EP356: Creating Perfect Proposals To Win Contracts With Joe Ardeeser | Smart Pricing Table

Stacy Jones:
Welcome to marking mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones. I’m so happy to be here with you all today. I want to give a very warm welcome to Joe. Our d. Sir Joe is the founder and CEO of smart pricing table in Interactive B, B proposal software with over years of experience as a digital agency owner. Joe is collaborated with renowned brand, such as Bluetooth, T. Mobile and Scantron. Joe’s journey didn’t end with the success of his agency. After selling, he harnessed passion for sales and proposal. Writing to create something truly innovative, he developed smart pricing table, a software designed to revolutionize how businesses manage their proposals by reducing back and forth communication, incorporating up cells and generating proposals with incredible speed. Joe has created a way to streamline the process like never before allowing businesses to swiftly close deals with high quality clients and take their proposal management to the next level. Today Joe and I’m going to be chatting about the importance of proposals, and why companies should a dedicate their time to perfecting their proposal process? We’ll learn what works from Joe’s perspective, what should be avoided, and how some businesses just miss the mark, Joe, welcome! So happy to have you here today. welcome to marking mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones. I’m so happy to be here with you all today. I want to give a very warm welcome to Joe. Our d. Sir Joe is the founder and CEO of smart pricing table in Interactive B, B proposal software with over years of experience as a digital agency owner. Joe is collaborated with renowned brand, such as Bluetooth, T. Mobile and Scantron. Joe’s journey didn’t end with the success of his agency. After selling, he harnessed passion for sales and proposal. Writing to create something truly innovative, he developed smart pricing table, a software designed to revolutionize how businesses manage their proposals by reducing back and forth communication, incorporating up cells and generating proposals with incredible speed. Joe has created a way to streamline the process like never before allowing businesses to swiftly close deals with high quality clients and take their proposal management to the next level. Today Joe and I’m going to be chatting about the importance of proposals, and why companies should a dedicate their time to perfecting their proposal process? We’ll learn what works from Joe’s perspective, what should be avoided, and how some businesses just miss the mark, Joe, welcome! So happy to have you here today.

[email protected]: Thanks for having me, Stacey, that was a great intro. I love it. This this guy sounds awesome.

Stacy Jones:

Well, I’m happy to have you here today, and I know our listeners are going to be thrilled, because if anyone out there has had to over and over for the many decades I have spent personally years of creating proposals. It is not my favorite thing to do, and we are still trying to get the process down. And the fact that in years I still don’t have a fail proof process means that I have so much to learn from you, Joe, today. And I’m really, really excited to get this going. How did you get to here today? You told me, you started this software journey quite a while ago?

[email protected]: yeah. Well, at the very beginning. you know, I think of what one thing that’s always been me and my wife can attest is I love systems back. When I was a kid my grandparents raised me, and we were doing Halloween little goodies.

[email protected]: And I have these strong memories of you know that there was like pieces of candy put in a bag, and I I created like an assembly line.

[email protected]: and you know a be tested, probably. a lot of candy that you had to eat and consume in that testing. Yup Yup, for sure. I I always love systems, and no matter what project I do or company, I start or position, I feel I always love building systems. Because if you build good systems, business is a lot more fun that you, a lot of the surprises come out. I I think of I I can’t remember if it was the E myth that talks about

[email protected]: hard systems versus soft systems and all sorts of ideas there. But

[email protected]: but when it comes to smart pricing table. You know I was I I had an a a web design agency for about years.

[email protected]: and I was using a big box provider for many years.

[email protected]: that just wasn’t quite doing it for us. I I had a big old pricing table inside of it. It was taking a long time to load and I thought you know, we should create our own scope of work. Generator. That’s all we’ll do. Okay, simple. I don’t want to bite up more. And I could you.

[email protected]: let’s create a little table that’s interactive

[email protected]: that we can send to our customers and let them play around with it. Once they make their selections, we’ll throw that back in the other software as like a Png or something, and then we’ll sign the agreement.

[email protected]: Yes, yeah. And and it worked great. but it only took us a little bit longer to, you know. Integrate these signatures and finish the thought, so to speak.

[email protected]: and man, it just brought brought something alive in me. This idea of proposal writing can be fun

[email protected]: You can get the friction out of it almost entirely. And you can generate proposals really quickly. so that’s the passion that’s driven me.

Stacy Jones: And the thing about proposals, as I’ve learned the hard way all these years is you can sell something that’s fantastic. You can have the best connection with the person on the phone that you’re selling to. You can have the best continued conversations. But when you get that proposal over to them and it’s on their desk, and they’re looking at it, and you’re not around to explain it any longer. And they’re trying to understand the ,,, words you have put into this document.

Stacy Jones: You have a , % chance of getting that business or losing that business, and that is probably a lot higher to like of not getting versus getting

Stacy Jones: right right, especially if there’s other vendor documents sitting on their desk. Right? It’s who actually is simple enough

Stacy Jones: and explanating what they do that is actually going to give the work, and who gives a detailed enough explanation to the person, feels like they actually have the intellect, the brains, the knowledge to say, yes.

[email protected]: yeah, yeah. And you know, if if if we’re delivering a a wall of text, a page document, that’s just a bunch of text. I mean you. You essentially put a gigantic task on your prospects table, and you wouldn’t want to read it. It’s like, I don’t have time to review a page document today, let alone the other that I got right. So there’s gotta be a better way.

Stacy Jones: And you have created that better way, and you are going to lead us to Nirvana today. That better way? Yes, yes, I think so. So what is the better way, what is it that you need to do and and and less about? You know, how exactly does your software work? But what are the mistakes that people make is for creating these proposals. I mean, I know I’m a very wordy person, right? And so when I said, You know.

Stacy Jones: no one wants to read all of that. And you said to pages. I’m sitting here wincing, because, you know, that’s probably the reality that we do a lot of words, and we do some case studies and pictures. But what are the best practices with proposals?

[email protected]: Yeah, I have. I’ve kind of a simple framework. the the first one. So I I call the the C’s to better proposals, or I call the the profitable proposal. Blueprint is another way. I call it. the first one. I’ll kind of read these, and then we can talk more. But the first one is capitalized with technology. So here’s here’s an easy one. Use proposal specific software.

[email protected]: Okay? So that’s the first one. catalog your offering. that’s the there’s a whole lot lot of things I could say about that cater to your customer, and what I mean by that is, give them options. Don’t box them in one size, fits all solution.

[email protected]: confer with your customer. And I like to talk about the proposal review meeting. And so you talked about. You know that lonely proposal sitting on on the desk. It doesn’t have to be that way. I I have a great solution called the W. That. it’s a proposal review meeting to combat that issue and get how much higher engagement, and then my last one is continuously improve.

[email protected]: do you want to look a little bit closer on these.

[email protected]: so first thing capitalized with technology. So the thing about software is software is made for a particular purpose. It’s just like any other product to use

[email protected]: a lot of folks, a lot of agencies. A lot of businesses are using word Google docs, some kind of setup like that to create proposals and the challenges. You don’t have any proposal. Features right? you know. Analytics on if they opened it and what they looked at. e signatures. a a library of line items or content. You know that word and Google dock are great.

[email protected]: and they have their purpose but they’re not specific enough. And so if you have, if you have proposed a specific software, you’re gonna get a whole suite of features and options that help you those proposals. There you go.

[email protected]: okay.

[email protected]: the second one. And I I’d love to kind of hear your your experience with this, Stacy. But I I stumbled on to this idea as we’re creating the product.

[email protected]: the the second principle is catalog. Your offering another way of thinking about this is productitizing or Lego atizing your offering. Okay?

[email protected]: So for so many of us, we’re going. We go to create a proposal, and we have that blinking carrot on the screen.

[email protected]: And it just feels like this insurmountable mountain. Okay?

[email protected]: But if I said, You know, Stacey, why don’t you outline Facebook management? outline that? Let’s not talk about your whole prop proposal system, and like revamping everything. But you know, could you write down what I

[email protected]: you did? Social media management? How many posts that would include what? What are some of the limitations, those kind of things? That’s a fairly straightforward task.

[email protected]: And a lot of people like that kind of stuff because they’re thinking about their business, and they’re defining it

[email protected]: so it can help you out right now with that. By the way, to all of our listeners great usage of AI technology for this.

[email protected]: And why do you say that? Because I have some sample proposals on our website that are most like % chat.

[email protected]: great, for you know. Hey? You know how I I want to offer this service to my customer. Can you give me a summary sentence a list of what’s included and some limitations and some upsells, and it kills it. So

[email protected]: so listen in Chat. Gpt, we’re telling you right now. This can help you with your proposals.

[email protected]: If if you think of your your service offering more like products on a shelf that you can simply grab all of a sudden creating a proposal isn’t drudgery. It’s simply grabbing this product that can benefit your customer, this product that can benefit your customer and then just tweaking it for them. Right? You you’re not. You’re not having that mental stagnation. You’re not having that block

[email protected]: that comes from having to define things every time because you do it once. Of course, you improve it, and then you use it over and over. Okay.

[email protected]: and Peter to your customer. So another big limitation of software, like word or Google Docs is that it’s not interactive.

[email protected]: Right? I think we’re at a place with technology and with business where customers kind of expect to have some level of interactivity. They like to have options. And so just an example within our platform. you can have fine items be upsells. But you can also have upsells inside of line items.

[email protected]: Okay, so think of like a blog. Maybe someone’s I’m in the from the digital marketing space. So those are my and examples.

[email protected]: think of what you’re selling a blog for. Say, a thousand dollars. You’re gonna set it up for your customer.

[email protected]: And then the upsells might be male chimp integration. author bio pages , .

[email protected]: Imagine if, with your service offering. You know these re, these line items that you’re saving, you’re defining and saving. What if you could also have little upsells that get your base price down if you need to, and give your customer a part of the part of the experience they they get to help design the price and the scope.

Stacy Jones: we. We found that was huge at my former agency, that it’s true, because people don’t want a one-size fit all, and they want to think that you’re coming to them as an agency with insights and knowledge that you’re not just taking out of a customized already. Not a customer has been already set box that you’re going to unveil.

[email protected]: Right? Absolutely. Yeah.

[email protected]: I I love sharing this story once had a prospect that said, Hey, I have $,, Max, and I won’t talk to I I can’t talk to you.

[email protected]: Wow! We’ve already said, Let’s not meet. Yeah. Yeah. And and the , I mean, you know, $, for website. That’s somewhere in the middle. And you can spend hundreds But that was our minimum. And so I was a bit hesitant to put the work into writing a proposal, but since we had a really good system.

[email protected]: and we could simply grab one of our templates that had lots of interactivity on it. I decided, I said, Hey, let’s I told my sales, Guy, spend no more than  min creating a proposal, and let’s chuck it over the fence. I usually hated doing that. I want it. I want a chance to present it right.

[email protected]: but we needed to work. So he did. That didn’t hear anything for weeks.

[email protected]: and all that all I’m out of the blue got a signature request for a $, contract, they upsold themselves, upsole themselves. And here’s the key, Stacy. If I went to you and I, said Stacey, I need. I actually need a I. I know this M. It somehow, but I magically need $, extra from that day budget to make you happy. You’d say you’re a sales guy. Get away from me right, hey?

[email protected]: But if I let you, if you up upload it, or if you’d make those those changes yourself to an interactive proposal. It’s prudence, right? It’s it’s you know, there’s all sorts of things at play, but it leads to to greater satisfaction, less by remorse and my favorite no sales.

Stacy Jones: And do you find that, especially on services that can be a little more complicated because we’re not talking here about creating a proposal for something that really is. This is the base. It’s always the base. You’re going to be sending out the exact same thing over and over and lovely that you have

Stacy Jones: a proposal that has E signature, and it’s turn key and it can track everything and make a Crm for you. You’re really talking about where you have a serve, a professional service business where you have a lot of add ons and widgets and things, and

Stacy Jones: special little

Stacy Jones: Tinker Bell sparkly. Opportunities that you can actually go in where it’s actually hard sometimes crafting a dumb down proposal. because you want to go so soup to nuts with everything but you are creating where there is a base.

Stacy Jones: and then all the add ons on top of it that might still get to that soup to nut proposal, or there’s a a commodity of savings along the way with each of these little add ons that you do so that you really really can make sure that your potential customer thinks that

[email protected]: you have exactly what they need.

[email protected]: Another thing I’ll say is.

[email protected]: you know, one of the things. I I hear a lot is, well, Joe, everything we do is custom.

Stacy Jones: like I I we we we wouldn’t line item things out like you described.

[email protected]:
And what I I always push back a little bit then on that. And and basically what I found is. if you are looking for patterns, you generally find them. Most of our business has patterns, and if if you don’t have patterns, I’d say get some, because if you’re doing something completely different for every single customer. One of the big challenges you’re gonna have is you will never build intellectual capital right? If you’re not. If you’re doing everything’s different all the time you’re learning this new skill, and you’re throwing it away for the next project because it has no value. And so I’ve really pushed back, you know as I’ve had those kind of discussions. Look for those patterns because they start to emerge. Even if you don’t have you may. Maybe social media management is something that you you offer folks, and it’s different every time. Okay, well, is it % different? Could you have a line item where you’re still spelling out the basic offering with some things that you can tweak some basic upsells, some basic limitations. And then you could always adjust the price. I would, I would argue. There’s all sorts of those patterns if you, if you have the eyes to see them.

Stacy Jones:

The patterns and the eyes to see them. So I know that I’ve created proposals that have little add on. So as you’re reading, you’re able to see the charts. And here’s the strategy base fee. And here’s this service. Add on and this, and this, and this and this and this and what I get a lot of times with. When you do this just in a General Powerpoint presentation, a canva presentation, and you spell out all your pricing. You get a lot of raised eyebrows and kind of blank stairs, because people’s brains don’t commute that in general. So there’s a special way that you actually need to feed this to people to have them understand versus saying, I have created the largest ever page with arrows and diagrams leading to all the ways that you can build it up, because people can’t figure that out.

[email protected]: Yeah. And I and I’d also say, like, if you’re if you’re presenting like it, I I I think, presenting the proposal is so important if if you’re presenting it. And what you’re presenting is a Pdf or just a long document, you’re gonna lose people. They that’s like having. I mean. This is like the one of the number one rules with Powerpoint is you don’t have more than like bullet points on a particular slide. People are. People are gonna fall asleep, and a lot of proposal re review meetings which I love.

Stacy Jones: or that it’s like, I can’t read the text. It’s too small and this is not engaging at all. And so so ha! The the interactivity level or at the interactivity. I item being able to that we like with our system, you can open and close line items so that you can look at one at a time with the customer.

[email protected]: You can turn things off and on, and then you’ll see prices update on the top right? Like that. Interactivity has a stimulus. Right? I saw the price go up where I saw the price go down or you’re focusing just on that line item. So you’ve got my attention. I can zoom out all the noise which just leads to much more effective review.

Stacy Jones: And then. what else do people do wrong with this?

[email protected]:

Okay, I’m gonna steal from? Jason swank a shout out to him. He’s he’s great. he’s actually a a marketing agency coach. I I used to subscribe to some of his stuff. I have some of his materials as well. what I what I recommend. So the the problem is, I spent all this time on this proposal. First off. there’s you can fix that I don’t think it has to take forever. But I spend all this time on this proposal, and I check out the fence. Only have them go to me. And I get really discouraged because I’m stood all the sales activity. And I’m not getting any fruit from it. Okay. well, here’s what you gotta do stop chucking proposals over the fence because you can’t see all the pants. You don’t know what they’re doing right. What I suggest is they typically building a bonfire with them. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So what I suggest is the proposal review meeting, and I’ll tell you exactly how I’ve done this in the past, and it works fantastic. So the first thing is, you obviously have a sales discovery. Call where you go over what the the prospect needs, and you know why they’re reaching out all that kind of stuff. Then, after that, say  min meeting, you say something like this. Well, Stacey. Thank you for downloading all that to me. The next step in our process. I’d like to schedule a proposal review meeting. It’s about  min. and then I would bring up my calendar, Stacy, so that you could see it, and countly I’d put it in your time zone, and I’d say you know you could say something like, How’s how’s next? Tuesday? Looking right? the I, I remember, share your calendar so they can see your calendar. Yes, yep, yep. So you’re sharing it, putting in their time zone and the the acronym for this is Fan Bam from a meeting book, a meeting. Okay. And do this on your next meeting. Do this forever. Right? you you book it right there. You don’t say you don’t ask them. You say it’s part of our process right? That that makes it magical. Right? That’s just. It’s like a concrete thing as part of our process. I rarely had anyone push back. If they did, I’d have to ask whether I wanted to create a proposal. How and how like interested are they and me. If they can’t give me another  min. It’s gonna take you at least from what you’re saying up to half of that time, just to do it. So why are you spinning your wheels for no reason whatsoever. Exactly. Yeah. So then, the attendance rate on that meeting is extremely high one, because you have something they want, and . They don’t get the proposal till after the meeting. You don’t send them the interactive proposal to afterwards. The reason why the meeting is so important is because you don’t want to just have them look at the proposal on their own. Yes, you want to sell it right, Stacy. Here’s what I’ve included in this proposal. Here’s a basic layout. And, by the way, I wasn’t sure about whether I wanted to add this one, but I thought it might be interesting because we talked about this

Stacy Jones: also, I put some additional items just to consider. Please know there’s no pressure there. But if these are interesting, I’d love to talk. You can surface questions overcome objections. You could even If it’s interactive, you can even check boxes with them, get a solid price. And you could even initiate these signatures.

[email protected]: so. And and the the thing is, so many of your competitors aren’t doing this right. And I used to tell my sales, Guy said. Every  min they’re on the phone with us. They’re not talking to one of my one of our competitors, and if I’m I want feedback all the time. If the fact that they’re on the meeting, that’s a good sign. The fact that they’re liking it. And they’re lighting up and the price works. Those are all good signs. I don’t want a dark.

Stacy Jones: unknown mystery of throwing it over the fence and that’s really what happens most of the time, and it’s so easy to have this phenomenal call, and then just get ghosted. And you’re like. But what? Why did I? What had happened? They were so into me. Is it our pricing, is it? They were just too shy to say that, you know that wasn’t going to work for them, and you have no idea when you just are sending off into the silo darkness proposal for the bonfire that they want to be burning.

[email protected]: I love there’s this idea. If someone’s willing to pay for something, they’re gonna give you different feedback. Different ideas like you involve money. And you change the psychology with this particular thing. If you involve a time commitment, you change the psychology because all of a sudden, if they’re just being nice, they’re not gonna book time with you. Right? So figure that out early on, without having to ask like a direct question like, Are you? Are you interested? It’s like you ask. Ask a question like your get, get the meeting books, and if they don’t, then you can that can, you know, give you some questions and cover and and save some time.

Stacy Jones: Yeah. And even if it’s just them saying, you know what, I’m not ready to book a meeting and spend more time with you. At least you know that they’re not likely interested in working right now, and you’ve saved time, and it’s no skin off your nose, because it was just a cold call or a warm, inbound call before and fine. They might pop up again in years.

[email protected]: Yep, yep, and and maybe you decide to not make a proposal, and you save extra time or you make it, but you make it quickly, knowing that they’re not that committed, and you don’t mentally go there. You don’t stress about you. Don’t think you don’t take that mind to the bank at all right, you just say, Hey, there’s a potential. They got a proposal we’ll see.

Stacy Jones: And so from there, what do you do? So you you’ve had the meeting. It’s fantastic. They loved you, and you do have the E sign on your software that you could do. But sometimes it doesn’t go straight to signature. Sometimes you have a fantastic proposal, a meeting and walk through, and then they go to you.

[email protected]:
You you probably want to know about that right? if they’re interacting with stuff turning things off and on looking at different offerings that you have, you might want to know that, and that could lead to a well time sales call right. I I reach out, maybe you know. So I I found that it can that, you know, getting to someone before they go on a vacation. Could main the difference right getting someone before the weekend could make the difference. If they’re engaging, you gotta know, and you’ll never know that with generic editing software. the other thing is, I think it’s important to ask questions. during that proposal review meeting, like, what’s the next step in the process on your side? Right? Okay. I, understanding who the decision makers are, what’s the urgency as far as time? Maybe they’re months away. And you just like there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s like, okay, at least, mentally, I’m not going to bug them in a week, you know. Give them a couple of weeks, a month, or something like that. Ask questions like, what’s driving this timeline? What what happens if we don’t do this? If you, if we don’t do this project, what are the consequences? Really try to understand the buying process, the decision making process that they’re going through. I think that’s really huge. And then I’m going to. I’m going to reference a previously referenced acronym again. Bam right on that meeting from a meeting book, a meeting right? So if I’m talking to them. And and I I’m asking some of those questions. I’m saying, hey, you know what’s the decision making process? Then I’m going to schedule a meeting just just check in. Okay, hey? Could we have a  min check in in weeks? Now, if you have nothing new for me, Stacy. That’s okay. we have a lot of different projects in The Hopper, and I like to stand close connection, because, as you can imagine, timelines can be kind of hard with project based work. And I want to make sure that we can get you in. Okay, And and that kind of alludes into the urgency factor, too, right?

Stacy Jones:
And and losing out because you’ve now just repositioned it, that we can hopefully get you in, that we’re not going to be able to actually take you on as a client when you’re ready to be taken on as a client. And hey, it’s not that we’re too small. It’s just we’re busy. Yeah, yeah, that you that Fomo kicks in right. And the the chance that they could get delayed. And you know, if if you if all the good signals

[email protected]:
signals, the good sense right along the the purchasing trail are are good, great initial. You, you responded quickly. You listened carefully. You did a great proposal. If all those are going there and you’re you have a great offering, and they know it, you know it. And then there’s some urgency that could be enough to close the deal. Lock it in once the thing signed, everyone’s mentality changes. You’re you’re the vendor. And now we just need to do a great job.

Stacy Jones:
Whole other set of problems that opens up at that door at that moment. Moment that signature is signed on the dial line, you are at risk of losing a client. And then what are other things that people do? Since I have a feeling, you know, a thing or about sales and proposals from all the time and work that you’ve been doing where other ways that people mess it up for themselves.

[email protected]: Yeah, I, I would say, and actually, this will. This will kind of tie up the not with my cs. The last one is continuously improve. and I’d say what people, what people don’t do is they don’t learn from their mistakes. But one of the challenges from learning from your mistakes is, if you if you don’t have somewhere where you’re, you know, tracking those mistakes, or you know, changing things. So those mistakes don’t happen. Well, there you go. Of course you’re gonna make the same mistakes, because enough time is gonna go by. You’re gonna forget about the pain. You’re gonna do it again. Right?

Stacy Jones: So our new person is gonna come into your agency or your company and not going to have the plethora of information because you have not documented it. And they’re going to start making those same mistakes that you already paid for someone else to make. And they’re gonna start the whole process all over again. Yes, yes, so so it’s not just. I have to learn them and have them here in my head. But I need to have a way to codify my business rules. My learnings, my education from when projects go wrong. And so the concept here is continuous improvement.

[email protected]:
Rick, by brick, be making your business better, and one of the things that is so crucial. to any project. In fact, it’s the foundation. Is the proposal right? That that is, you are planning out. The so many people will just do a vague proposal. They’ll throw it out, and then they they there’s they’re like shocked. months later, when the client is not their friend anymore? Right? The proposal is the foundation. You get that right. and you get so many other things right. And so just to give you an example. Let’s say that. I’ll go back to the social media management offering. Let’s say you offer something like that. and you get a customer, and they’re a bit frustrated, because whereas your comments or sorry, your your posts are great, your your followers are really engaging. People love the content that this vendor that you that it was being produced? The challenge is, there’s all these comments. and as a business owner you’re frustrated because, like, I hired this agency to to do my social media management. But now they’re saying it doesn’t include the comments. But the comments are so important, because, as is, it’s become people realize in the last few years, comments are huge part of algorithms in social media. And so you’ve got to engage with your followers, and that helps to go viral. Okay? So as an as an agency or a business, though, you’re thinking. I can’t. I can’t respond to comments this week for this one prospect right over this one client. Okay, okay, channel that pain. It stinks. I I feel you. Okay. It stinks. Now go back and codify that in your in your proposal system, so that never happens again. Go back to that line item, open it up and say, limited to comments per month. or let them add an upsell so that you can do up to a hundred comments each month, so you can get engage with them, because what they really wanted was they wanted you to manage their social media. But you hadn’t gone through that enough to see where some of the holes were okay. So take the pain and and go back. And you know, concrete it into your system, so that at least in the future it’s less likely going to happen. You’ve got something to reference and manage expectations much, much better.

Stacy Jones:
And what I found with pricing tables. It’s really nice having an idea of what they are, because it takes away pricing from just one person potentially in your agency or company, and it enables the whole team to work on those upsells. And so when they’re casually talking to a client, and they hear that there’s a need, they can say.

Stacy Jones: Oh, wait! We can do that. And they actually can self feed themselves a little bit.

[email protected]:
I what you the that concept right? There is a like, a A, A, a, the book. I think of a such that I think it was essentialism, or some kind of book where it talks about that. Is it like a cornerstone habit that can have all these effects. That is a cornerstone reality. at this, having a catalog that can change so much, and I felt it personally. as the CEO a lot of times. You’re making proposals, I’m telling you. You think I can’t outsource sales. You can’t outsource sales. You can’t hire someone because you don’t have a a catalog. You do that. And oh, my word, the the mind, the the freedom that you will have in your mind this, the mental space all of a sudden. They’re they’re running with it. Maybe they’re they need to get some approval on some adjustments, but they’re element. Someone else has been able to make proposals for you, and you’re owning the line items, the templates. You’re getting feedback. And oh, my word, smithing it, you’re figuring out what case studies need to support that instead of trying to every single time go. Okay, why did I charge this much for that person? For here to there? And I think a lot of this like my thought on this ended up going.

Stacy Jones:
And what you’re doing so fantastic is we’re in a diy world right now at in the morning I can jump on a computer, and I can figure out how to research and pretty much know who I want to work with or what brand I want to purchase, what product I need. And I can know what pricing that is. And I want that information, and I don’t understand when I’m going to different service companies and even working with them where they do this all the time, how can they not know how much that would actually cost to

[email protected]:
Have me do that. So you’re actually enabling people to be able to better quote the rest of the time I was able to orchestrate to to be high level, and when you can get as a a lot of small businesses, the Ceos very heavily involved in sales. If you can get out of that. It has a multiplier effect

Stacy Jones: On your business versus in your business, and those am. Just push it back. Even further proposals that you’re trying to get so that your sales team can answer. And you’re not being the cog holding them back. And people I know what I’m talking about because I have lived this life, it really really can help you if you have something that is systemized.

[email protected]: Yep.

Stacy Jones: And so are there any other things that people typically do wrong.

[email protected]:
Yeah, I, a few different ones. I I like the the vortex, I call it. This is not being clear about what you’re offering. And so you have to give the world. You have to give everything right. We we’ve all been in this scenario where we weren’t clear, and therefore we make minimum wage. So I I I like using this. let’s say you’re outlining offering. Here’s another little freebie here’s a here’s a suggested format. Real quick. If you’re defining a line item let’s say, I’ll switch it up. I’ll say, cold outreach. Okay, maybe you do cold email outreach or something like that. start the line item with the summary sentence, what’s the big idea? Okay, then say, work included. And then a bulleted list. Okay? that I like a vaulted list because it’s easy for you to break it down. And it’s fun. It’s easy for your customers to scan. and it’s easier for you to price something out when you’ve broken it down into its smaller pieces. Okay, then put any limitations. If there are any and then upsells. So I really like that format as a as a a tactic to combat the vortex. We hate not getting paid what we’re worth, but so many times it’s because we didn’t define it. Well, and that’s on us.

Stacy Jones: Yeah. And then another one.

[email protected]:
I’ll just put just so kind of right off some of these, and we don’t know what we’re selling. There you go. I once had a project manager. Tell me a quote he had heard, he said, if there’s a if there’s a missed in the pulpit, there’s a fog in the congregation

Stacy Jones: right? But I had a sales guy that did not make it to his month Review. Where, in his exit interview with us. He said, I just don’t really understand why anyone needs to hire our agency, they should be able to do this themselves, and what we do is so frigging complicated. I am just like you were with us almost months. huh? And that happens. That’s legit. You cannot help that with some of your employees, your or team members. Their head is just not wired, and if you have a system in place, it’s simple, and the pricing structures there, maybe they’ll connect the dots better. Yeah, if you if if you are selling some kind of professional service. Well, I’ll I’ll totally switch it up, say, cleaning a cleaning service or something.

[email protected]:
if you don’t know what you you’re actually going to do when you show up to it, to clean for this recurring cleaning schedule or something. You better believe your client has no freaking clue. Right? And again, that’s on us. And that that’s what they’re all that’s kind of connected to the vague vortex we be. This detailed enough so that you’ve established the spirit of the work right? You don’t want to be so granular that that that it’s like overwhelming. Right? That’s that’s too much. But and you don’t want to be too vague, but you want to be detailed enough so that the spirit of the work, the scope, the size, is established, and you have handles to grab onto and say, Well, I can do a little bit more. But really, all that’s included in this is this, and this. It’s written down. No, no no issues, right, no, no arguments, no risk, and a bad review. You have some handles to grab on to expectations was were managed. And you’re and you’re in great shape.

Stacy Jones:
Joe. Where can our listeners find smart pricing table, besides typing in smart pricing table.com, which I’m a there it is. Yeah. A smart pricing table.com is is where you can learn more about our products. I also have a free guide. called the profitable proposal blueprints.

[email protected]:
It’s high level, but really helpful, and actually outlines if you like these principles, I actually stole them from there. It’s all for myself, of course. So download that if you’re interested in some some of the ideas we’ve talked about, I’ve talked to Stacey about here today. schedule a quick demo with me. I don’t care if it’s tire kicking. If if you’re if this is an intriguing way to write proposals. I’d love to give you a quick  min demo of our software to see if it would be a a good fit. I’m also on Linkedin. I like when I can do and proposal advice on on posts. And have a pretty big following on there as well.

Stacy Jones:
Well. So all of that is fantastic. I know I’m booking a  min meeting with you because we need help, just like I think most agencies do. I think there’s very few people who are out there who really have this dialed in and figured out, because very easy to be inside your own head and see your story so clearly. But having that story and that benefit of what you do as a service professional, actually understood by others. You have to really simplify it down enough and check it down where anyone can read and understand that. And that’s fantastic that you’ve come up with a system that helps people do that. Yeah, yeah, awesome. I’ve had a great time, Stacey. Thanks again for having me.

[email protected]:
Yeah, let me let me. I want a good one. Here, let me. Joey is prepared with notes. He is ready. I got a good one. Okay, all this stuff that Stacy and I talked about is important, and for something that you may not be thinking about. Okay. And it’s it’s a higher level thing. But this is all so connected to it. Team morale. Figure this out, because when you have bad projects it hurts your team right when you have bad deals bad scope it as a as a CEO or a lead sales person, it weighs on you right? And so, when you invest in this system in particular, has so many other effects, and and I think employee. Retention is such a big . One of my favorite things I I I share is I. I lost one key employee in years of business.

Stacy Jones:
And I think a big part of that was our projects went great. And a lot of that is because of smart pricing table. Yeah, and that’s hard because you know agency live, and that’s very impressive, Joe, because agency life is tumultuous, if nothing else like. When you say the word agency life, just think, like hurting cats in every direction, no matter what the agencies like specialty is, it is insanity and dealing with clients, while you may be the client treasure just from the heaven sent a lot of clients are not, and dealing with people who don’t speak up unless they’re unhappy, and they speak up really well when they’re unhappy, or when things just don’t go well. In general, it can leave your team in a really rocky, rocky spot. So that’s fantastic that you were able to accomplish that, Joe, and that really is. And you know. having a system I can see does help, and having consistent new business where people are not always wondering, you know, if their mouth is still going to be fed in these times. Now, since Covid, and ups and downs and economy that does bring some sanity to your life. Yeah. well, Joe, thank you again. So much for sharing your time with us. Thanks. Stacey had a great time. and to all of our listeners today. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of marketing snakes and how to avoid them. I look forward to chatting with you this next week, and until then, if you have any interest in getting a proposal. first having a chat about how your brand can leverage third party content movies, TV shows, music to become embedded in the storyline and part of the actual content that’s gonna live on for decades to come airing over and over again reach out, and our team would be happy to connect and chat. What that all means.