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Electronic signature residential construction proposal template

how and what should be on a construction proposal can be confusing because you've seen it done a dozen different ways by a dozen different people in this video breakdown which worked for me and why it works hey everyone I'm Mai Claudio owner of winrate consulting and host of the big stud sales podcast today we're going to be reviewing some of the best practices I've used when formulating creating and implementing new proposal creations ie what's on it where is it why is it there and how you can optimize the time you are using to put those proposals in front of clients so one of the first things and this has blown my mind for a long time I see an incredible amount of proposals that doesn't have the company's information on it I can't tell you how many times I went into a sales presentation and the client was like I was going to call this person but the information wasn't on the estimate or I can't find it anywhere I promise you they're not saving your business cards so you're looking at a proposal and you start from the top you want your business name you want your business address your business phone number the logo is helpful just from brand awareness I think it's important to have it there and then also the direct point of contact right you're gonna have sales people within your business at some point if you don't already you want them to know who their sales representative is this does two things it reminds them of the name create some awareness for that but then also if they were to call into the office they can say hey I was meeting with Jeff in this case Jeff is the name that's on this proposal I'm showing you but you want that on there so that they know who they're meeting with they know who to ask for when they call the company ie the office number and honestly it just is a good way for them to start growing some sort of they know like and trust to your business because ultimately as the salesperson you're building the relationship with the market not the business a lot of the time Jeff in this case is the face of Daniel enterprises when it comes to dealing with homeowners so it's important to have that information on there where it is I like it at the top I think it should start with you as the business I think it's a professional way to create it and I think it really gives them a good idea of who they're dealing with and the professionalism at with which you operate the second kind of part of if we're gonna go down a header client information not just name and address but you want some sort of a job number or estimate number tracking system this is very important when it comes to a client calling in with questions or ieave that person leaves how are you knowing or tracking where that client information is most businesses out there have some sort of a tracking system whether or not it's a spreadsheet and a Google Drive or Dropbox system or they have a CRM in place the information that should be on the proposal should match that tracking system so in this case you're gonna see a job number as well as an estimate number both of them are on there for a very particular reason you might send multiple estimates for the same job multiple versions of it you want to make sure when that client calls in with questions you are looking at the same thing because they might be looking at a different version or an older version or a version that has different line items on it so you want to make sure you're looking at the same thing again small but it's impactful for how the client feels about how prepared you are to take care of them you want the date that the proposal was sent this is incredibly important when it comes to how you're managing your pricing for us a lot of times pricing was only good for 30 days or 60 days or 90 days we all know how labor cost changes material cost changes it's good to have a date for that proposal I've seen as quick as seven days and I've seen as long as six months that it depends on your business depends on your industry depends how often pricing changes but have the date on there I have also seen this not there and no one knows when that proposal was done because they did a tracking system in place but having it very visible and on there the next part is one of the biggest questions I get should I do line-item pricing or not I believe and have always done line-item pricing not just by item but by quantity and by price per quantity ie per linear foot per square foot per item pricing and here's why yes it allows them to price shop you but if they're doing that that means you didn't do a great job presenting the value you bring in the experience you're gonna deliver in the home services industries you're differentiating factors is not the price it can be but not always most people can get that client to their end goal successfully but it's the process that's the differentiating factor so I didn't mind them Price shopping me because I built the reputation and I built the environment where they knew they're gonna get taken care of and whether the price was right or not within reason they were comfortable hiring me the second thing it does is allows the client to make some decisions on their own ieave what if I take this out what if I add that in and that allows them to be in some control of their own decision-making but also allows them to not have to call you every time they have a question if you just have a paragraph in this case it's a roofing estimates the company I've worked for before starting winrate consulting if I just said replace roof and I said it's gonna be ninety seven hundred and fifty dollars and that's all I said there you have a lot of questions but if I can tell them exactly that drip edge is included that ice and water is included that what shingle type all that is included specifically in by area because if they were to say well what if I added let's just say the shed or let's say I added the garage in this case they may let's say well that's the roof what's the square footage of the garage now I can get it a ballpark estimate of what it's gonna cost to do that they're never gonna get it exactly right but allows them to make decisions without calling you first and I got it really good at trying to put some of these things in a place because when I'm busy doing my job day-to-day handling those one-off questions for every client I sent a proposal to became incredibly time-consuming so that's when I switched to the line-item pricing yes there were situations where they use that to price-match me against somebody else but it helped me win a lot more than it made me lose and so I've always stuck by that and I think it's a great best practice that all home service companies should abide by so you get there you get the total that's on that here's some of the contractual size that I think are important when having it in the initial proposal one is as simple as if you have any questions concerning this what to do you can reach us at the main office you can email our general inbox you can call me directly whatever it is exactly what they can do if they have questions sometimes people just need that extra little step so they're not assuming what to do next if they have questions you're telling them what to do this I like having in their payment requirements this could be deposits and I have this in a different section on this particular one but even in that first line all payments are due upon request of invoice and then how bite cash checks money orders unless otherwise stated variables depend on your business fingerstyle do you have credit card processing do not have credit card processing but you want to let the client know how they can pay for cup for their services again small thing but shows how professional you are shows how attentive to detail you are and shows how proactive you are in helping them understand what to do next the next part is the basic contract of what does this mean you know in this case it's between Daniel enterprises and the person of the home the customer it's a simple thing from a contractual perspective they you need to tell them that they're signing into a contract with you this is a kind of that cya type situation where you can use it later if they decide they don't want to pay or they're trying to you know retract on something to get out of paying for something it's not for them when everything goes well contracts are irrelevant the contracts are there for when things go poorly you want to talk about what warranties or guarantees you have I think it's important to have that on the initial proposals again it's one of those questions that come up a lot that I can proactively give them because when they are comparing apples to apples they can say to somebody else hey what guarantees and warranties are you providing and we all know most people do but a lot don't so you can that can be a competitive advantage when comparing apples to apples when they say well why is Mike more expensive oh he gives a five-year warranty and a one-year guarantee that's powerful compared to somebody who doesn't and that client might have a fear of not be able to get back to that person or find that contractor again when something goes wrong any type of special instruction so in our case special material orders if there's a standard process of a 25% deposit on a standard order but there's any type of specialty material ie in this case would be cedar metal roofing membrane anytime especially it's a different expectation in this case the 50% deposit so you want to put some of those variables in there that don't come up and that don't come up every time but do have a tendency to come up so that the client understands you can relate back to hey you're that 50% deposit is part of the contract I have a special instructions section on this the special instructions section in this particular proposals not doesn't have anything in it but that is something where I can leave notes for my production team I can leave notes for the clients I can leave notes for myself things such as clients said to do this to avoid that the client wants this the client wants this color or this area or this special circuit stance that makes this client very unique we all know in the home services industry no two clients are the same no two projects are the same you might do the same type of work every day but who you're doing it for the environment changes daily I would use these special instructions section as a standardized spot where my production team knew to look for special instructions things like where not to put material where not to park make sure you don't let the dog out back that break down that bridge from sales to operations is one of the main reasons expectations are missed from the clients perspective so having that special instruction section on the proposal allowed me and my production team to know where to look for any particular special instructions that kind of covers what I think needs to be on one again variables out there to pay on industry depending on what type of business you do what type of work you do with my clients you have B to be a little bit different than B to C but from a high level you want your information you want the clients information you want some sort of identifier of not just the job but also the estimate number you want line item detailed pricing by quantity and by quantity pricing ie per linear foot per square foot per item and you want what warranties guarantees and special instructions there might be for that specific job there's one thing I hadn't mentioned yet but if you do not have digital process for this you have got to make that leap you've got to take that step if you're still handwriting stuff unfortunately it makes you look like you're not up to date on the way things are done and that is a massive negative in the clients decision making process so those are the best practices I've used they're not for everybody but they worked really well for me and I think you might have learned one or two things you can implement in your process immediately remember to Like comment let me know if you have any questions that I can answer for you and as always we appreciate you being here and looking forward to catching you on the next one remember when fast and went off