Creating A Good Business Proposal In 2022
The coronavirus pandemic was arguably the most financially challenging period the world has witnessed since the financial crisis of 2008. However, despite the challenges caused by COVID-19, new businesses still emerged, and investors still funded promising startups. The reality is that people will always create new businesses irrespective of the economic conditions, and investors will always seek to invest in profitable businesses. Therefore, you should expect that 2022 would not be also short of businesses looking to compete with you for market and funding. Consequently, you must be strategically prepared to maximize opportunities as a business owner.
This year, one way to give yourself an edge is to create business proposals that can win clients and investors. In this article, you will be learning about things you should include in your business proposals this year. This article does not talk about fundamental elements of a business proposal like the table of content or executive summary. Instead, it discusses what you can do to better these essential elements and other things you should add to the conventional business proposals to give yourself the needed edge.
Ensure to write a good introduction
Every business proposal is expected to have an introduction, but times are changing rapidly, and clients and investors have so many submissions to read more than ever before. In addition, everyone wants to own a business these days because of the hope of building the next unicorn or global brand one day. Therefore, one can expect that businesses will submit more proposals this year, and it doesn’t matter how brilliant your business idea is; you will be competing with a lot of businesses for the attention of clients and investors.
Therefore, your business proposal must include an introduction that immediately catches your reader’s attention. A good introduction could consist of a hook sentence or a question that immediately gets your reader’s attention. Most investors or clients reading your proposal do not plan to read every proposal in detail but prefer to scan through. A good introduction gives you a better chance of forcing them to read thoroughly.
An essential tip for writing a captivating introduction is focusing on the problem you are trying to solve and the customers who want to benefit from it. Your proposal must be more about your customers and less about yourself. From your introduction, readers must begin to imagine themselves as customers or imagine how others would feel about your product or service.
Tell Your Story
Everyone loves a story. We all want to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves, and brand stories connect us to the purposes of a business. A story does not necessarily need to be a long narration of your strict background or how determined you were to succeed. Instead, a story needs to bridge the humans behind the business and the humans who want to use the product or service. This doesn’t negate the initial point about your customer-centric proposal but instead demands that you show that you understand the customer’s problems.
When writing a proposal, it is easy to get caught up in the technical and business terms. Still, while these are necessary, it is also essential to understand that your target audience is human beings first. For example, studies show that millennials and Gen-Z prefer brands that show a commitment to the social good. Therefore, in 2022, you must write your proposals to show how your business is not only about making a profit by showing that you are genuinely connected to the problem you want to solve.
Show Workability
Most business proposals fail at this point. After captivating the client’s mind with a good introduction, compelling story and other essentials, some suggestions fail to show how the business would work. When writing your proposal, you must think deeply, carry out enough research and study your industry to understand how exactly your product or service would work for your client. Never assume and never be vague. Whoever is reading your proposal wants to know exactly how your business can help them or how the business would make money.
Ensure Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is arguably the most unconsciously omitted aspect of any business proposal. If you want your business proposal to stand out this year, you must show how you plan to assure quality. Due to the increasing impact of the internet, most businesses either seek to connect buyers to sellers or connect service providers to their market. Your business would most likely also fall in that category. Therefore, your business proposal must show how you plan to protect the interest of both the buyer and the seller. It doesn’t matter how good your platform is in creating an enabling environment for these two sets of people to connect; your proposal must show how you plan to ensure that no one is cheated or harmed.
On the other hand, even if your business directly provides services to the final consumer, you must still gain the trust of your clients or investors by discussing all that you have put in place to guarantee the highest quality of service or product.
How much?!
If you can’t tell me the cost of a unit service or product, how can you convince me that you can profit from your service? For example, suppose you want your business proposal to stand out in 2022. In that case, you must conduct enough market and industry studies to determine the cost of acquiring a customer and producing a unit product or service. If the proposal is also directed to a client, it is essential to include your product or service price. Although subject to changes from market forces like demand and supply, information about cost or price indicates that you are sure about your business’s profitability or service quality.
Conclusion
Writing a business proposal has become more critical than ever before. There are increasingly more people who want to own a business due to the valorization of startup and entrepreneurship. This article has shown you some things to include in your business proposal this year. It is, however, left to you to implement these ideas. The ideas in this piece may not guarantee that you will win every proposal bid, but they ensure that they will make your proposal stand out this year and ultimately give you a chance to be successful.