Business Proposal Template

This business proposal template has 21 pages and is a MS Word file type listed under our sales & marketing documents.

What is a Business Proposal?

A business proposal is a document used to explain what services or products a business is offering and how they plan to conduct their business to achieve success. There is a saying – the first impression is the last impression – and creating a convincing business proposal template will help you make a great first impression that will lead to new ways of selling your products or services, and achieving business success. Having a template can help you easily create a successful business proposal that can be used for solicited or unsolicited proposals. You just want to ensure that you use the business proposal to your highest advantage by including main points about your business. If your business does not sell as much as you would like, is not making as much money as you hoped, and is making you feel as though all your efforts are fading away, the time has come to start creating business proposals with the Business-in-a-Box templates.

The Business Proposal Template Overview

In the era of highly competitive markets, wherein businesses are employing all tactics possible to grow their client base and generate sales, a well-written business proposal is often a key difference between winning or losing a potential client. Another important aspect is to develop a winning idea and create a proposal that stands out against the competition. In this report, we will educate you about the B2B business proposal template via an in-depth guide that will help you generate more leads and increase sales to crush your rivals and reach your business goals. So, you have started a new business and are growing your customer base. You might be wondering; how can I reach even more clients who can benefit from my product or service? This is where a business proposal comes in! A business proposal is a bridge that gaps your business with your potential customers. Critical factors of the business proposal that connect you with your ideal customers are the ‘value proposition’ and ‘primary purpose’ sections. These sections help you persuade an organization or company to do business with you. There are two types of business proposal templates you can use to grow your business – solicited and unsolicited. These two types will be explored in the next section.

Solicited vs. Unsolicited Proposals

Solicited business proposals are proposals that the customer requests from the business to explore creating a business relationship. Unsolicited business proposals, in contrast, are provided by the business to potential customers with the aim of gaining their business. Whether the proposal is solicited or unsolicited, the steps to create a business proposal are similar, and include three key elements:

• A statement of the problem the company aims to overcome
• Proposed solutions to overcome the problem
• Pricing information

Purpose of a Business Proposal

Truthfully, a business proposal aims to streamline B2B sales – which are often complex – between a buyer and a seller by acting as a source of information. The business proposal provides the buyer with information about how the problem the customer may be having will be solved. The business proposal should convince the buyer that the business services or product are worth their investment.

What to Include in a Business Proposal:

A business proposal should have a well-defined format that is specific to the industry. For example, in professions such as advertising or architecture, the visual presentation of the business proposal is highly important to create a convincing business proposal. Regarding general business proposals, however, the following structure is essential to ensure your proposal grabs the buyer’s attention, and appears trustworthy, while providing key information related to your business objectives, strategy, and budget:

• Who you are and what your business can do
• The problem buyers are facing
• The solution your company offers to reduce the problem
• How your company will implement solutions effectively
• An estimated resource (for example, money, time, etc.) required to implement the solution

How to write a business proposal:

Before you get too excited and start creating your business proposal, you need to understand important components you should include when creating one. Thanks to Business-in-a-Box, which will provide you with a FREE Business Proposal Template Sample, you can better understand the important components of a proposal more precisely. Sign up for your free sample!

Business Proposal Template Sample:

1) Business title:

Providing a business title is common knowledge, but trust me when I say that an alluring title can be the difference between someone opening your business proposal and reading it, versus stacking your business proposal in the ‘unread pile’ and tossing it in the trash a few days later. Remember, the following are the most important items to include with your business title:

• Your name along with your company’s name
• The date you are submitting the business proposal
• The name of the prospective business
• Contact information
• Your company’s logo

2) Table of contents:

Your business proposal also needs to be easy to read – a table of contents can help! If you happen to pitch your service or product to a high-level executive or anyone who is fairly busy and may not have time to read your entire proposal, a table of contents can help make it easy for them to review your submission at their own pace, or skim through the most essential parts of the proposal at ease. Consider adding the following sections to your business proposal:

• About us
• Project summary
• Project timeline
• Project activities
• Meet our team
• Event overview
• Contract and agreement

3) Executive summary:

The executive summary is an essential piece of many business documents, such as project plans, annual reports, and marketing strategies. The executive summary is a concise summary of your entire business proposal. Include the following to execute a great summary:

• Introduce your company to the buyer
• Provide an overview of your company goals
• Showcase your company’s milestones, plans, and overall vision
• Explain why you are sending the proposal Honest opinion: Focus on keeping your executive summary clear and concise from beginning to end as it will set a professional and positive tone for the entire proposal – making it more likely that the buyer will continue reading your proposal and potentially become your customer.

4) Statement of the problem:

In this section, you can state the exact problem the prospective buyer may be facing. Whether or not they know about the problem, your goal is to outline the statement of the problem as clearly as possible and develop an urgency for the buyer to find a permanent solution. Providing the solution with a well-defined problem statement will achieve two things:

• It will show the prospective customer that you have done your homework and are not sending a generic pitch.
• It will allow you to create an opportunity to point out a problem that the prospective customer might not have considered and may seek your help in solving.

5) The proposed solution:

At this point, you probably have a better understanding of how a business proposal template works – let’s dig even deeper into the template! The proposed solution section will show the prospective buyer how you can alleviate the problem. You can merge this section with the problem statement section if your solution is simple. However, if you have a comprehensive solution or prefer to provide a more detailed account of the solution, then you can offer the proposed solution within its own section. It is a great idea to be as detailed as possible when proposing a solution to the customer. Feel free to spare no details to the solution you are providing, including how you plan to deliver the solution and the estimated timeline in which the solution can be achieved.

6) Your qualifications:

So, the prospective buyer you are pitching your solution to likes your ideas, but may not trust you can fix their problems. Why is this? Because they don’t know why they should trust you are qualified to achieve the solution. In this section, it is your job to convince the buyer that they should trust you to fix their problems by explaining your qualifications along with the qualifications of your team. This section is important as it acts as social proof of your qualifications and ability to be trusted by outlining what your business does best and how qualified you and your team are.

7) The timeline:

To further demonstrate how prepared you are, it is necessary to outline how you will achieve your business objectives and overcome the buyer’s problem by way of a timeline. The timeline section is a vital component of swaying the customer to work with you as it will provide them with a detailed account of how and when you can provide all your deliverables. You can do this by creating a simple flow chat, or you can introduce more nuance with a detailed roadmap. Another great option is to provide a timeline infographic to help the customer visualize your plan. The timeline you create is not set-in-stone, rather, it is an estimation of when and how you will achieve the deliverables. The goal of this section is to provide the buyer with clarity and any answers to questions they might have about how you will deliver the B2B sales process.

8) Pricing, billing, and legal matters:

This is a step where you need to outline everything pertaining to your pricing, pricing schedule, and legal matters that are pertinent to the deal. The key to good pricing is to provide the buyer with options, which can be shown using a method such as a pricing comparison table. This will help the customer visualize the pricing options and select the option that is best for them. The key to successful pricing is to give the buyer flexibility and options that are within their price range, while ensuring you are not undervaluing yourself – this will help ensure you don’t scare them off with an excessively high rate while not undervaluing your worth. Breaking the pricing down into various pieces is another great way to make sure the client knows exactly what they are paying for. The legal matters also fit into the terms and conditions section of the business proposal template and will be explored in the next section in more detail.

9) Terms and conditions:

This is the section where you can put your money where your mouth is. In this portion of the business proposal, you will summarize everything you have promised to deliver so far and outline what the prospective buyer will offer you in return. This includes aspects of the agreement, such as the overall project timeline from start to finish, payment methods, payment schedules, and so forth. This section is extremely necessary to ensure that both parties understand what they are agreeing to – it is essential to be as clear as possible in this section to avoid miscommunication and develop a strong and trusting business relationship.

10) The acceptance:

The final step of the proposal! By this point, the buyer has read your business proposal and is convinced that you will help solve their problem. So convinced in fact that they are ready to work with you and buy what you have proposed to offer. ‘The acceptance’ is a small section at the end of the proposal where you will collect signatures from the parties involved and make the deal official. Be sure to include your contact number – it will act as a gentle prompt so the client can contact you in case they have any questions. At the end of the day, writing winning business proposals that increase business success through increased sales is all about understanding your prospective buyer, their potential problems, and positioning yourself as someone willing to alleviate those problems. Sign up to get access to the complete business proposals and discover over 1900 templates in the Business-in-a-Box toolkit that will help you achieve greater business success.