Create a Winning Project Proposal

More than anything, writing a great proposal means making the client confident in your understanding of their business and how you’ll improve it. Pollen’s proposal process has won numerous projects with Fortune 500 companies. It has also supplied freelancers with the foundation to charge higher prices, increasing their overall revenue.

The template listed under assets contains all of the pieces that make a strong project proposal. Below that, you’ll find a completed version of the template that closed an $80,000 project. For privacy reasons, the company and project details have been changed.

Not all proposals need to be as rigorous as this, and you might add, edit, or remove some sections to tailor them to the scope of the project and what the client needs. And, once you develop one quality project proposal, you can reuse that proposal as a template for all future projects.

The foundation of any good proposal is deep client understanding. This begins with identifying your client’s obstacles and problems. You can gather this from publicly available company information, any discovery calls, email exchanges, or other touchpoints in the process. Acknowledging these problems makes it clear that you’re paying attention and allows you to identify where they need support and how you’re uniquely positioned to help them.

To make a proposal truly great, you want the client to feel like you understand their business as well as they do. At the end of the day, they are trying to drive business results and are hiring you to do that. You can demonstrate this understanding by including a summary of the business context in your proposal. Check out the example below for inspiration.

The Business Problem

After making acquisitions in 3D and immersive spaces, Stark Industries is integrating LexCorp into the main brand. To generate awareness and organic traffic to these products, Stark Industries should establish its web presence as an industry leader.

In order to do this, Stark Industries should pursue an SEO strategy that:

• Consolidates multiple domains and content portfolios into one
• Targets high value, relevant keywords
• Produces high-quality content optimized for SEO that will rank
• Ensures web technical presence is SEO-friendly

To ensure the June product launch's success, Stark Industries needs a comprehensive SEO content strategy and a clear, actionable roadmap to move from its current position to a leadership position in the space.

Now, you need to build your authority in the client's eyes by highlighting your experience and expertise. You’ll do this by writing a bio that clearly states who you are and what you have to offer. Even if you already have a bio, consider tailoring it to this specific client to highlight the skills and experience they will value most.

A basic structure we like is this: [ Your Name ] is an expert in [ areas of expertise ] that helps companies [ specific business outcomes that you can create for clients ]. [ Your name ] has worked with clients such as [ Client A ] and [ Client B ], where they [ created a specific business outcome ].

This structure successfully introduces yourself and your expertise while showing off where you earned that area of expertise. Consider the example below

Selina Kyle is an expert content marketer who helps companies scale their business through digital channels. Prior to her consulting work, Selina started and led the growth teams at Stripe and Pied Piper, where she transformed growth channels through content partnerships, SEO, referral programs, and more.

Next, it’s important to display your “secret sauce” that will make you stand out. This could be your special approach, process, or framework. Show the client that you have outstanding knowledge in the space that is proven to drive results. You want them to finish the proposal, overcome with relief and excitement that they’ve found you.

Keep this high level. If you go too far into detail, you might lose their attention. We recommend communicating this in terms of project phases and strategies.

• Project phases are what they sound like – the phases you’ll move through. The point is to show the client what the plan looks like. You want them to easily see how this work fits into their deadlines.
• Strategies are the special sauce that makes you hard to say no to. Clients react well to proposals that show an intentional approach.

The structure of this section depends on what the project is about. Treat it as your opportunity to show off the hard-earned principles and insights that make your work top-notch.

Tip: A common mistake we see is not being specific enough about scope and strategy. We recommend being up front about what to expect in the project. This sets clear expectations on the timeline, scope, and deliverables from the beginning.

Check out an example of this in action below.

Our Process

With the goal of equipping the Stark Industries team with clear strategic guidance and a roadmap to success, we will:

1. Take stock of where we are at

• Audit existing documentation and previous execution2. Investigate the opportunity available to Stark Industries
• Research the entire topic universe available to Stark Industries’ product offering
• Perform competitive analysis to see where we can compete and understand content requirements to beat the competition3. Develop a strategy to winCreate an overall content strategy for editorial, product, and landing pages
• Define the bounds of the SEO topic universe regardless of existing content
• Identify overlap with existing and give a roadmap for updates
• Recommend best practices for unifying content portfolios
• Equip Stark Industries content team with writer briefs that will win target keywords and editorial support to ensure quality

Our SEO strategy

Winning SEO is about fulfilling a user’s search intent with high-quality content.

It starts with keywords

• Select high-traffic keywords that Stark Industries can rank and convert users from.Content is key
• Write high-quality, brand-friendly content to drive ranking and conversion.Technical SEO as a foundation
• Ensure technical SEO sets us up for success.Learn and experiment to continue improving
• Create enough content across a breadth of categories and lean into what works.

You’ve packed a ton of information into your draft proposal so far. Now, you want to make it beautiful and send it to the client.

You can make your proposals extremely stylized or straight to the point. It really depends on the client and what you think will resonate with them and make you stand out.

As a freelancer and solopreneur, you have limited time. It is completely reasonable to do the final proposal in a google doc or PDF. If you do this, make sure to add a level of polish.

• Include your logo and company name.
• Make the content easy to read and scan. For example, each new section should have a clear header.
• Incorporate images where appropriate.
• Use easy-to-read fonts. We recommend Helvetica, Arial, or Lato.

If you do go the stylized route, make sure you do it well. We sometimes see this backfire on people — making things visually beautiful is tough! If you want to go this route, Canva is a phenomenal tool. It allows you to make beautiful slide presentations or interactive documents with images, graphics, and more. You can even automatically turn documents into presentations.

If you’re not sure where to start, we recommend keeping it simple and drafting a Word or Google document with the sections laid out in straightforward text.

Before you send it over, make sure you:

• Proofread for typos, errors, etc
• Double check the project fee is accurate and covers all of your costs
• Remove any unnecessary detail
• Add any necessary detail

Once you’ve completed these last steps, send your soon-to-be-client a short email with the proposal attached. Ask them to take a look and offer to answer any questions. They might have questions or amendments they would like to see. This is a very good thing — it means they are interested and making sure it fits their needs.

More than anything, writing a great proposal means making the client confident in your understanding of their business and how you’ll improve it. Pollen’s proposal process has won numerous projects with Fortune 500 companies. It has also supplied freelancers with the foundation to charge higher prices, increasing their overall revenue.

The template listed under assets contains all of the pieces that make a strong project proposal. Below that, you’ll find a completed version of the template that closed an $80,000 project. For privacy reasons, the company and project details have been changed.

Not all proposals need to be as rigorous as this, and you might add, edit, or remove some sections to tailor them to the scope of the project and what the client needs. And, once you develop one quality project proposal, you can reuse that proposal as a template for all future projects.

The foundation of any good proposal is deep client understanding. This begins with identifying your client’s obstacles and problems. You can gather this from publicly available company information, any discovery calls, email exchanges, or other touchpoints in the process. Acknowledging these problems makes it clear that you’re paying attention and allows you to identify where they need support and how you’re uniquely positioned to help them.

To make a proposal truly great, you want the client to feel like you understand their business as well as they do. At the end of the day, they are trying to drive business results and are hiring you to do that. You can demonstrate this understanding by including a summary of the business context in your proposal. Check out the example below for inspiration.

The Business Problem

After making acquisitions in 3D and immersive spaces, Stark Industries is integrating LexCorp into the main brand. To generate awareness and organic traffic to these products, Stark Industries should establish its web presence as an industry leader.

In order to do this, Stark Industries should pursue an SEO strategy that:

• Consolidates multiple domains and content portfolios into one
• Targets high value, relevant keywords
• Produces high-quality content optimized for SEO that will rank
• Ensures web technical presence is SEO-friendly

To ensure the June product launch's success, Stark Industries needs a comprehensive SEO content strategy and a clear, actionable roadmap to move from its current position to a leadership position in the space.