292 - Effortless Web Design Proposals: The Fast, Fun, and Profitable Way

CEO of SmartPricingTable.com Joe Ardeeser joins the podcast to share how he, as a former digital agency owner, productized, templatized and streamlined his proposal process to be able to scale and become more profitable in his web design agency.

In This Episode

00:00 - Introduction
00:05 - Greeting to Joe
04:37 - Transitioning From Freelancer to Agency Owner
11:53 - Scaling and Productizing Proposals in Business
20:18 - The Value of Productizing Web Design
28:26 - Creating Effective Proposals With Clear Scope
35:02 - Efficient Proposal Creation for Agencies
38:18 - Simplistic vs Complex Proposals
49:19 - Options and Upselling in Proposal Process
55:06 - Optimize Proposals, Add Value With Options

Get all links, resources and show notes at:

https://joshhall.co/292

Transcript

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Web Design Proposals With Joe Ardeser

Joe 0:00

Then what I would do is , after that sales discovery call , I would generally require a proposal review meeting . I would schedule a proposal . I'd say something like you know , josh , thanks for downloading all that information . The next step in our process is I'd like to schedule a proposal review meeting . I'd bring up my calendar . I'd book it with you right there , because I want the opportunity to sell my proposal . I don't want you asking questions by yourself . I want you asking questions out loud with me on the Zoom so that I can answer them . Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast , with your host , josh Hall , helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love .

Josh 0:46

Hey friends , so great to have you here in this episode because we're going to take a deep dive into proposals . Web design proposals I've found can be one of the trickiest parts of a web design business , and I think it's mainly because all web design projects are different . There's never a project at least in my experience that was exactly the same . So it can be really tricky to figure out what to put in your proposal , what the scope looks like , what the heck to charge , but you also don't want to overwhelm your client with a ton of information but at the same time , you don't want to overlook any details . It's really important as far as the scope of the project . So , for all those reasons and more , web design proposals can be very , very tricky . But I'm excited in this episode to help you out with that and to take this into a deep dive even further . I'm really excited to bring somebody on who knows quite a lot about proposals and how to do them well so well , in fact , that he ended up creating a proposal tool for web designers . This is Joe Ardeser . He is the CEO of SmartPricingTablecom Now . Joe has a really cool background because he was an agency owner that grew a small team and a small agency , and really the thing that he did well among many things , but one of the things he did well was his itemized and productized proposal system , and because that served his agency so well and he was able to scale with that , he ended up making a product , a tool , out of it , because he was looking for something that wasn't there . So he made something himself , just like all the best tools are created . So I was so excited to have him on , because Joe has a really , really fresh perspective on proposals how to make them fast , how to make them understandable for clients , how to use options and different optionality for upsells , how to give your client control on what they want to choose , and how to potentially two to three extra proposals just by giving your clients options . That may have been hidden in the past , and he really , really has some cool insight on this . So I'm excited to hear how this helps you make proposals fast and , I dare say , maybe even make them fun , like this is . I'm really pumped about this one .

Josh 2:49

So , without further ado , here is Joe . Our goal in this conversation is to help you make proposals faster and funner . You can check him out at SmartPricingTablecom and actually I have a link with this tool now . I'm really excited to be affiliated with Joe and his team . Now you can go to joshallcocomcom if you would like to give them a trial . That's short for SmartPricingTable . All right . Speaking of pricing and proposals , here's Joe . Joe , welcome officially to the podcast man .

Transitioning From Freelancer to Agency Owner

Josh 3:23

Before we hit record , you were just saying you feel comfortable here . You feel like we're in like-minded territory here . We're part of the same tribe as a . Were you exclusively WordPress with your agency ?

Joe 3:38

Yeah , about halfway through maybe four years in the 12 years I ran my agency , we decided to make that switch . Okay .

Josh 3:50

So , yeah , let's start there , because I know we're going to dive into proposals , which always fascinate me because it's as you know , as a web designer agency , whether it's a full-boned agency or as a freelancer . I imagine proposals are probably even more important as an agency because it has to be dialed in like a process , right , but you have a really cool framework for this . I have my own ideas and what's worked for me , so I want to dive into that . But I would love to start with your agency and yeah , how long were you an agency owner ? And well , we'll start there . What was it ? What was the jettison of your agency story ?

Joe 4:26

I had an agency for about 12 years and I won't get into the details , but I actually was going to be a freelancer , josh , that was my plan and I ended up getting some carpal tunnel pain that ended up affecting my entire body . And then I hired someone at a necessity and it was amazing , like for the first time ever , the mission was going on without my you know needing 100% on . And so I started building an agency because of that affliction and ended up having about 12 people , kind of at our peak .

Josh 5:05

Wow , I didn't know anything about that . Was that due to anything with , like , the work you were doing , typing and using a mouse ? Or was it unrelated ? How did you know , like , how that happened ?

Joe 5:18

Yeah , well , you know this is kind of interesting a little tangent here , josh because a lot of people in our industry can have issues with like carpal tunnel or pain . I actually I found a book called the mind body disorder , by Dr Sarno I believe , and it was actually . It's really weird . I'm not into like a lot of like crazy theory stuff like this , but but it was suppressing like just some pain from like years ago or something and it manifested as physical , real physical pain . Reading the book fixed it I . I tell people all the time about but it's the mind body prescription . So if you're , if you're at the keyboard and it's hurting might want to .

Josh 6:01

Oh , I'm looking at it right now .

Josh 6:02

I'm going to link this in the show notes for sure .

Josh 6:04

So , the mind body prescription , the prescription yeah , interesting , and that so do you feel this is interesting because it , when it comes to agency and scaling , this is something where , for any of my audience who are like dead set on being a one person show and a freelancer , I do always recommend , like you don't have to be a huge agency , but there may be a time in a season or a health issue where you might need some help , and I haven't talked to too many people who have experienced this at least that I know of but I have heard the stories of of carpal tunnel and issues like that .

Josh 6:36

In fact , I had a colleague of mine , a video editor , who got one of those mouses that like raised up his arm on the desk so he wouldn't let it drag like that , right , and he's because he was having issues with it , with his fingers and stuff . And to this point I better knock on some wood . I haven't any issues , but it is something that doesn't seem widely talked about at least . Yeah , so that's that's really interesting , that you were like made to , like forced to scale . It sounded like early on .

Joe 7:03

Yeah , the only coding I could do , josh , was through a mic , using dragon , naturally speaking , and I was 10% efficient , so but it forced me to hire someone in , I think you know one of the things I would say is , with business , I love learning . Sometimes you don't always have the biggest return on something financially , but if you have an opportunity to grow , I think there's value in that itself , and I learned by hiring someone like , oh , my goodness , I can . They get better . Over time , I can start to delegate more and more , and and now , every little thing isn't dependent on me . We're never a huge agency . We just , like I said , 10 people , but even like two or three , or even contractors , like leveraging other people can be a big way to you know , make , make business a lot more enjoyable .

Josh 7:59

Yeah , that's well said . That was . My setup was just a few . We had about half a dozen like collaborators , essentially subcontractors . Some worked a lot and then some worked just as needed and it was a great setup . I love it . I didn't feel alone anymore . I really freed me up to start this brand of what I do now with teaching , and I couldn't have done it without subcontracting , so I'm a huge proponent of it . Actually , at the time of recording this , I'm working on my next course about scaling , so very , very top of mind . But I don't want to stick on carpal tunnel too long because but I have one more question on that Did you do anything physical to help with that ? Or was it purely mindset , emotional , that kind of like ? Was it more ? Was it more headspace and mindset that helped that , or did you do actually exercises or anything that helped ?

Joe 8:45

Well , just so you know , Josh , it started with my hands but it ended up being everywhere . I had headaches . I couldn't sleep for more in like four hours a night because I was so uncomfortable and listen . All I did was read that book . It's crazy . Now I have found out just later in life that , like when I work out , I feel a lot better and even like headaches and stuff will go away . So I'm a big proponent of working out , but for that particular thing , just read the book . So if you're struggling , check it out .

Josh 9:17

All right , unintentionally recommended the mind body prescription on this one for sure , so we'll make sure that's linked in the show notes . I'm glad to hear that worked out there , man . I mean , that's incredible how we'll dive into proposals next year , but how long ? Just last question on that how long was that process Like , did you , did you start to feel better shortly after that and but you were already scaling , like I guess , when did you get back to form and were able to actually type and code ?

Joe 9:43

I had a couple of employees and , while still struggling with the issue , when I finally found that book , there was a couple of weeks before I started noticing some significant changes and within probably two months I had 10% of the residual .

Josh 9:59

So Okay , gotcha . Wow , that's amazing man . So I'm curious when you got to that point , had you already started hiring out and collaborating when the carpal tunnel stuff started happening , or were you forced immediately to start hiring Because of that , that forced ?

Joe 10:16

me to and it was scary . I'd never had a W2 employee . To me it seemed very like that's a lot of risk . I'd never really been a manager before . But again you get into it and you start seeing all the lessons that you're learning and the power of more than just you .

Scaling and Productizing Proposals in Business

Josh 10:39

And I asked that because the way your business has set up and proposals in particular , is very , very , very different . When I didn't start scaling until I had my proposal system pretty well locked in , I kind of capitalized on it as a freelancer and was able to replicate it . But what was your business like when you started scaling ? Were you pretty organized ? Did you have a lot of things in place , or was it just a shit show ? And you're trying to figure it out Like what was it like when you started scaling ?

Joe 11:08

I think the technology and the systems made it a lot more enjoyable . Okay , so I wouldn't say that the systems were the main thing that started us to grow . We just kind of did that . We started getting more projects . We did add a necessity , but at a certain point , as you're growing an agency whether that's two people , five , 10 people you start to get this feeling of being overwhelmed because there's so much stuff going around . And that's when we really decided to double down and explore how could we do proposals in a way that is effective , that doesn't take forever , that isn't like this ambiguous fog that's always hanging over us Like I just hated that so much . I said there's gotta be a better way .

Josh 12:03

Were you doing the proposals when you started hiring or did you have , like , a project manager who was writing proposals and sending those out ? Yeah , what was your role when you started scaling ?

Joe 12:14

I did 100% of the proposals , josh , and I think this is one of the big challenges , especially with web development , web design companies . You don't really wanna hire a salesperson because you're scared to death of what they're gonna create .

Josh 12:30

Mm , that's a good point .

Joe 12:31

I mean , I'm an engineer by trade . I know how to code , I've coded for years and I was always concerned that if I hire a non-technical salesperson they're gonna sell the $20,000 website for two grand and they're gonna sell the $2,000 website for 20 grand and either way I'm going down to the grave early . So I always did . But that was such a you start hiring people and certain things you find you can delegate . That's one thing I really struggle . How in the world am I ever gonna have someone do this and yet it takes so much time and knowledge and technical detail to do it really well . It was a formidable challenge .

Josh 13:15

So I imagine you hired out the coding , development , design . It sounds like initially you're doing project management proposals , stuff like that . How long did it take for you to have an idea of productizing , particularly the proposal I'll share ? It took like eight years for me to finally like stop banging my head up against the wall and just have packages and ranges , have templates and have my proposal system ready to go to where I can knock it out fairly quickly for most all of my size projects Like how long did it take you to have the mindset of productizing this ?

Joe 13:52

I think it was probably about half way in , so about six years took me a while too .

Josh 13:58

Okay , so we're not too far off . We're probably bullishly cocky and confident doing our own thing until we you know the point where it's like , all right , there's gotta be a better way .

Joe 14:08

Well , and what I think one thing that keeps people from productizing is if you're using something like Google Docs or Word , like that's not a system , like that's not a repository where I can , you know , start building stuff on it . It's just I've got a document , I copy and paste it . You know , sometimes I'll , you know , grab this proposal and because it sounds similar to this new project , I'll just duplicate that , right , but I lost like these five things that we added to our normal template . So I'm putting it all together and I just really don't enjoy . You know that's when the agency owners , like you know , daydreaming about , you know , having a job again , or this is just do I wanna do my seven year ? You know , kind of change things , that kind of thing .

Josh 14:57

Was it a moment for you ? Where did you have a proposal that took like eight hours or something and you're like all right , I gotta change this ? Or was it just a gradual collection of you know long discovery periods and proposals that led you to that productization idea ?

Joe 15:12

Well , I don't think that I even would have called it productization . I don't think I really even understood the concept . I just started kind of doing it intuitively . I'm a really big systems guy . I remember I heard a kind of not mentor but a influencer that I look up to , dan Martel . He talked about and I think he stole this quote but winners and losers both have goals , so everybody has goals .

Joe 15:41

But winners have the systems to make the goals a reality . That's what gets you to the end . That's how you get there is you have to find the patterns and build systems around them . And so I just started noticing , you know , every time we do an about us page , there's like maybe a team photo , maybe they wanna have a directory listing of all their team , maybe there's a pop-up where there's bios . And I just started noticing the patterns . And the challenge is , if you don't have any patterns in your business and most businesses do but if you don't have patterns , you can't build momentum . And I didn't want , you know , just isolating that simple thing . We were doing a lot of about us pages for different types of companies and I don't wanna have to do that from scratch every single time . So we just started thinking about it more , spelling it out , creating the specific features , and then , all of a sudden , without knowing it , we kind of created a product that we could sell in a about us page setup .

Josh 16:51

That's beautiful . So I imagine your deliverables , your line items on proposals . Are they essentially like mini products that you just stack on proposals ? I mean , is that a simple way to think about it ?

Joe 17:03

Yeah , that's the way that we did it . And so over the years we have like a blog line item where we spell out you know you can , there's lots of different things that can be included in a blog . You know , related blog posts , author bio pages , social sharing . And we started seeing those patterns and little by little we started building them out . We were actually using a big box provider for proposal generation and we would just create a row in the pricing table on that and we'd start to spell it out more and more .

Joe 17:38

So you know about us page a blog , a service page , like the services that they have , homepage . You know , here are the things that we generally include in a homepage so that we can have a size and scope of this . Maybe a contact page , right ? Again , I love looking at these things , like what is a contact page right ? Don't just say we sell a contact page . Say , like , what actually is included ? Are you gonna have a Google map ? Are you gonna have a dynamic form ? Are you gonna ? Are there multiple locations ? Does all that information need to be easily updatable ? Do you need custom post types for locations ? All that kind of stuff . And taking a second and really looking at what is it that we're selling here ?

Josh 18:22

The idea of patterns is unintentionally what led me to , I guess , product tie as my proposal system which I use , a tool called 17 hats . Most admin softwares have something similar where you can create a workflow to where I automated mine , to where I would do the proposal after a discovery call and a little bit of a discovery period and then that would feed right in to the contract for them to sign after accepting the proposal , to the invoice and then the getting started email and then my onboarding process . And it was night and day difference in my business when I set up that workflow . But it all started with a proposal , which was always the tricky part . And what's interesting is you mentioned the pattern thing .

Look for Patterns

Josh 19:04

I for the longest time said I could never like and again , like you , I didn't call it productizing , but I was like I could never have a template for a proposal because all of my websites are so different .

Josh 19:17

And I just kept on saying that for years I would just do a PDF invoice and proposal manually .

Josh 19:23

And then it dawned on me with this pattern idea that I was doing a lot of products that were projects that were pretty much in that yeah , they might have some differences and differences were typically like line items that I could add or subtract , but most of the projects were pretty pretty much the same . As I reeled in my tools and my toolbox of plugins and everything else and then it dawned on me I really do projects on like a small level with this type of functionality . Most of my projects are in this like mid level type of functionality , with maybe 15 , 20 pages , certain functionality , and then I do some projects that are bigger and more robust in e-commerce and every one of my leads could be filtered into those three categories and that's what helped me make those templates for my proposals . So I just , I don't know , I wanted to wanted to just echo that and saying that the idea of looking out for patterns is key . So I appreciate you sharing that because I think that's a missing piece for a lot of web designers .

Joe 20:21

And even if you , maybe you feel you you kind of resonate with the idea that all my projects are different . Okay , so yeah , maybe the exact composition , but if you look at the actual building blocks , those could be similar . Okay , maybe this one had a blog and eight other features and then this one had , you know , maybe there's like a 60% similarity , but there's still a lot of differences . Well , the idea is , any type of service , any kind of offering , instead of looking at each project as completely unique , look at what they're asking for and saying and say to yourself is there something here that's repeatable , that I could sell to other people ? For instance , what a Salesforce integration for a contact form ? Okay , your customer asks you for that , and do you really think none of your other customers might want that ?

Joe 21:14

Or maybe integrating with some other CRM , and so you could have a special line item that is , contact page and CRM integration , where you spell it out . Maybe there are some pitfalls that you learned from the first project . Well , protect yourself in the description of that line item by putting a restriction on it , like , this specific thing is your responsibility , not ours , and so the awakening of I need to productize means that it's just slowing down and each little thing looking at it as this . Is this something , is this a pattern that I can define and then reuse over and over ?

Josh 21:58

Yeah , and in the case of like an about page or a contact page , I've experienced this where I used to treat those very different and then inevitably I was just basically recreating the same page over and over and over on different sites and the creative designer and me struggled with this from a prideful standpoint because I felt like I was cheating if I used a saved layout from another website or I would think that , well , if a client looks at my portfolio and they see the same type of pages , they're going to know I'm just like you know , taking a template and changing some things out . But the reality is no one does like . Clients are not going to look at about us pages and be like , ah , maybe they'll see a cool one that they want to mimic , but in most cases not going to be like . Joe , I saw that you use the same layout on two of your projects that are on page two of your portfolio . It doesn't happen . It's like we're in our own way , most cases making ourself more and more unprofitable by having , like this designer pride , whereas clients want their project done , good out the door , help and grow their business .

Josh 23:00

And if you can save layouts and productize the proposal side of things . I say hats off to that . I think this is like a . I mean , I know there's a bit of a bit of a revolution with proposals in the agency space and freelancer space , but even more so I think this is more important because it's easier now with AI and page builders and stuff to do that . But I don't want people to underestimate the value of saved layouts in starting points when it comes to growing your business , because at some point I feel like you can't like you tell me , joe , you had a bigger agency than I did . Could you have built your agency to whatever level you got to without having this approach of you know light items that were templates and stuff like that ?

Joe 23:41

No , because everything's so unpredictable when you do that .

Joe 23:45

You know , even if , look , let's say , you do about us page A and then three weeks later you do about us page B for a different prospect , even if there's quite a bit of variance , I agree your customers are likely not going to care , but even if there's quite a bit of variance , so you can , you know , scratch that designer itch . Are there still a lot of similarities ? Right , maybe the layout changed quite a bit , but the code is actually very similar , like you know it's . You still have a staff directory , but instead of a pop up that shows the bio info , it shows below it , right , like the .

Joe 24:22

When you have patterns and when you say you know , this is kind of our base . What I can do is I can improve on that over time , and what that can do is it can actually get my effective hourly rate down . I like , and when selling websites or services , I like to fix bid costs because if I can optimize , I can make a higher rate . I can make two , three hundred bucks an hour and still provide incredible value , and sometimes even with productization , you can actually lower your prices or you can give away things for free to get the project , because you know the actual hard costs and it's relatively reasonable .

Josh 25:02

Yeah , it's funny . I've seen a lot of my students have an approach where if they do templated sites or like a layout based site that's already pre-built and it's more or less changing content , colors , images and stuff without like intensive custom design , what happens is that little like low tier offer just to get somebody started . I've seen a lot of people basically run with that and make it their main service , because once you productize , baby , you don't go back . It's like it's too good . And then the custom works like , oh , do I really need to like reinvent the wheel when I have something that works ?

Josh 25:35

And I think it speaks to a bigger issue too and this probably comes into play with proposals where our job I firmly believe this as web designers , our job is not to just be a task taker and pixel pusher and basically an employee for a client .

Josh 25:53

It's our job to show the client what works , best practices , what we know works for other clients and everything and help them basically like work within our parameters in our systems .

Josh 26:05

Right , at least the students that I have and what I did in my business and my students who are excelling at that that is the common thread is they have and this does take time often and experience to reel in your process as , even after going like through my courses and your proposal template and stuff , like you make stuff your own . But just that idea of like you are the chef and you need to make your clients website the meal you know , like there's all . They can use the same tools that you're using , but you know what to do and they don't know web design like you do . So I don't know . I've just really thought about that more and more , about how web designers need to be even more firm about having clients like work within their tools and processes as much as possible . I mean , there's occasional times where you might get pretty custom , but in most cases that's just a recipe for disaster .

Joe 26:52

I found right or unprofitability at least , yeah , yeah , and think of that . I like this about us example that we're doing . I mean , what's better ? Create a about us page for customer , okay . So that's your . That's how you outlined that particular thing . Well , they have no idea what to expect

Creating Clear Scope

Joe 27:12

.

Joe 27:12

I love the saying if there's a mist in the pulpit , there's a fog in the congregation , right , like if you don't know what that freaking about us pages ? I can promise you your customer doesn't . But imagine if you said something like I like to talk about the anatomy of a line item . You know you could have imagine having a line item that says about us paid , or about us . And then I like to start that line item with a summary sentence Create dynamic about us page for customer that showcases your rich talent , okay . And then I like to see some . I'll say something like work included and I'll create a bulleted list . You're taking the , the idea of an about us page , and you're breaking it down into smaller ideas . Okay , so you might say work included , a mission statement on the top with staff picture by graphical photos , and I'm going to say I'm going to say no bios . So just just , sorry , just the photos of your team , no bios . Okay For now .

Joe 28:14

And then I might say include some additional fun things about culture and ping pong tables and all that kind of stuff . Then I might have some upsells . And part of why I created smart pricing table is because I wanted software that could do all this really well . But the upsell might be a pop up or a staff bios in a pop up . Okay , if you want that , it's an extra 250 . Integration with blog posts the ability to show blog posts for a staff member on the about us page that's an additional 150 .

Joe 28:53

You start finding like your customers help you figure out more and more what one of these looks like , because they'll ask for things . Right , you're like , oh , okay , yes , that's a core piece of an about us page . You're always going back and you're improving your product . Sometimes you're making the base offering better . Other times you're adding a little upsell so that you're enriching it . Maybe it's that one of those things where agencies do this a lot , where there's two photos per staff member the business one and then the funny one . Maybe that's an upsell . You got some examples of other customers , your customers that have done that . That's productizing , really , looking at what you do .

Josh 29:38

Let me play devil's advocate with this , because I could see there being a risk of overwhelming the client if they have to choose every page , every section and make everything an upsell . Where's the line , where's the healthy balance between having an itemized proposal as detailed as possible but also especially with big sites making it digestible and pleasing for the client as a proposal ? Because , like I said , I could just see if it gets too detailed that proposal could number one be huge and it could just maybe feel a little overwhelming for the client . Yeah , or some of this internal is a lot of this internal for the team .

Joe 30:17

You don't want to a lot of this . What I'm talking about is customer facing . To answer that , you want to avoid two ditches , I don't want to be too vague , or I'm going to create the vague vortex , I'm going to charge $500 for that about this page and I'm going to give them everything under the freaking sun , because I just said I'll create a about this page and I had no limiters , nothing . That's one ditch . The other ditch and I know I'm talking to some of you . Really , engineering web developers is being so detailed that it's obnoxious .

Josh 30:51

Yeah , it's like a textbook and I've seen some of those where I'm like I would not sign on this . I'm so bored and so overwhelmed looking at this thing .

Joe 30:59

Yeah , you don't want it to go on and on and on . You've got it . Sometimes I'll remove options because it seems like there's too much that I'm showing . I'm not going to have 30 additional items for them to consider , I might just have two or three . You got to look at the whole proposal and the disposition of your customer . Some customers really really like detail . Other customers a proposal review meeting is a lot more important because you sense they're not going to read it or understand that stuff . Well , walk through that with them on a meeting , help them check the boxes and all that kind of stuff .

Joe 31:34

But the goal is I need to establish the scope enough to define the spirit of the work . If I don't have a ballpark of what the work is , then I have no handles to grab onto to say this project is done . For those who would be pushed back and like I , just like it really open . When you leave it super open , you have a few different options . One you can arbitrarily say this is done , why ? Because I said it is . Why ? Because I'm making minimum wage , why I need it to be done .

Joe 32:14

Or you can go on forever and play the nice agency . But you know you actually made $30 an hour , which is minimum wage for an agency . Either one of those or you can define it . Enough to where there's a spirit defined . You can say look , josh , looking at this , it's kind of become a bigger thing than what we the spirit of this . We actually had a max of 10 hours . How about I give you two extra hours ? But , honestly , after that we're just going to have to go hourly . That's way better than arbitrarily . Sorry , we just got to stop .

Josh 32:46

What You're , fine , you're good .

Joe 32:48

Yeah Well , I mean , it's so much better than telling them that we're just killing this . No , I told .

Josh 32:57

I told I get that . I think that sound advice . Particularly . I like that thought of basing it off of like having a couple of options and basing it off of the client for those who are really detailed and the bean counters who want to see everything you're doing . I had some clients who were like , as long as it's within this range , we're good , let's go . I think that detail would be a little more internal for me , for me personally and for my team . I think that's a really good approach . I like that idea .

Josh 33:22

You mentioned bullet points . I love bullet points and I've found clients love bullet points . What is you ? I mean I . So I have not personally gone through your guide , but I I've looked through your site and I see that your proposal system is really similar to what I've created and 17 cats , which is text based , like bullet proof based excuse me , bullet point based

Efficient Creation for Agencies

Josh 33:48

. I've seen a lot of agency proposals that are essentially PDF websites and I know they work for some people . I was always very against that though , because in my mind , in most cases and maybe that's a little more accepted for RFPs like requests for proposals where they don't really know you very well . So a proposal PDF is kind of like a sales website brochure . But for most of my clients they've already viewed my website , they already know like and trust me . Hopefully they just want to know what are the goals , what are the deliverables , what's the price let's go or not go ? Is that fair to say that ? That's kind of your approach , even with this process .

Joe 34:31

Yeah , yeah , yeah . And when I originally so , I was using again a big box provider to create proposals and what I what frustrated about me about it was it took so long for me to duplicate my template proposal and to modify things Like I'm not kidding , like like 30 , 60 seconds to open a proposal . As a sales guy at a small agency , I had a lot going on Like I don't have time for that , you know .

Josh 34:57

And that's just because it was such a big document like , with so many pages and graphics and stuff .

Joe 35:02

Yeah , yeah , and a lot of times . So my product is actually focused on digital agencies and marketing companies , and so we don't have a thousand features that are not relevant to that niche . The product I was using is for any proposal under the sun , for any industry , and so there's just all this extra overhead that really slowed the , slowed the product down . And I kept thinking , josh , all that changes on our projects generally , like the 90% of what changes is our service offering and our price .

Joe 35:34

I wish that I had a scope of work creator tool that I could then maybe put back into the system that we're using , and that was the genesis for my idea is , I wanted to build a solid scope of work very easily , and I wanted , instead of it being like this hazy , foggy experience , I just wanted to add building blocks together and tweak . Every project's different , so you need to tweak them , but building blocks and tweak , and then we ended up creating smart pricing table . It wasn't called that six years ago . It was just for my own agency and we , you know , after we got the scope of work working , we just decided to finish the thought , and so we made it a full system .

Josh 36:14

That's how the best tools are made , right there , right , you build something for yourself when it's not out there and then suddenly everyone else wants it . So I love that genesis story of that . Have you found like some ? In some ways I feel like the freelancer world , which is largely what I was , and even as an agency owner . Right , I never called myself an agency , I was much more of like a studio .

Josh 36:34

Basically , I always felt like there was a big disconnect or difference at least , between full agency owners and freelancers . But I don't know if that's the case for clients , especially in the way of proposals , cause , like I said , the agencies that I knew a couple of guys I knew in that those agencies they would show me their proposals and I'm like , good Lord , it's like a 23 page website brochure that is like a . It's basically a graphically designed brochure

Simplistic vs Complex Proposals

Josh 37:04

for every proposal . I'm like I just can't imagine doing that at my level and with the clients that I work with . Is that commonplace with agency clients or is the line blurred between freelancers and agencies , with what proposals look like and what works ?

Joe 37:18

I think it's a natural development right . So at an agency , you're going to have a lot more resources and more time . That said , I think using Canva or InDesign for proposals is just a horrible idea . You cannot scale that , you can't systematize that and you can't airproof it very easily . So that's that .

Joe 37:41

More complex proposals are obviously more commonplace in the agency world , but with freelancers , I think the challenge is just time .

Joe 37:48

You know you're a lot of times you're doing the work , you're hunting for new work , but you know , imagine as a freelancer , if you could just have a simple proposal template with a cover page , your terms and you're adding new terms .

Joe 38:05

I like just always continuous improvement , always learning , add new terms , have a place where your terms actually live in a proposal template and then a simple catalog of what you offer as a freelancer . It's some , in some ways , even more important that you know what you do you have to build momentum with , because you can't do a million things you have to say . You know I generally want to do like these five things and really scope them out in a reusable way , but it doesn't . You know you're not going to have an about us page . You're not going to have a page dedicated to your insurance . These 10 policies we have because you do government work or whatever like it can be a lot simpler , but that doesn't mean you can't build a system . The system is actually what's going to help you have an enjoyable freelance and then possibly leave you some room to hire .

Josh 38:57

Yeah , I was wondering what in the agency world if it was just more commonplace , essentially , to have a more complex graphic , designed big brochure style proposal template , whereas , again , in the freelance world , personally I just found my clients loved it . It was like I said earlier , it was easy to . They already knew me , so it was just here's the goals , here's the deliverables , here's the price . You can go , and a lot of clients appreciate that . I actually had some tell me like this was so much easier to get going with . We've talked to the agencies and it was like the hurdles and it was just so much that went into it , which I can understand .

Josh 39:33

If it's like a massive project that's going to be a lot of man hours and a lot of complex parts to it , but for most small businesses , most websites aren't that complex , especially with the tools we have now . So , yeah , I really like that idea . What about , I don't know , do you feel like there is a movement towards more simplistic proposals ? In particular , do you feel like , because I always wondered , are my proposals like Old school or unprofessional if they're just texting bullet points ? Or or should I go that route of having like well-designed Graphics for every , every part , like , do you think ? I guess the question is do you think like the simple bullet point kind of approach Is more or less professional , or or is that not even anything we need to worry about ?

Joe 40:24

when I think of proposals , I think of two ideas the sizzle and the steak . Now , a lot , of a lot of freelancers are real small shops . They're not gonna have as much sizzle and I would argue that that's okay , and your prospects probably talking to you because they know that you have a price advantage , okay . But the this , the steak , is your scope of work , it's your terms , it's your Project timeline , it's the , it's the rules of the game and the basic data that is fundamental to a successful project . Your sizzle is all the awards , your team You're , you know who meet humanitarian efforts , your case studies , your testimonials , and I honestly I think that can be those . Those can be separate , like your scope of work you might create in a tool like your . Your proposal is focused mostly on that , and then you have a brochure that you send along that has some of that wow factor .

Joe 41:22

I just don't , I'd say on your , depending on the space you're in , if you're , if you're five people or less , like Agency or your freelancer , I think just keep it really simple . Customers aren't stupid , they get it . There's a reason why I'm going with you is because I don't have $50,000 for a website , right , I have 15,000 and and I think there can be a real appreciation of . Here are the terms and here's the prices . Here are the rules of the game . Now Spice it up a little bit . Don't do a wall of text . Break things down with bulleted lists , with line items like break down the work so it's not overwhelming , and then have a picture of your face so it's not anonymous , but it doesn't have to be crazy . We actually have some sample templates that kind of show this on our website , with some of these basic pages .

Josh 42:12

I Love that analogy of the sizzle and steak approach and I totally agree . I mean it kind of what I tried to articulate earlier is really what you just did much better which is your website , is the sizzle . That's where you have all the awards , the information , the fun stuff , the graphics , everything . But the steak is yeah , it's the terms , it's the details , it's deliverables . And again , the only time I would say where that changes is if you're sending in a proposal or a quote For an organization that does not know you personally yet and it's kind of you know one .

Josh 42:42

But I like that approach of having it in a brochure form as an add-on or in addition to that , because it does get muddy . A lot of people like how , let's say , this potential client for like a board or something has 20 proposals to look at and all of them are 30 pages . My god , I mean , I'm stressed out thinking about that . You know , if there is one of those proposals that was really clear . And , by the way , if you want to know more about us , here's our brochure . In my mind , that's the way to go , and those complex , big projects types .

Joe 43:14

Yeah , and you have to . You have to recognize that a lot of times the prospects that you're talking to . You have multiple vendors and Like having them to have to do so much work . I just having to scroll Over and over and over to find the freaking price so that I can do an apples apples comparison .

Joe 43:31

I mean one of the things that I saw at our agency is people loved the clarity that we had , that they love the detail and they love the optionality and and so keeping it somewhat simple and allowing them to see the price and then to have input we could talk about this as another topic , but optionality is huge . I think keeping it simple is a big win and and then iterating as you get feedback from your customers .

Josh 44:01

Well , the optionality thing might be kind of interesting , because one thing I was curious about from your perspective is how many conversations are you having ? How long is the process before you get to a point where you understand the scope well enough to make it a proposal ? Or is the proposal dictating the scope of the project for the client , some ways like how , for I mean probably tough to average out exactly , but how , how did that process work leading up to the proposal , to where you're like okay , we've got a good idea of the scope , we can make this proposal .

Joe 44:33

Well , if you remember what you said , josh , that part of your job is to be the consultant and to lead , right , you're not just saying what do you want , you're saying what . Here's actually what you should consider Then this is not that terribly hard process . So the way that I done things historically is I'd have a sales discovery call 30 minutes to an hour and I would try to get a bunch of information , because I have , because I know I'm also the coach , I'm consulting them . I don't worry about getting every freaking detail perfect , okay , so I'm just trying to try to get the information , and , and knowing that I can add options to the proposal so that they can decide on things that are blurry right now , makes it so that that meeting doesn't have to be two hours . Oh , you might be interested in that . Okay , good , no , right , I'll include that . I just have to push a button . I'll include that . Nice .

Joe 45:24

Then what I would do is , after that sales discovery call , I would Generally require a proposal review meeting . I would schedule a proposal . I'd say something , like you know , josh , thanks for downloading all that information . The next step in our process is I'd like to schedule a proposal review meeting . I'd bring up my calendar . I'd book it with you right there Because I want the opportunity To Sell my proposal . I don't want you asking questions by yourself . I want you asking questions out loud with me on the zoom so that I can answer them . Okay , so I took a little bit real quick . I want to hang on just for a second . That's a genius .

Josh 46:01

Way to go about that . I've never really heard a frame like that . So a proposal Review meeting and you do that on the sale , the discovery call . So before they even get a quote , they know we're gonna talk about this together . Yeah , and , and Josh , if they say they're they're not willing to give you time to talk about it .

Joe 46:16

Josh , if they say they're they're not willing to give you 20 more minutes , what does that tell you ?

Josh 46:22

Hmm , yeah right .

Joe 46:23

So it's also it's kind of a test of how serious they are If they're just trying to check the box that I got 15 proposals . That's not the kind of company I want to put a lot of time into . Maybe if that's the case , if they're there , if they're not willing to meet with me , maybe I only spend 20 minutes on the proposal and I chuck it over the fence and I've had those turn out to be a big deal , right . But generally I want to have a proposal review meeting so that I can I can show more of myself , I can show more of my company and the way that we think and I can win win their hearts and minds into the way that I do business .

Josh 46:56

I love that approach , man , that's genius . And look , the really cool thing about this is For freelancers and small agencies . You're not doing that many of these I've said it for a long time , like as a web designer . The beauty nowadays is I've found Businesses are looking for their trusted like web person or web partner and , yes , you should productize as much as you can , but this isn't something unless you're at such a high scale that you're doing multiple ones of these a week , like that follow-up call . Maybe you're doing that twice a month or three times a month . Very adueable , very achievable . Like it's not , like you're doing this , you know , five , six times a week . Especially a high price range is one client a month might be fine for a lot of freelancers . So right , all that to say , that's a great way to go about that .

Joe 47:42

I love that framework , yeah yeah , you had an original question and I got a squirrel syndrome and started talking about the proposal review meeting . I'm lost on what the original one was .

Josh 47:55

That makes two of us . I'm so fascinated by this proposal follow-up . I love that . I now want to hang on that because it's so great . Yeah , yeah , no , that's that's

Options and Upselling in the Process

Josh 48:05

all . The original question was the , the scope , like how long ? Oh yeah , how long it takes . Feel good about the proposal . But I think you kind of answered it by saying like you probably don't need that much and then you guide the client to the constraints of your process . Is I imagine unless there's more to that .

Joe 48:22

Let me finish the thought on that . So . So then you create the proposal , but because you've actually , over time , established what you do and what you sell , you do , you start , you know , adding line items to the proposal and then you tweak them as needed . And what I love about options is options cut down on back and forth and it makes it so that if there's a question , did they want Salesforce integration ? I don't . I don't have to know that If I make an option and it doesn't have to slow down my closed process , process , process right .

Josh 48:58

Yeah , yeah .

Joe 48:59

I'll tell you what . If you want to close faster , I Well , three things . One , build a system and check out smart pricing table . Okay , build a system , shameless plug . The second thing is I have a proposal review meeting so that you can sell your , your Customer , and I actually have a video on this that I could share with folks if they reach out to me . And the third . The third one is add optionality . And because the proposal review meeting , you're going over so many questions , you're answering so many things that would normally be in an email , with a bolted list of the endless questions . And then the optionality is allowing them to make some decisions on your on their side , without you . They don't need a option or a version 2 , version 3 of your proposal , because you're the options . Give them that . I Found that when we started doing all that kind of stuff , it just absolutely revolutionized our close rate and just the enjoyability of the process .

Josh 49:55

Yeah , that's wonderful . I mean , optionality is cool too , because , yeah , number one , you don't need to get everything out in the discovery call . We've all had those situations where we did a proposal and then the project's going and they're like , oh , we wanted the blog , didn't we talk about that ? And like , ah , now we got to go back and do another Retainer of hours or whatever it is , or you feel like crap , did we talk about that ? We may have , but I forgot .

Josh 50:16

The option thing is great because , yeah , it really works to cover you as a web designer with scope , but also give the ability for upsells , and I imagine that's how you could take a project from 5,000 to 10,000 pretty quick if you have some upsells that they're like , oh yeah , we do want some lead generators and we do want to connect it , we do want a blog and we do want this and this and this , and we do want some additional functionality that we didn't talk about .

Josh 50:42

So I think it's a really , really smart way to go . The other thing about that , too , is I was just envisioning this , and I imagine you could have some add-ons that are based off of the tools that you use , like integrating with Salesforce or MailChimp or whatever it is , but then maybe , if they have their own thing going on , you could have like a . Would you recommend having an add-on or an option for like a custom approach ? That would then lead maybe to another conversation or lead to a book of hours . The question is like what if there's something that's not covered in those options ?

Joe 51:15

I always included something , a little section , called additional items for consideration . I would generally put three or four items in there , so I don't want to overwhelm them , but three or four items based on the sales call and my intuition . And one of those might be like an ongoing retainer . Are you offering that to every customer ? Maybe you forgot to mention it and they could have . They would have done it right . Maybe it's a competitive audit . Maybe it's a one-time block of hours for unforeseen things . Maybe it's a . Maybe they didn't want a blog , or we didn't talk about a blog because we have time and you add that to additional items for consideration .

Joe 51:55

I cannot tell you how many times people will click on things that you don't even know they wanted . Yeah , if you're going to bring food to a party , you'd better put the food on the table , take the wrapper off and put a spoon in it . Okay . If you don't do that , they're going to think it's for a different party , even though it's on the table . Okay , okay , simple concept you just got to put it on the table though . So with with a , you don't assume that you're you don't have services that your customer is interested in that you haven't talked about , and because if you , if you treat your scope of work as somewhat of a mini brochure , a catalog as well , you'd be surprised at how many times they they click that button .

Josh 52:42

That's so well said , man . I'm glad we're doing this after lunch too , because that would have made me hungry . Yeah , I love that analogy . It's true , like this is . It's funny .

Josh 52:50

It's one of the main things as a coach now that I talked to a lot of my students about which is do your clients know what you do and like all the other services you offer , because they would probably buy from you Like a large percentage would buy from you again over and over and over , without you even having to go get new clients all the time . You just got to let them know and you got to make it available for them . And actually I'm reminded of doing this all the time too . Even what I do now I'm like somebody new getting into my brand today isn't just going to magically know about all the courses I offer , exactly how I help , what stage they're at and how I can help with where they're at . So it's my job and us , as everyone , as web designers , to be really , really transparent about what you do , how you help all the time . Like I'm just reminded of this almost every week now . I think about this where it's like we should not be shy about having those additional options front and center and it's funny , practically I remember thinking that you said like you might just think , well , all clients aren't going to want these extra services

Optimize and Adding Value

Josh 53:52

.

Josh 53:52

Well , I had that mindset for a long time , finding out how many mindset barriers I had to get through to make a profitable six-figure business . One of them was I would do basic SEO , just foundational best practice SEO on websites . And I had this little SEO booster program called SEO Boost that just I was thinking like maybe some clients would like that . It involved keyword research for between five , 10 and 15 pages , just basic , some ongoing SEO . It was just a boost . It was like an SEO boost for the big page of the site . I thought maybe a couple of clients would like that . That became my number one add-on that like 90% of clients use and it was a $500 to $1500 boost in their program and for me at the time that was a huge revenue boost for me . It was all with this mindset of just having an add-on and finding out , wow , a lot of clients were really interested in this upsell and they would have never done it if I didn't make it front and center .

Joe 54:50

It's amazing how many times we're just wrong with our intuition , right Like , let your customer tell you if you're wrong . And I think it's just back to productization for the win again . Because you know , Josh , not only could that be a great offering for you , but you can specify the rules of the game , you can make it really clear , so that it's always a win for you . I know as an agency owner , I would always think like I don't like that work . That's not very fun . But when I actually started asking questions , the reason why I don't like that work is because I haven't defined it and I'm not charging the right price , or maybe I need to take something out so that it's at a good price point . And then it's like all of a sudden , this is fantastic , let's start selling this to everyone .

Joe 55:33

And it's just incredible when your prospect checks that box and they add $3,000 to your project . They own that $3,000 . If you had to sell it to them , you're a salesperson . But when they click it right , it's totally different . There's ownership , they take responsibility . I see yeah .

Joe 55:53

If there's challenges down the road like , well , we wanted to do this right , huge .

Josh 55:59

And I need mindset shift as opposed to being like , okay , this project's $5,000 . Do you accept it ? And they're like , okay , I accept , whereas , yeah , $5,000 of extras that they chose totally different feeling for them and I imagine , if they choose it , they may feel a little more like , all right , you've got this , You've got a template , you know what works . That and even just basic principles of a proposal . If it's in line items and bullet points and everything else , it feels like , okay , they know what they're doing , I'm going to have my input , but wow , that mindset of ownership is interesting , yeah .

Josh 56:36

If they choose it . I like that .

Joe 56:38

And people can . I don't you tell me if we're getting short on time here , Josh ? But optionality another facet of this is people get concerned Like if I create some optionality , what if someone turns something off ? Okay , well , don't if it first off , don't let it be a vital thing . If it's vital , they shouldn't be able to turn it off .

Josh 56:54

Gotcha .

Joe 56:55

And I would say I would rather have a hundred percent of a $10,000 project than 0% of a 12,000 , because I was over budget right .

Josh 57:05

So they'd de-scoped some things .

Joe 57:07

I didn't have to give a discount to get down to 10K , but they'd de-scoped a few things by de-selecting things on my bid and then they got to 10 and it totally worked right . I'd rather I'd rather have that , but what generally happens is when you start giving options like increases , like 20 , 30 , 40% higher project values over over time that was my experience , it's , it's usually the other way .

Josh 57:32

I have a very , very real story about this with my wife and I built and moved into our new home . We built this home a couple of years ago and , yeah , like we went in with a budget in mind and went out like $100,000 over budget because of all the options that we just decided to add on and didn't want to live without . So it's like everything . I mean , we've all been in those sales processes .

Josh 57:55

I think the home building process was one where it was like , you know , we expected some , we expected some additional items , but then we got into them . We're like , well , of course we want that . Yeah , I want that for web designers and clients . It's like , oh , yeah , I want SEO boost . Why wouldn't I ? Uh , yeah , I want this . It is a way and it's not like Nicola and dining people , but it is a way to provide value upfront for clients and , honestly , a lot of clients are willing to spend way more if they understand the value , than if you were to just send a flat proposal over for 5,000 , fingers crossed and then hope it don't go to you . So a lot of this , I think , is going to help a lot of people with the proposal process .

Joe 58:32

Yeah , options equal FOMO .

Josh 58:36

Uh , that's good , Good quote , quote it .

Joe 58:40

Yeah , write it down Options equal FOMO . When you put it in there , they see it and they're like oh , we want that Credit credit . You know we said $15,000 budget , but we can do 17 , right , so very , very powerful . I love that .

Josh 58:50

I love that . It's funny . I've had that thought with , like , my checkout page for my courses and stuff , really working on , uh , yeah , like additional product the up sales , without being overly in your face and salesy , but if it's valuable and a bit like in my world with courses , it's like if you're going to get my business course , my maintenance plan course is a necessity to go alongside that . Um , that's kind of something I'm working on now . So thank you , joe , for adding my to-do list , because I need to get that going . Stat . That's a great quote , though . Uh , what was it ? Optionality equals FOMO or options equal FOMO Yep .

Josh 59:22

Yep , Okay , Oxons equal FOMO . That's good man . Well , dude , this has been great . A lot of good stuff covered here . Proposals fascinate me because there's just there's not a right or wrong with it , but there's definitely better practices than others . You definitely , as an agency owner , have the experience that is real world based and you have a great tool . So , yeah , tell us about your tool and then uh subsequently maybe , where somebody should go to uh to find out more about that and connect with you .

Joe 59:47

Yeah Well , smart pricing table is interactive proposal software that allows you to create a killer catalog with clear definitions and upsells on the line item level . I don't know of any other software that allows configurations on line items . Um , if , if , these uh principles that Josh and I are talking about are interesting , I would encourage you to check out smart pricing tablecom . Uh , two things . Number one uh , we have free demos Um , I actually meet with you myself and I'd love to see if the product could be a fit , even if it's a bit of tire kicking . And the second thing is uh , we have um proposal samples and a free guide . Uh , the profitable proposal blueprint , um , and so I check out those things .

Joe 1:00:30

I'm also big on LinkedIn , but you know a big thing about over all of this is , um , the software can help you build a system , and when you have a system , you can make improvements . You cannot make improvements when you don't have a system . You can't build momentum , and I was , so I just I saw how much this did for our agency that I thought I've got to give this to other people , and so that's why we ended up taking it to the market .

Josh 1:00:56

That's great , man . I know I love what you're up to . I think it's a really , really cool system . I'm glad to have this in my back pocket now because it's it's kind of the next level of what I use and what I teached on I have . I have essentially a simplified version of this . The add ons and upsells were just a little bit different , but this is definitely kind of the full . It looks like it's the full kitten Kaboodle would be able to to really package this up and productize it nicely . So , yeah , man , we'll definitely have that in the show . No , it's smart pricing . Tablecom and then your free guide , dev , are going to recommend everyone check that out . So , yeah , man , joe , thank you for your time . This has been a fun chat , man . We finally we made it work . We're both family men with a lot of little kids . We had a couple of reschedules , but we made it work and , yeah , this is cool , man , I really enjoyed hearing your process . I appreciate you sharing today .

Joe 1:01:41

Likewise , Josh . Thanks for having me on your show , man .

Josh 1:01:43

Awesome Cheers , man . So there we are , friends Is it ? Are you pumped to do your next proposal ? Because this conversation ? I mean we've talked about proposals a lot on the podcast but every time I talk about a proposal with somebody new , it's fun because I always learn something . There's always a fresh perspective .

Josh 1:02:02

And one thing I took away from this conversation truly was the optionality and how important that is to be able to upsell to your clients and help them understand the value . And again , I said in the intro , potentially two to three extra projects right from the get go with just these different options . So if you're looking for a tool that is going to help you with this functionality and the optionality for your proposals , I really do highly recommend smart pricing table . You can check a lot of things out for free . Joe's got a free guide for you and some free samples . You can go to my link , joshallco slash spt that's short for smart pricing table and you'll be able to get a free demo and check it out , see if it's a good fit for you in your business , because I really , really want to make your life easier with proposals . There's nothing worse than wanting to grow your business and wanting to get new clients than not wanting to do proposals , because that's how you do all that . So this is going to help you out , and I'm really excited to help you out , and I hope this conversation helped you too . It really .

Josh 1:03:00

Proposals don't need to be rocket science , they don't need to be something overwhelming . Again , they can be quick , they can be fun and , at the end of the day , it's what's the bridge between you and landing a client is your proposal . So , my gosh , it's important . No pressure , but it is important . Our friends . Again , use my link joshallco slash spt . It'll zip you over to smart pricing tablecom to do a free trial and check it out . All right , friends , we'll see you soon .