem could be that you're not talking to the right people, or you're not starting the conversation on the level of value, or you're not talking about the value or positioning your work around the value. It could be that you're not doing enough or the right discovery in your conversations, and it could be that you're just not talking about price on the call, or, like I said, it could be all of the above. So to really solve the proposal problem, we have to look at the real problems, and so I want to share with you a quick guide to how to make proposals easier and faster and more profitable. All right, so there are four ways. Number one, if your pricing is all over the map, then that's a pricing problem, but it's also a sales conversation problem, so it requires looking at those two things. Number two, if you're spending too long on proposals, that's a discovery problem. Number three, if you send out a proposal or proposals and clients get back to you and tell you that you're too expensive, then that's a messaging problem and a sales conversation problem. And number four, if you're dragging your feet and avoiding just writing proposals like if you're sort of dreading it, that's a discovery call problem, because if you do the right discovery, the proposal essentially writes itself and a process problem. So I wanted to share this with you so you can use that to diagnose the root causes, because once you know the root causes, then you can actually start to fix them. And when you do that, your proposals will get better. You'll get them done faster, and you'll start winning more.
Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems every B to B consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence, and how to get paid for your value, not your time. And There's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply, and we can chat about next steps. All right, see you over there. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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