Why you should say “NO” to website proposals.

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It might seem counter intuitive that I am asking would be clients who receive our proposals to say no.

The reality is that of all the responses we get in regards to proposals we send out, approximately ninety-eight percent (98%) are yes. Sounds good right? But we are not smiling all the way to the bank just yet…That (98%) actually represents the persons who actually send back a reply, shockingly most people do not even acknowledge receipt of the proposal that they requested.

As horrible as it sounds, the vast majority of the persons who turn down our proposals never even bother to notify us that they are indeed saying ‘no’ to the proposal.

If you read our article What’s in a proposal you would realise that we never ever send unsolicited proposals, they are all requested by persons who either fill out our online website project planner or contact us by phone (876-578-6003) or email to provide them with the quotation.

That is 36-54 hours of work that goes unacknowledged by even a simple a response as a no.

I would be dishonest to say this has not affected the quality of our proposals. Most of the requests we now respond to with a very simple estimate with the option to pay for a more in depth appraisal of the problem and solution. Meetings are now treated as paid consultations (where the cost is deducted from the project fee) rather than fact finding missions.

Outside of these effects here are 4 good reasons you should say no.

• It is the professional thing to do — When you request a service from someone the polite response is to say thank you or NO thank you.
• It saves time — We have already given our time to create the proposal, please save us the additional effort we will spend trying to follow up with you.
• We really don’t mind — well a little bit :). Hearing no is a part of business, it is natural and healthy. It makes our jobs harder and more tiresome when our efforts are disregarded without even so much as a ‘not interested’. A simple no provides us with closure so we can move on to more receptive clients.
• You might need to do business with us or some other provider like us who you have previously brushed off and we might ‘accidentally’ disregard your request as a waste of our time rather than a serious attempt to engage our services — Yes that’s the lead and the reason.

Why you should say “NO” to website proposals. posted by xhanubis 6:40 am