Putting Together a Proposal for Services: Social Media Marketing and Internet Marketing
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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
by andrewsauter
Hey, everyone I just want to write a brief note about writing proposal for services when bidding on a contract. Never give out to much info when writing a proposal, here’s why:
Example 1: When I was first starting out, my first thought process was to give all kinds of great information away about social media marketing. In fact before I met with prospective clients, I would nearly hand over a complete social media strategy in hopes that they would hire me to do the execution and training for them. I met with the CMO of a very large public company located in the suburbs of Chicago. I was so excited, I put together a 40 slide presentation outlining why social media was important to in their internet marketing strategy, what the benefits were, and I even went into key areas where they were lacking, key opportunities for them to take advantage and a road map for social media success. Of course, the idea was they would hire me out to help with the implementation. The CMO was excited, “This is great, we are definitely going to do something!” he said. In my mind, this is a done deal, I’m not expensive (pricing was reasonable), he sees the benefits, all he has to do is put me in touch with their director of online media and it’s done. However, after a week I received no communication from him so I started calling and e-mailing with little success. After 2 weeks I gave up. A month later I went back to check their site and what do you know? They used their current staff to implement my plan. Why pay me when they can push it off onto someone else currently working for the company? Now the argument can be made that they didn’t do it very well, but the fact remains they still took some my ideas and ran with it.
From Bryan Maleszyk photo stream
Example 2: I landed an appointment with a pretty large national pizza company a few weeks ago and I went out to meet with their team. When I got to the company I ended up meeting with 4 people on their team. I told them my background, what makes me qualified and I gave them a detailed overview of what my services would include: the time spent on market research, a custom strategic social media plan, implementation strategy, spending time with their staff executing the plan, etc. It was a very detailed overview what type of services I would be offering, how it would be reported, and what they could expect. However, they kept drilling me with questions like “We understand you would put together a plan, but can you tell us exactly, step-by-step what you would be doing? Can you give examples on what types of things would be successful?” I told them that I felt a little uncomfortable discussing the strategy without a contract in place so, the meeting ended uncomfortably and I was told they would contact me after they met with a few other consultants. After a week without hearing back I called and e-mailed them. I finally got this e-mail last week denying my proposal because: “For the most part we wanted to see what we were capable of doing ourselves.” Yep, they made me spend one whole day putting together a proposal and one whole day driving and meeting with their staff with no intention of ever buying. Their main objective was simply to get whatever free info they could, so they could figure out how to do it for themselves. So even though I didn’t give away information, they met with 5 or 6 other consultants who were more than willing to give away free ideas. In the end, they ended up hiring no one.
Another example, which has happened at many companies I’ve met with, is for them to simply take the detailed bid from the consultant back to their traditional marketing firm (which has never offered social media services in the past) and ask them if they can do social media. The answer will always be yes, even if they don’t offer it, because now they have a blueprint of what they can do.
So just a tip for you budding social media consultants: Don’t give away to much info, and stand your ground when pushed into giving away free advice. You’re hired because you’ve put the work, time and research into understanding social media from a business and Internet marketing perspective. Don’t let some executive who’s panicked because they don’t understand the technology (and their CEO is likely coming to them asking what their Web 2.0 or social strategy is) pressure you into giving away free info. Make sure you have a contract in place, at least an hourly contract. My tip: keep an hourly contract with you when going on appointments, if you are pressured into giving away info, tell them you have no problem digging deeper into the proposal and giving some advice, but you need the hourly contract signed before continuing. If you don’t get the bigger bid, at least you can invoice them for your time spent with their company 
.
15 Comments
Kevin Leversee
July 8th, 2009
at 10:52am
Don’t give away to much info, and stand your ground when pushed into giving away free advice. BRAVO! I never thought about posting something as PRICELESS as this. I have been to 6 countries giving it all away for clients man, and a good portion of them (News Limited) went off and used the advice.
Honestly, I wish I had this…back in the day.
Salamat
Thanks
Helen Groom
October 1st, 2009
at 3:19pm
Have to agree with Salamat Totally! It is sooo easy with new / exciting technology to get sucked in to the free advice scenario…. Thanks for the reminder!!
barbra gago
October 7th, 2009
at 1:26pm
So what is the best amount of info to give away? In your experience, what has been the perfect amount? Part of me still feels that while yes, giving away your expertise is not cool, if anyone were to google me, they would get the info freely anyway (I publish everything online).
So how and where do you draw the line? This has also happened to me a few time, and I do want to prevent wasted time.
Regina Walton
January 8th, 2010
at 7:19am
You’re 100% right. I’m learning this as I go. I got invited to a holiday party to meet the staff and discuss some of my ideas. I didn’t get into too much detail, but when they told me that they were going to have their intern do this in-house, my feeling was “why am I here?” I was there for them to get as much info as they could get. I kept it basic, so the worst that happened was they got a social media primer, I got a free glass of wine and a trip to the other side of Manhattan. It could have been worse had they wanted a formal proposal.
However, in the future, I’m going to remain careful about not giving away the farm before the contract is signed.
Social Media Cleveland
January 22nd, 2010
at 12:06pm
I am dealing with the “free consulting” challenge as well. I am finding a niche with agencies though. I get very technical and discuss the analytics and time required to measure ROI for s a social media campaign.
My pitch has been, anyone can create and implement a social media strategy.
Finding the time to do it well and consistently requires professional support and I am a qualified professional.
Richard Buettner
February 16th, 2010
at 5:10am
Great post – but this is the reality of operating in a crowded market where lots of people consider themselves as social media consultants. And if you don’t give away what you’ve got you’ll never get the contract signed. As a matter of fact lots of what you’ve got is freely available on all the blog posts, in Twitter etc. Rather sooner than later the whole social media consulting/expertise will become mainstream and will be done in-house. In the meantime keep on consulting (sometimes for free). Just like me…
jillian
March 9th, 2010
at 8:13pm
I’ve done the social marketing for my employer for 3 years and have been asked by a couple of contacts if I’d consider doing some contract work on the side.
Does anyone have a sample proposal they would share?
andrewsauter
March 9th, 2010
at 11:22pm
JIllian, my recommendation is to go to slideshare.com and search for “social media proposal”, you’ll finds tons you can work with. Just remember to build the value on how you can impact their business vs. going through a sample work-order
Gennia Holder
March 24th, 2010
at 11:02pm
This is the best advice I’ve seen yet for those of us offering Social Media Services. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Terri L. Maurer
August 13th, 2010
at 2:15am
I wish I could say yours were isolated instances, but from the other comments, it’s clear they were not. Unfortunately in these turbulent economic times, what you refer to crosses the boundaries of all service industries. There is unlimited information available on-line to anyone willing to take the time to do the research. But, there is also a need to understand the big picture in developing and implementation of a plan that works!
Ann Thaxton (Rickenbacher Group)
February 7th, 2011
at 1:06pm
I’m comforted to hear this doesn’t only happen to me! I think being self employed is wonderful, but many people think that since you’re one little guy, they can screw you and get away with it. Even if you have a signed contract, are you really going to pay for legal action if they don’t pay? I guess that depends on how much they owe…Anyway, thanks for putting this out there!
koowie
April 18th, 2011
at 7:37pm
Great article and example. Good first step in learning social media marketing.
Angela Beasley
July 9th, 2011
at 10:24pm
I know this is an old post, but its great advice. I too thought I was the only one going through this treatment, but it seems many of us are.
Thanks for the advice!
Brad Marcus
November 27th, 2011
at 8:57pm
Excellent article with some terrific points. I’ve made the same mistake as in example number 1 and have learned from it. So many companies think that social media is so very valuable, but won’t pay an outside consultant to do the job, only to find out that the intern they gave the work to had no clue had to work social media from a business perspective and spent all their time chatting on Facebook.
Sandra Tedford
December 7th, 2011
at 5:22pm
Great Post! I’ve also made the same mistakes starting out as a consultant. I appreciate your honesty on this. I met with a large consulting firm and it occurred to me that maybe the head of marketing did’nt know much about social media, which is why he asked me to put some ideas down on paper to see what my “thought process” was. Talk about free labor!. Anyway I learned my lesson and am grateful for the advice you provide.