Oh hello. We arrive, once again, at the appointed day and hour, on this day, Thursday, a day which is of course named (in the Old English tradition) after the Norse god Chris Hemsworth.
But this day, as promised in previous letters, we have something different.
Recently, I sent a proposal to a potential client. So since I was already looking at the thing, and I’d spent time rejiggering the thing, I thought I’d just go ahead and publish the thing.
As in, into a template.
And then, I thought I’d pair that template with some counsel about how and why to make the thing this way, and—comedy of comedies—why proposal templates don’t really matter anyway.
This is going to be one of several letters I write in the coming months that will speak to the part of indie consulting that we like to call, while looking at ourself in the mirror, “don’t starve, little buddy”.
Who is this for?
Indie consultants who work directly with brands (as opposed to through agencies), which may include folks like
content strategists
content writers
fractional whatevers
If you’re not a consultant but work inside an org, I hope you’ll still find value in this template and will share your own experience with receiving (or making) proposals either in the comments or by replying to this email.
Below, you’ll find:
A proposal template (.doc), with sections for:
Cover letter / Executive Summary
What we heard / Situation Appraisal
Proposal
Timing and Tasks
Structure and Fee
Just five pages. Six or seven if you want to add some fancy words about yourself.
But! Like I said, the thing about proposal templates is this: they don’t really matter. As an indie, they’re actually the least important thing about your sales process.
Actually, you probably shouldn’t download this template at all!
But since I’ve already written this much of the letter and why stop now, here’s a big pink download button:
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