 Thanks, Charlie. Well, thank you for coming to my session. I'm going to start off by Doing something that you probably have experience Okay, you get a great lead. They actually even contact you about a website You schedule a call you spend like an hour talking to them. They sound like the perfect client It sounds like the job is just Perfect for you. You know how to do everything they want You're excited about it. You hang up with the thing. Okay. Thank you very much. I will be sending you a proposal in the next two days Okay You're done and now it's you got to write the proposal So what do you do you check your email? Oh? I blog need to do this update for this other client. Let me get this Well, I need to do this first so you keep avoiding writing the proposal You know, it's a great job, but you've got to write the proposal That was me probably for the last five years The first five years I was doing this every every proposal felt like a mountain to climb and So if you know me for more than like a day, you're gonna figure out that I'm highly logical I love the Star Trek theme by the way. I would be Spock. I'm highly logical. I'm highly analytical now That is come total contrast to the fact that I was an art teacher for 18 years But I was the anal retentive art teacher. So I had the cleanest art room in the county I had excellent classroom management. So I Love I love doing the work. I hated writing the proposals So for me it was I've got to figure out how to do this so I can automate it So I can come up with a system to write proposals in less than 30 minutes and They're gonna look great. They're gonna stand out and so I started talking to people. I talked to Chris I mean we're talking like Seven or eight years ago. I am the one of the very first Word camp sessions. I went to was how to make six figures in in web design And he talked about proposals, but nobody could give me a template. I need a template. I need somebody to show me how So I started that was one of my things. I started collecting templates then I joined WP elevation For well this August it'll be five years ago And what was he giving away a? Website proposal template So that started it. I'm like great then I got a personal coach who had his own website Template so I kind of merged the two and I'm going to show you an example of that today But I started collecting and I have now using an online tool have a proposal Set up I have templates. I do a lot of retirement communities. So I have a retirement community template I do a boatload of churches. So I have a church template I have a small business template and speaking of Coaches mine just walk in Nathan Ingram in the back if you need a business coach, please see him this weekend So I am going to go I've talked about Why let's see who I am. I'm the co-owner of adcott creative group. My husband and I Started adcott creative group. We actually started two independent businesses. He's a graphic designer handles mostly print And I do the web part, but we kind of did separate businesses. We both got laid off on the same day About eight years ago. We started our own businesses. We've merged and became adcott creative group and I've been a freelancer for over nine years full-time and Of course, I'm a speaker at a lot of WordCamp. So And I told you the why I hate writing proposals. It's like one of the things I devoid the most And then let's talk about the difference between a proposal and a quote a Quote is like a menu I'm it's a list of things that you can choose from Here's an invoice. This is what I'm going. It doesn't really it's just a list It's like a laundry list, but a proposal is going to Present you as a professional. I know what I'm talking about and this is what I'm going to do for you these are the benefits of hiring me and so it gives you a lot more space to not only impress the client but explain your processes What you will do what you won't do and kind of you know Cover your rear end on a lot of other things it presents the value and that's the big thing about proposals you want to say If you hire me, you're going to get this value Okay, what not to include Don't use any technical terms. I think I mentioned WordPress twice in my proposal Don't list plugins by name Don't box yourself in because you might find something better on down the line and they're like, well, I thought we were going to use this You don't need to listen list plugins by name. Doesn't mean you can't talk about them down the road Especially if they're premium plugins Don't itemize costs unless you're breaking it down into phases if you say I'm going to do This this this is going to cost you and they're going to and you got a penny pincher as a client They're going to come back and cross things out and say well, I really don't want you to use gravity forms I want you to use contact form 7 because it's free, you know, and just They're going to you get some that nitpick so avoid that nitpicking by not itemizing Just say this is the value. I'm going to give you and here's the price What to include this is a long list, okay? Don't worry. There's a link to the slides at the end a business snapshot. What a business snapshot is I Listened to you When you told me about your business so you're you're actually going back and telling them what they told you We are a full-service retirement community. We handle independent living all the way to skilled nursing and memory care We have everything in between we have cottages we have Apartments all the way from one bedroom to three bedroom apartments and we have all these amenities so You're actually just telling them what they told you You go to their old website you look up up things about them and you actually just say hey this is your business and This is what we're going to do for you and business needs and target audience needs. These are questions You ask when you talk to your client Why do you need a new website? What are you looking to improve on your current website? What are features your current website? Doesn't have and that you want to have what are things that you have that you want to get rid of Who's your target audience? Tell me about the demographics, you know, are they? Middle-aged men who like to hunt and fish or are they you know? Millennials or Generation X, you know, you've got to ask about that demographic So you know the design of the websites going to match That demographic the scope of work, you know, I know this is a no-brainer. You're going to write exact Line items. This is what I'm going to do not how you're going to do it, but this is what I'm going to do It's going to have an email opt-in form. You know, it's going to have a social media stack You're going to be able to like them on social media or follow them on social media But you're also going to be able to share it on social media You're going to list everything down and I'm going to show you example of that Investment notice I didn't say price because they're in making an investment in Their website. It's a financial investment. So that's what I call it and here are the pricing options So I'll show you an example of that your process You know, I don't hide that. Okay. First we do design. I know this is rule-basic, but first we do design and Then we do development and then we do launch and here's the approximate time it takes Notice we have the design, but we can't do any work until we have your content So no no code before content. So we have to have your content at this point That's actually in my face. If we don't have your content the project is going to stall here until we do and Then we go into development and then we launch and then we do the post launch. So and Contract I actually have my contract included in my proposal. Now some people send them separate I think I like my clients to see All the small print at the same time and I you can put it in a separate document and send it at the same time Okay Here's the key. Let the client write it if you know what your proposal needs to include, you know what questions to ask So I just asked them all the questions that I need to fill in the blank on the proposal So I have a list of questions like I have a church list. I Have a retirement community list if I've done more than two questions and two websites in a specific vertical market like insurance I have an insurance website thing because I've done three So I actually have a list of things that I asked people who want an insurance website So I just save those questions pull them back out. I actually on my website have a website worksheet courtesy of WP elevation and I actually have people I've never heard of Fill out that website worksheet all about their company and contact me then I schedule Shocks me every time I get one But you know, oh, I heard from you about you from someone else and I want you to do my website So it actually asks All the questions that I would ask him if I was talking to them on the phone Tell me about your target audience. Tell me about your business needs and you're welcome to go to my website and look at it and Tweak it make it your own. I just have it up there. I don't force my clients to go and fill it out I'd much rather have that phone conversation I Don't write up a proposal if I don't have a chance to get the project. I Used to be afraid to talk money, you know, you know, what's your budget, you know How much do you think you willing to spend? I used to say that to the very last after I spent an hour on the phone It's like the third question. I ask, you know, what's your budget for this project and If it's if they say, you know, I want it's $500. I'm not going to say well I'm not going to do it for that. I'm gonna. Well, let's continue talking and then I'm going to tell you I have to tell you that my base website starts between four and six thousand dollars now let's talk and Let's find out your needs and Then I'm going to point you in the right direction Usually by the time I finish talking to them About what they would get for that money and I'm talking to them about their business and what their desires and goals are Nine times out of ten. I'm going to send them a proposal and they're going to sign it Because they're going to realize they don't they probably have unrealistic expectations if they really don't have the money Then I'm going to say well, you know, maybe square space and wicks are the best for you For right now, but when you're ready to grow your community, you're ready to really Take advantage of having a fully functional website Then you can come back to me in a couple years when you have a larger budget and I've actually had that happen. So Okay, here's the proposal. I already talked about that, but I'm going to talk about actually all the The steps in my proposal. I have the business snapshot the business needs the audience needs I have the solution I call it a solution scope of work my investment my agreement and then the next step where they can sign and Go on with the project. So Let's go back. I'm going to show you an example here. So let me escape this and go to my template now I use better proposals and I was using bid sketch. It was like $30 a month at the time I was using it and AppSumo if you don't know about app app sumo app sumo.com go there sign up get their emails They had a lifetime deal For better proposals for $39. I can send like 30 or 50 proposals a month like, you know, that's not going to ever happen. So At least not the way I I'm set up right now So I got a lifetime deal. So, you know, I don't have to pay a monthly fee But there's other great ones out there and I'll talk about some of those tools in a minute But I'm going to show you a sample proposal This is actually the one I use For my retirement communities and what I did is I put name of community in bold and I have to tweak it for each community, but I have this the business snapshot which talks about their community They need an updated website that functions as a powerful marketing communications tool to attack new residents Position the website is a go-to source of information and position name of community as an upscale option in the senior living market And then I actually have the business and target audience needs and these this is the bullet list of the things that they don't have on their current website And the things they told me that they wanted on the phone They needed an event system And this one they actually needed they did no basic SEO they had their webs their current website Was on go daddy site builder. So there's like no SEO There's they haven't done anything. They haven't done any blogging But they want to they don't have floor plans because they don't know how to upload them There was They wanted to do online donations There was a bunch of things that they didn't have that they wanted they knew they needed an SSL certificate and Then who's their target audience? Well with like retirement communities. You have a weird target audience first you have the usually 75 Years old and older are the people that like put themselves in retirement communities They don't start thinking about it until like at the last minute then you have their kids That are you know in their 40s, maybe 50s Who are looking for a place for mom and dad or you may even have their grandkids? Who are taking care of them and looking for a place? So you have a wide gamut. So you actually do all the marketing use direct mail you use newspaper ads you use all this other stuff and And So I put that Actually in the target audience needs and this is the weird one. Let me go here and then the solution This is what I'm going the scope of work. This is everything. I'm going to do for you. I'm going to Do a custom design mobile friendly. I'm going to reorganize your They're not all going to be at the root. We're gonna actually do a content silo. We're going to do A page builder. We're going to do social media We're going to do email sign up and on and on and on and on basic search engine optimization Now first of all, most people have never heard a search engine optimization. So I put basic and then I actually at the bottom I explained to them when I go over this with them on the phone. What basic search engine optimization is that means we're going to optimize your Page that's every page for search engine so we can customize what shows in Google and everything It does not mean it's competitive search engine optimization. We are not doing ads We are not going to make you rank number one for Assisted living okay, that's competitive search engine optimization. That's advanced search engine optimization not included So I don't want them to get the misunderstanding that they're going to be number one on Google when they get a new website I also offer hosting. I try to get my clients on my hosting Simply because it's an environment. I can control and make sure everything's working correctly in my project timeline Design development revisions testing and then launch and then the investment You know, what is the investment? And then I put in the options. I put in the options for hosting I put in the options for website care plans I want to take care of their website when it's when it's launched So I talked to them about the different options in the care plans Do you want a basic $99 a month that I just handle the security the backups and Some minor updates. Do you want me to do more than that at $2.99 a month? Do you want concierge priority care starting at $4.99 a month? So I explain the differences. I actually even have it in my contract which is my Master services agreement now I put all these little headings in the slides. So you have it but This is kind of a the legal thing. I am not a lawyer. I don't play one on TV So you should have a lawyer look at it the best way to do that Write something up and take it to them and have them tweak it Find somebody who's good With digital businesses. I talk about the services the time frames. Here's time frames If you don't give me content, I can't build your website So if you want us to write the content and then we'll include that in the time frame But when people say, you know, they give you the money and then they disappear for a month and come back and ask where the website is And you're like, well, where's the content? Here's something I got from Nathan suspended at abandoned projects You do a project the client disappears For about six months, then they come back their gung-ho. They want to get the website launched in a week You make the final tweaks that they want boom and then they vanish again So I actually have a suspended if I don't hear from you in 30 days. I mean crickets nothing I don't hear anything from you. The project is suspended. We're going to pick it back up You're going to pay the second half before I start working Because I'm going to make sure I'm going to get the money for this project because you've just showed me what kind of client You probably are abandoned projects. You don't hear from them in 120 days 90 days, whatever number it is Projects done dead if they come back to you. It's a new proposal Because we're starting from scratch again fees and payments How are they going to pay you fit 30% 30% you know 33 33 34 50 50 you write it up. Let them know Currently our hourly rate It's not listed here, but it says hey, I did this website for you four years ago when I was charging a hundred dollars an hour And you want me to do some hourly work now? Well, it's going to be the current hourly rate Not what you had four years ago What's your late payment? Oh your check bounced things like that Termination you can fire clients It's okay. I've done it refunds If you don't have a refund policy, that's the number one thing I assigned for you to do Do you really want to do a bunch of work and then give them their deposit back? No So if they decide to go with somewhere else You have a no refund policy I actually discover my what my design process is What my development process is? What what constitute revisions? Revisions isn't oh by the way. I want a WooCommerce store. That's not a revision Okay What launch is okay? This one actually came up yesterday compatibility Our websites are designed for modern browsers If you are using Internet Explorer 10, I can't guarantee that it's going to work for that It's not built for that So I actually got that question from a client. Hey, this isn't working in Internet Explorer I'm like Internet Explorer Can you tell me what version it is by the way? Oh, they're using Internet Explorer 10. I said is it on Windows XP? Oh, how'd you know? I'm like, okay. Well, it's probably never gonna work on that Here's the directions Go to Chrome and download Chrome and see hope that it works on that and the next thing is, you know upgrade your computer And then changes after launch. That's tweaks. What's covered? It's not oh by the way I need a business directory on my website. That is not included and Use of third-party images and photography second most important thing to have in your contract I actually ask my clients Where did you get this picture and? Well, I googled it but I googled copyright free And it was on it. No, we're not going to use that. I Actually include stock photography in my designs I have a subscription to iStock and I buy the credits for deposit photos So I include those some people charge them extra like $10 extra for every stock image But I don't want that Information coming back. I don't want my clients getting nailed by Getty images because they they snipe something off of Google And so this is something I actually got from Nathan Terms of use and other legal pages Worst we should have every website should have a privacy policy should have it if it's got an e-commerce store Should have a terms and conditions Who's responsible for writing that I put on there? I will do a basic one for you and I will email the text to you. It's up to you to go to your Legal advisor and make sure that that covers your business Who owns what I mean WordPress is open source They've got to understand that they can use this website site design is for this website They can't package it up and sell it for some something else plug-in licenses and updates If you're on the care plan with me, I cover premium plugins If you decide not to be on the care plan with me, I'll cover that plug-in for one year I set a note on my calendar and then It's not covered anymore. They have to buy their own and I actually Have an email. I send them all by the way. You're not on a care plan. It's your responsibility get a new license for this website security Who's responsible if something happens to the website if I they're not a care plan? You know, it's their responsibility Talk a little bit about my hosting That I'm not responsible if they go with the you know Bob's hosting I actually have some clients who when I first got them. They were on the Local computer repair places web hosting, you know, and it didn't even have the GDR library installed So, you know, you're trying to do WordPress on something that can't run WordPress Website updates and backups You know, I set up some automated backups for them Just so I can Make sure I at least have a copy of the website But it's up to them Website care plans I talk about that Here's my packages and then payments for care plans If you want to I have a few clients because of their internal billing have to do checks I don't mind checks. I don't have to pay credit card fees But if you're going to do checks, I bill quarterly for that So I don't want to be responsible for sending you an invoice every month It's just not something I want to do. I don't want these little checks coming in So if you're going to do a check, we do it quarterly. Nobody seems to have a problem with that Most of the time we just set it up with a credit card Third-party services I do a lot of churches. Third-party services, online giving Live streaming, you know, we're going to make it work the best we can but there's, you know Their limitations are usually on that third-party system. Email deliverability I use MailGun. I set up, I work with them. We set up a mail gun, a free mail gun account We connect every website, do that with MailGun, so we don't have an issue with mail Deliverability. So when I get a client that says, hey, you know, someone said they sent me a form Yesterday at 9.30, this happened And I didn't get it. So I go I log in to MailGun and I look at it and I said well You opened it at 9.30. 9.32 on your computer. I did. Oh, here it is. I Accidentally put it in the trash. So I love the logs on MailGun. So I can actually Say, hey, you know, it did go Just go close your domain names Hey, if you don't pay your domain registration, it's not my fault that your domain last I've had that happen before so I actually When I do the DNS I look and see when it expires And I actually put a note in my calendar for my client You know their domain is expiring send them an email make sure that they're Going to pay the bill because I had a client who confused web hosting with GoDaddy and domain renewal And so I just wanted to make sure that didn't happen And they're like do I pay this and I'm like, well, what does it say domain? No. Yeah, you pay that Marking an attribution link Indemnification, you know, what are you? Responsible for something horribly goes wrong choice of law and forum If you're a client in Nevada decides to sue you for some bizarre reason Do you really want to have to go out to Nevada? No, they have to come to Georgia Or they have to come to North Carolina to deal with that. So Disclaimers this is all, you know, legal stuff and then This is stuff that lawyers will add and then I have my next steps and They just go ahead they sign it Better proposals has the option that you can they can actually pay right then you can turn that on and off as needed If I have that client say we'll send you a deposit check. I turn it off But others they'll just say I want to pay by credit card I want to get sky miles for it So I'm gonna pay for credit card and I just turn that feature on and they sign it the neat thing about like mid-sketched Proposified better proposals is every time the client opens the proposal You get an email You get to see how much time they spend on each page So if they spent, you know, approximately five seconds on the contract I know that when I talk to them over the phone that I'm going to say now I noticed you didn't spend a lot of time breathing the contract Let's kind of got a brief overview of what it says. So you kind of know what you're getting yourself into so Let me go down here and bring that back There we go. And that's kind of that's why I put this in here because that way you'll have an example of What's in the proposal and this is all the main points in the contract that we just went over the Notice I put first have your lawyer look at it Time frames suspended and abandoned projects all that that we just went over So now you have a nice list because you can download these slides To tools for proposals Hey, if you're just starting out and you don't have a lot of money You don't have a lot of margin to work with use word or pages Take an example and just build it in word or pages pages. I use better proposals and There's a affiliate link. I hardly ever do that, but I put that there bid sketch is nice Between the two they're very similar, but I found better proposals easier to customize Proposify I just saw a proposal. I'm working with another web design Web designer and we're doing a big project together and she did hers and propose if I she did the proposal It was gorgeous. So Proposify is another one and I've seen that on at sumo as deals as well 17 hats 17 hats is kind of an all-in-one solution Payment emails a whole bunch of automation now. They're kind of pricey. They just had a sale a couple weeks ago But put it put a note in your calendar to look at it around black Friday go sign up for their email list Black they have an awesome black Friday sale every year Plutio is one that was another app sumo deal It was a project management tool, but they've added proposals to it. I got that on At sumo and I've been waiting it's kind of like Trello meets better proposals meets Asana kind of thing it's a kind of he's keeps adding features and He added a proposal feature and they just they're in beta right now. This is what I've been waiting on It's going to connect to Zappier so I can actually connect it to everything else right now. It's kind of standalone. So I'll probably move over to it from Trello once Zappier's integrated And then guide the client go over offer to go over the proposal If if you're in a different time zone then record a video and talk your way through the proposal and send it to And you get the deposit before you do any work no matter how excited you are to do it Always get the deposit first because what if they get well? We decided to go with my cousin's nephew's neighbor to do it because he can do it for you know, $75 So I'm not going to do any work until I have the deposit Now stop stressing and go write proposals so Reach out to me feel free to reach out to me. I'm at MGA creative I'm Melanie at adcott creative group calm Reach out to me if you would like me to look at your proposal help you. I'll be glad to and Or if you'd like me to send you a Link and so here's the resources so you can take a picture of that and get to it Wp elevation they have their proposal templates for free Advanced coaching that's Nathan Ingram who was just in here Adcott creative Group that's my that's the link to a sample right there adcott creative group for its last proposal Contact me Melanie at adcott creative group calm and the slides are at that link. So please ask questions Yes, sir. I have a nice day Yeah If they're not going to sign mine not I'm not going to sign theirs And if I'm looking at theirs, I'm going to definitely take it to my lawyer and have them look at it in reference to mine No amount of trouble yet that just has like red flags all over it State what you just said she asked now say that again. I want to make sure I got it Yeah, if you're if you're doing any extra service that's not covered by what you're doing and it's an extra fee for service you need to put that in there as Kind of almost an additional section and I'd even highlight it and make sure that I talked to them about it And so they understood that if it's an additional fee for service that you're you know All the billing is going to go to the insurance company. You need to put that in there Better safe than sorry always Anything else? Thank you very much